Lady Audleys Secret
It lay down in a hollow rich with fine old timber and luxuriant pastures and you came upon it through an avenue of limes bordered on either side by meadows over the high hedges of which the cattle looked inquisitively at you as you passed wondering perhaps what you wanted for there was no thoroughfare and unless you were going to the Court you had no business there at all
At the end of this avenue there was an old arch and a clock tower with a stupid bewildering clock which had only one hand—and which jumped straight from one hour to the next—and was therefore always in extremes Through this arch you walked straight into the gardens of Audley Court
A smooth lawn lay before you dotted with groups of rhododendrons which grew in more perfection here than anywhere else in the county To the right there were the kitchen gardens the fishpond and an orchard bordered by a dry moat and a broken ruin of a wall in some places thicker than it was high and everywhere overgrown with trailing ivy yellow stonecrop and dark moss To the left there was a broad graveled walk down which years ago when the place had been a convent the quiet nuns had walked hand in hand a wall bordered with espaliers and shadowed on one side by goodly oaks which shut out the flat landscape and circled in the house and gardens with a darkening shelter
The house faced the arch and occupied three sides of a quadrangle It was very old and very irregular and rambling The windows were uneven some small some large some with heavy stone mullions and rich stained glass others with frail lattices that rattled in every breeze others so modern that they might have been added only yesterday Great piles of chimneys rose up here and there behind the pointed gables and seemed as if they were so broken down by age and long service that they must have fallen but for the straggling ivy which crawling up the walls and trailing even over the roof wound itself about them and supported them The principal door was squeezed into a corner of a turret at one angle of the building as if it were in hiding from dangerous visitors and wished to keep itself a secret—a noble door for all that—old oak and studded with great squareheaded iron nails and so thick that the sharp iron knocker struck upon it with a muffled sound and the visitor rung a clanging bell that dangled in a corner among the ivy lest the noise of the knocking should never penetrate the stronghold
A glorious old place A place that visitors fell in raptures with feeling a yearning wish to have done with life and to stay there forever staring into the cool fishponds and counting the bubbles as the roach and carp rose to the surface of the water A spot in which peace seemed to have taken up her abode setting her soothing hand on every tree and flower on the still ponds and quiet alleys the shady corners of the oldfashioned rooms the deep windowseats behind the painted glass the low meadows and the stately avenues—ay even upon the stagnant well which cool and sheltered as all else in the old place hid itself away in a shrubbery behind the gardens with an idle handle that was never turned and a lazy rope so rotten that the pail had broken away from it and had fallen into the water
A noble place inside as well as out a noble place—a house in which you incontinently lost yourself if ever you were so rash as to attempt to penetrate its mysteries alone a house in which no one room had any sympathy with another every chamber running off at a tangent into an inner chamber and through that down some narrow staircase leading to a door which in its turn led back into that very part of the house from which you thought yourself the furthest a house that could never have been planned by any mortal architect but must have been the handiwork of that good old builder Time who adding a room one year and knocking down a room another year toppling down a chimney coeval with the Plantagenets and setting up one in the style of the Tudors shaking down a bit of Saxon wall allowing a Norman arch to stand here throwing in a row of high narrow windows in the reign of Queen Anne and joining on a diningroom after the fashion of the time of Hanoverian George I to a refectory that had been standing since the Conquest had contrived in some eleven centuries to run up such a mansion as was not elsewhere to be met with throughout the county of Essex Of course in such a house there were secret chambers the little daughter of the present owner Sir Michael Audley had fallen by accident upon the discovery of one A board had rattled under her feet in the great nursery where she played and on attention being drawn to it it was found to be loose and so removed revealed a ladder leading to a hidingplace between the floor of the nursery and the ceiling of the room below—a hidingplace so small that he who had hid there must have crouched on his hands and knees or lain at full length and yet large enough to contain a quaint old carved oak chest half filled with priests vestments which had been hidden away no doubt in those cruel days when the life of a man was in danger if he was discovered to have harbored a Roman Catholic priest or to have mass said in his house
The broad outer moat was dry and grassgrown and the laden trees of the orchard hung over it with gnarled straggling branches that drew fantastical shadows upon the green slope Within this moat there was as I have said the fishpond—a sheet of water that extended the whole length of the garden and bordering which there was an avenue called the limetree walk an avenue so shaded from the sun and sky so screened from observation by the thick shelter of the overarching trees that it seemed a chosen place for secret meetings or for stolen interviews a place in which a conspiracy might have been planned or a lovers vow registered with equal safety and yet it was scarcely twenty paces from the house
At the end of this dark arcade there was the shrubbery where half buried among the tangled branches and the neglected weeds stood the rusty wheel of that old well of which I have spoken It had been of good service in its time no doubt and busy nuns have perhaps drawn the cool water with their own fair hands but it had fallen into disuse now and scarcely any one at Audley Court knew whether the spring had dried up or not But sheltered as was the solitude of this limetree walk I doubt very much if it was ever put to any romantic uses Often in the cool of the evening Sir Michael Audley would stroll up and down smoking his cigar with his dogs at his heels and his pretty young wife dawdling by his side but in about ten minutes the baronet and his companion would grow tired of the rustling limes and the still water hidden under the spreading leaves of the waterlilies and the long green vista with the broken well at the end and would stroll back to the drawingroom where my lady played dreamy melodies by Beethoven and Mendelssohn till her husband fell asleep in his easychair
Sir Michael Audley was fiftysix years of age and he had married a second wife three months after his fiftyfifth birthday He was a big man tall and stout with a deep sonorous voice handsome black eyes and a white beard—a white beard which made him look venerable against his will for he was as active as a boy and one of the hardest riders in the country For seventeen years he had been a widower with an only child a daughter Alicia Audley now eighteen and by no means too well pleased at having a stepmother brought home to the Court for Miss Alicia had reigned supreme in her fathers house since her earliest childhood and had carried the keys and jingled them in the pockets of her silk aprons and lost them in the shrubbery and dropped them into the pond and given all manner of trouble about them from the hour in which she entered her teens and had on that account deluded herself into the sincere belief that for the whole of that period she had been keeping the house
But Miss Alicias day was over and now when she asked anything of the housekeeper the housekeeper would tell her that she would speak to my lady or she would consult my lady and if my lady pleased it should be done So the baronets daughter who was an excellent horsewoman and a very clever artist spent most of her time out of doors riding about the green lanes and sketching the cottage children and the plowboys and the cattle and all manner of animal life that came in her way She set her face with a sulky determination against any intimacy between herself and the baronets young wife and amiable as that lady was she found it quite impossible to overcome Miss Alicias prejudices and dislike or to convince the spoilt girl that she had not done her a cruel injury by marrying Sir Michael Audley The truth was that Lady Audley had in becoming the wife of Sir Michael made one of those apparently advantageous matches which are apt to draw upon a woman the envy and hatred of her sex She had come into the neighborhood as a governess in the family of a surgeon in the village near Audley Court No one knew anything of her except that she came in answer to an advertisement which Mr Dawson the surgeon had inserted in The Times She came from London and the only reference she gave was to a lady at a school at Brompton where she had once been a teacher But this reference was so satisfactory that none other was needed and Miss Lucy Graham was received by the surgeon as the instructress of his daughters Her accomplishments were so brilliant and numerous that it seemed strange that she should have answered an advertisement offering such very moderate terms of remuneration as those named by Mr Dawson but Miss Graham seemed perfectly well satisfied with her situation and she taught the girls to play sonatas by Beethoven and to paint from nature after Creswick and walked through a dull outoftheway village to the humble little church three times every Sunday as contentedly as if she had no higher aspiration in the world than to do so all the rest of her life
People who observed this accounted for it by saying that it was a part of her amiable and gentle nature always to be lighthearted happy and contented under any circumstances
Wherever she went she seemed to take joy and brightness with her In the cottages of the poor her fair face shone like a sunbeam She would sit for a quarter of an hour talking to some old woman and apparently as pleased with the admiration of a toothless crone as if she had been listening to the compliments of a marquis and when she tripped away leaving nothing behind her for her poor salary gave no scope to her benevolence the old woman would burst out into senile raptures with her grace beauty and her kindliness such as she never bestowed upon the vicars wife who half fed and clothed her For you see Miss Lucy Graham was blessed with that magic power of fascination by which a woman can charm with a word or intoxicate with a smile Every one loved admired and praised her The boy who opened the fivebarred gate that stood in her pathway ran home to his mother to tell of her pretty looks and the sweet voice in which she thanked him for the little service The verger at the church who ushered her into the surgeons pew the vicar who saw the soft blue eyes uplifted to his face as he preached his simple sermon the porter from the railway station who brought her sometimes a letter or a parcel and who never looked for reward from her her employer his visitors her pupils the servants everybody high and low united in declaring that Lucy Graham was the sweetest girl that ever lived
Perhaps it was the rumor of this which penetrated into the quiet chamber of Audley Court or perhaps it was the sight of her pretty face looking over the surgeons high pew every Sunday morning however it was it was certain that Sir Michael Audley suddenly experienced a strong desire to be better acquainted with Mr Dawsons governess
He had only to hint his wish to the worthy doctor for a little party to be got up to which the vicar and his wife and the baronet and his daughter were invited
That one quiet evening sealed Sir Michaels fate He could no more resist the tender fascination of those soft and melting blue eyes the graceful beauty of that slender throat and drooping head with its wealth of showering flaxen curls the low music of that gentle voice the perfect harmony which pervaded every charm and made all doubly charming in this woman than he could resist his destiny Destiny Why she was his destiny He had never loved before What had been his marriage with Alicias mother but a dull jogtrot bargain made to keep some estate in the family that would have been just as well out of it What had been his love for his first wife but a poor pitiful smoldering spark too dull to be extinguished too feeble to burn But this was love—this fever this longing this restless uncertain miserable hesitation these cruel fears that his age was an insurmountable barrier to his happiness this sick hatred of his white beard this frenzied wish to be young again with glistening raven hair and a slim waist such as he had twenty years before these wakeful nights and melancholy days so gloriously brightened if he chanced to catch a glimpse of her sweet face behind the window curtains as he drove past the surgeons house all these signs gave token of the truth and told only too plainly that at the sober age of fiftyfive Sir Michael Audley had fallen ill of the terrible fever called love
I do not think that throughout his courtship the baronet once calculated upon his wealth or his position as reasons for his success If he ever remembered these things he dismissed the thought of them with a shudder It pained him too much to believe for a moment that any one so lovely and innocent could value herself against a splendid house or a good old title No his hope was that as her life had been most likely one of toil and dependence and as she was very young nobody exactly knew her age but she looked little more than twenty she might never have formed any attachment and that he being the first to woo her might by tender attentions by generous watchfulness by a love which should recall to her the father she had lost and by a protecting care that should make him necessary to her win her young heart and obtain from her fresh and earliest love the promise or her hand It was a very romantic daydream no doubt but for all that it seemed in a very fair way to be realized Lucy Graham appeared by no means to dislike the baronets attentions There was nothing whatever in her manner that betrayed the shallow artifices employed by a woman who wishes to captivate a rich man She was so accustomed to admiration from every one high and low that Sir Michaels conduct made very little impression upon her Again he had been so many years a widower that people had given up the idea of his ever marrying again At last however Mrs Dawson spoke to the governess on the subject The surgeons wife was sitting in the schoolroom busy at work while Lucy was putting the finishing touches on some watercolor sketches done by her pupils
Do you know my dear Miss Graham said Mrs Dawson I think you ought to consider yourself a remarkably lucky girl
The governess lifted her head from its stooping attitude and stared wonderingly at her employer shaking back a shower of curls They were the most wonderful curls in the world—soft and feathery always floating away from her face and making a pale halo round her head when the sunlight shone through them
What do you mean my dear Mrs Dawson she asked dipping her camelshair brush into the wet aquamarine upon the palette and poising it carefully before putting in the delicate streak of purple which was to brighten the horizon in her pupils sketch
Why I mean my dear that it only rests with yourself to become Lady Audley and the mistress of Audley Court
Lucy Graham dropped the brush upon the picture and flushed scarlet to the roots of her fair hair and then grew pale again far paler than Mrs Dawson had ever seen her before
My dear dont agitate yourself said the surgeons wife soothingly you know that nobody asks you to marry Sir Michael unless you wish Of course it would be a magnificent match he has a splendid income and is one of the most generous of men Your position would be very high and you would be enabled to do a great deal of good but as I said before you must be entirely guided by your own feelings Only one thing I must say and that is that if Sir Michaels attentions are not agreeable to you it is really scarcely honorable to encourage him
His attentions—encourage him muttered Lucy as if the words bewildered her Pray pray dont talk to me Mrs Dawson I had no idea of this It is the last thing that would have occurred to me She leaned her elbows on the drawingboard before her and clasping her hands over her face seemed for some minutes to be thinking deeply She wore a narrow black ribbon round her neck with a locket or a cross or a miniature perhaps attached to it but whatever the trinket was she always kept it hidden under her dress Once or twice while she sat silently thinking she removed one of her hands from before her face and fidgeted nervously with the ribbon clutching at it with a halfangry gesture and twisting it backward and forward between her fingers
I think some people are born to be unlucky Mrs Dawson she said byandby it would be a great deal too much good fortune for me to become Lady Audley
She said this with so much bitterness in her tone that the surgeons wife looked up at her with surprise
You unlucky my dear she exclaimed I think you are the last person who ought to talk like that—you such a bright happy creature that it does every one good to see you Im sure I dont know what we shall do if Sir Michael robs us of you
After this conversation they often spoke upon the subject and Lucy never again showed any emotion whatever when the baronets admiration for her was canvassed It was a tacitly understood thing in the surgeons family that whenever Sir Michael proposed the governess would quietly accept him and indeed the simple Dawsons would have thought it something more than madness in a penniless girl to reject such an offer
So one misty August evening Sir Michael sitting opposite to Lucy Graham at a window in the surgeons little drawingroom took an opportunity while the family happened by some accident to be absent from the room of speaking upon the subject nearest to his heart He made the governess in a few but solemn words an offer of his hand There was something almost touching in the manner and tone in which he spoke to her—half in deprecation knowing that he could hardly expect to be the choice of a beautiful young girl and praying rather that she would reject him even though she broke his heart by doing so than that she should accept his offer if she did not love him
I scarcely think there is a greater sin Lucy he said solemnly than that of a woman who marries a man she does not love You are so precious to me my beloved that deeply as my heart is set on this and bitter as the mere thought of disappointment is to me I would not have you commit such a sin for any happiness of mine If my happiness could be achieved by such an act which it could not—which it never could he repeated earnestly—nothing but misery can result from a marriage dictated by any motive but truth and love
Lucy Graham was not looking at Sir Michael but straight out into the misty twilight and dim landscape far away beyond the little garden The baronet tried to see her face but her profile was turned to him and he could not discover the expression of her eyes If he could have done so he would have seen a yearning gaze which seemed as if it would have pierced the far obscurity and looked away—away into another world
Lucy you heard me
Yes she said gravely not coldly or in any way as if she were offended at his words
And your answer
She did not remove her gaze from the darkening country side but for some moments was quite silent then turning to him with a sudden passion in her manner that lighted up her face with a new and wonderful beauty which the baronet perceived even in the growing twilight she fell on her knees at his feet
No Lucy no no he cried vehemently not here not here
Yes here here she said the strange passion which agitated her making her voice sound shrill and piercing—not loud but preternaturally distinct here and nowhere else How good you are—how noble and how generous Love you Why there are women a hundred times my superiors in beauty and in goodness who might love you dearly but you ask too much of me Remember what my life has been only remember that From my very babyhood I have never seen anything but poverty My father was a gentleman clever accomplished handsome—but poor—and what a pitiful wretch poverty made of him My mother—But do not let me speak of her Poverty—poverty trials vexations humiliations deprivations You cannot tell you who are among those for whom life is so smooth and easy you can never guess what is endured by such as we Do not ask too much of me then I cannot be disinterested I cannot be blind to the advantages of such an alliance I cannot I cannot
Beyond her agitation and her passionate vehemence there is an undefined something in her manner which fills the baronet with a vague alarm She is still on the ground at his feet crouching rather than kneeling her thin white dress clinging about her her pale hair streaming over her shoulders her great blue eyes glittering in the dusk and her hands clutching at the black ribbon about her throat as if it had been strangling her Dont ask too much of me she kept repeating I have been selfish from my babyhood
Lucy—Lucy speak plainly Do you dislike me
Dislike you No—no
But is there any one else whom you love
She laughed aloud at his question I do not love any one in the world she answered
He was glad of her reply and yet that and the strange laugh jarred upon his feelings He was silent for some moments and then said with a kind of effort
Well Lucy I will not ask too much of you I dare say I am a romantic old fool but if you do not dislike me and if you do not love any one else I see no reason why we should not make a very happy couple Is it a bargain Lucy
Yes
The baronet lifted her in his arms and kissed her once upon the forehead then quietly bidding her goodnight he walked straight out of the house
He walked straight out of the house this foolish old man because there was some strong emotion at work in his breast—neither joy nor triumph but something almost akin to disappointment—some stifled and unsatisfied longing which lay heavy and dull at his heart as if he had carried a corpse in his bosom He carried the corpse of that hope which had died at the sound of Lucys words All the doubts and fears and timid aspirations were ended now He must be contented like other men of his age to be married for his fortune and his position
Lucy Graham went slowly up the stairs to her little room at the top of the house She placed her dim candle on the chest of drawers and seated herself on the edge of the white bed still and white as the draperies hanging around her
No more dependence no more drudgery no more humiliations she said every trace of the old life melted away—every clew to identity buried and forgotten—except these except these
She had never taken her left hand from the black ribbon at her throat She drew it from her bosom as she spoke and looked at the object attached to it
It was neither a locket a miniature nor a cross it was a ring wrapped in an oblong piece of paper—the paper partly written partly printed yellow with age and crumpled with much folding
CHAPTER II
ON BOARD THE ARGUS
He threw the end of his cigar into the water and leaning his elbows upon the bulwarks stared meditatively at the waves
How wearisome they are he said blue and green and opal opal and blue and green all very well in their way of course but three months of them are rather too much especially—
He did not attempt to finish his sentence his thoughts seemed to wander in the very midst of it and carry him a thousand miles or so away
Poor little girl how pleased shell be he muttered opening his cigarcase lazily surveying its contents how pleased and how surprised Poor little girl After three years and a half too she will be surprised
He was a young man of about fiveandtwenty with dark face bronzed by exposure to the sun he had handsome brown eyes with a lazy smile in them that sparkled through the black lashes and a bushy beard and mustache that covered the whole lower part of his face He was tall and powerfully built he wore a loose gray suit and a felt hat thrown carelessly upon his black hair His name was George Talboys and he was aftcabin passenger on board the good ship Argus laden with Australian wool and sailing from Sydney to Liverpool
There were very few passengers in the aftcabin of the Argus An elderly woolstapler returning to his native country with his wife and daughters after having made a fortune in the colonies a governess of threeandthirty years of age going home to marry a man to whom she had been engaged fifteen years the sentimental daughter of a wealthy Australian winemerchant invoiced to England to finish her education and George Talboys were the only firstclass passengers on board
This George Talboys was the life and soul of the vessel nobody knew who or what he was or where he came from but everybody liked him He sat at the bottom of the dinnertable and assisted the captain in doing the honors of the friendly meal He opened the champagne bottles and took wine with every one present he told funny stories and led the life himself with such a joyous peal that the man must have been a churl who could not have laughed for pure sympathy He was a capital hand at speculation and vingtetun and all the merry games which kept the little circle round the cabinlamp so deep in innocent amusement that a hurricane might have howled overhead without their hearing it but he freely owned that he had no talent for whist and that he didnt know a knight from a castle upon the chessboard
Indeed Mr Talboys was by no means too learned a gentleman The pale governess had tried to talk to him about fashionable literature but George had only pulled his beard and stared very hard at her saying occasionally Ah yes by Jove and To be sure ah
The sentimental young lady going home to finish her education had tried him with Shelby and Byron and he had fairly laughed in her face as if poetry were a joke The woolstapler sounded him on politics but he did not seem very deeply versed in them so they let him go his own way smoke his cigars and talk to the sailors lounge over the bulwarks and stare at the water and make himself agreeable to everybody in his own fashion But when the Argus came to be within about a fortnights sail of England everybody noticed a change in George Talboys He grew restless and fidgety sometimes so merry that the cabin rung with his laughter sometimes moody and thoughtful Favorite as he was among the sailors they were tired at last of answering his perpetual questions about the probable time of touching land Would it be in ten days in eleven in twelve in thirteen Was the wind favorable How many knots an hour was the vessel doing Then a sudden passion would sieze him and he would stamp upon the deck crying out that she was a rickety old craft and that her owners were swindlers to advertise her as the fastsailing Argus She was not fit for passenger traffic she was not fit to carry impatient living creatures with hearts and souls she was fit for nothing but to be laden with bales of stupid wool that might rot on the sea and be none the worse for it
The sun was drooping down behind the waves as George Talboys lighted his cigar upon this August evening Only ten days more the sailors had told him that afternoon and they would see the English coast I will go ashore in the first boat that hails us he cried I will go ashore in a cockleshell By Jove if it comes to that I will swim to land
His friends in the aftcabin with the exception of the pale governess laughed at his impatience she sighed as she watched the young man chafing at the slow hours pushing away his untasted wine flinging himself restlessly about upon the cabin sofa rushing up and down the companion ladder and staring at the waves
As the red rim of the sun dropped into the water the governess ascended the cabin stairs for a stroll on deck while the passengers sat over their wine below She stopped when she came up to George and standing by his side watched the fading crimson in the western sky
The lady was very quiet and reserved seldom sharing in the aftercabin amusements never laughing and speaking very little but she and George Talboys had been excellent friends throughout the passage
Does my cigar annoy you Miss Morley he said taking it out of his mouth
Not at all pray do not leave off smoking I only came up to look at the sunset What a lovely evening
Yes yes I dare say he answered impatiently yet so long so long Ten more interminable days and ten more weary nights before we land
Yes said Miss Morley sighing Do you wish the time shorter
Do I cried George Indeed I do Dont you
Scarcely
But is there no one you love in England Is there no one you love looking out for your arrival
I hope so she said gravely They were silent for some time he smoking his cigar with a furious impatience as if he could hasten the course of the vessel by his own restlessness she looking out at the waning light with melancholy blue eyes—eyes that seemed to have faded with poring over closelyprinted books and difficult needlework eyes that had faded a little perhaps by reason of tears secretly shed in the lonely night
See said George suddenly pointing in another direction from that toward which Miss Morley was looking theres the new moon
She looked up at the pale crescent her own face almost as pale and wan
This is the first time we have seen it
We must wish said George I know what I wish
What
That we may get home quickly
My wish is that we may find no disappointment when we get there said the governess sadly
Disappointment
He started as if he had been struck and asked what she meant by talking of disappointment
I mean this she said speaking rapidly and with a restless motion of her thin hands I mean that as the end of the voyage draws near hope sinks in my heart and a sick fear comes over me that at the last all may not be well The person I go to meet may be changed in his feelings toward me or he may retain all the old feeling until the moment of seeing me and then lose it in a breath at sight of my poor wan face for I was called a pretty girl Mr Talboys when I sailed for Sydney fifteen years ago or he may be so changed by the world as to have grown selfish and mercenary and he may welcome me for the sake of my fifteen years savings Again he may be dead He may have been well perhaps up to within a week of our landing and in that last week may have taken a fever and died an hour before our vessel anchors in the Mersey I think of all these things Mr Talboys and act the scenes over in my mind and feel the anguish of them twenty times a day Twenty times a day she repeated why I do it a thousand times a day
George Talboys had stood motionless with his cigar in his hand listening to her so intently that as she said the last words his hold relaxed and the cigar dropped in the water
I wonder she continued more to herself than to him I wonder looking back to think how hopeful I was when the vessel sailed I never thought then of disappointment but I pictured the joy of meeting imagining the very words that would be said the very tones the very looks but for this last month of the voyage day by day and hour by hour my heart sinks and my hopeful fancies fade away and I dread the end as much as if I knew that I was going to England to attend a funeral
The young man suddenly changed his attitude and turned his face full upon his companion with a look of alarm She saw in the pale light that the color had faded from his cheek
What a fool he cried striking his clinched fist upon the side of the vessel what a fool I am to be frightened at this Why do you come and say these things to me Why do you come and terrify me out of my senses when I am going straight home to the woman I love to a girl whose heart is as true as the light of Heaven and in whom I no more expect to find any change than I do to see another sun rise in tomorrows sky Why do you come and try to put such fancies in my head when I am going home to my darling wife
Your wife she said that is different There is no reason that my terrors should terrify you I am going to England to rejoin a man to whom I was engaged to be married fifteen years ago He was too poor to marry then and when I was offered a situation as governess in a rich Australian family I persuaded him to let me accept it so that I might leave him free and unfettered to win his way in the world while I saved a little money to help us when we began life together I never meant to stay away so long but things have gone badly with him in England That is my story and you can understand my fears They need not influence you Mine is an exceptional case
So is mine said George impatiently I tell you that mine is an exceptional case although I swear to you that until this moment I have never known a fear as to the result of my voyage home But you are right your terrors have nothing to do with me You have been away fifteen years all kinds of things may happen in fifteen years Now it is only three years and a half this very month since I left England What can have happened in such a short time as that
Miss Morley looked at him with a mournful smile but did not speak His feverish ardor the freshness and impatience of his nature were so strange and new to her that she looked at him half in admiration half in pity
My pretty little wife My gentle innocent loving little wife Do you know Miss Morley he said with all his old hopefulness of manner that I left my little girl asleep with her baby in her arms and with nothing but a few blotted lines to tell her why her faithful husband had deserted her
Deserted her exclaimed the governess
Yes I was an ensign in a cavalry regiment when I first met my little darling We were quartered at a stupid seaport town where my pet lived with her shabby old father a halfpay naval officer a regular old humbug as poor as Job and with an eye for nothing but the main chance I saw through all his shallow tricks to catch one of us for his pretty daughter I saw all the pitiable contemptible palpable traps he set for us big dragoons to walk into I saw through his shabbygenteel dinners and publichouse port his fine talk of the grandeur of his family his sham pride and independence and the sham tears of his bleared old eyes when he talked of his only child He was a drunken old hypocrite and he was ready to sell my poor little girl to the highest bidder Luckily for me I happened just then to be the highest bidder for my father is a rich man Miss Morley and as it was love at first sight on both sides my darling and I made a match of it No sooner however did my father hear that I had married a penniless little girl the daughter of a tipsy old halfpay lieutenant than he wrote me a furious letter telling me he would never again hold any communication with me and that my yearly allowance would stop from my weddingday
As there was no remaining in such a regiment as mine with nothing but my pay to live on and my pretty little wife to keep I sold out thinking that before the money was exhausted I should be sure to drop into something I took my darling to Italy and we lived there in splendid style as long as my two thousand pounds lasted but when that began to dwindle down to a couple of hundred or so we came back to England and as my darling had a fancy for being near that tiresome old father of hers we settled at the wateringplace where he lived Well as soon as the old man heard that I had a couple of hundred pounds left he expressed a wonderful degree of affection for us and insisted on our boarding in his house We consented still to please my darling who had just then a peculiar right to have every whim and fancy of her innocent heart indulged We did board with him and finally he fleeced us but when I spoke of it to my little wife she only shrugged her shoulders and said she did not like to be unkind to her poor papa So poor papa made away with our little stock of money in no time and as I felt that it was now becoming necessary to look about for something I ran up to London and tried to get a situation as a clerk in a merchants office or as accountant or bookkeeper or something of that kind But I suppose there was the stamp of a heavy dragoon about me for do what I would I couldnt get anybody to believe in my capacity and tired out and downhearted I returned to my darling to find her nursing a son and heir to his fathers poverty Poor little girl she was very lowspirited and when I told her that my London expedition had failed she fairly broke down and burst in to a storm of sobs and lamentations telling me that I ought not to have married her if I could give her nothing but poverty and misery and that I had done her a cruel wrong in making her my wife By heaven Miss Morley her tears and reproaches drove me almost mad and I flew into a rage with her myself her father the world and everybody in it and then rail out of the house I walked about the streets all that day half out of my mind and with a strong inclination to throw myself into the sea so as to leave my poor girl free to make a better match If I drown myself her father must support her I thought the old hypocrite could never refuse her a shelter but while I live she has no claim on him I went down to a rickety old wooden pier meaning to wait there till it was dark and then drop quietly over the end of it into the water but while I sat there smoking my pipe and staring vacantly at the seagulls two men came down and one of them began to talk of the Australian golddiggings and the great things that were to be done there It appeared that he was going to sail in a day or two and he was trying to persuade his companion to join him in the expedition
I listened to these men for upward of an hour following them up and down the pier with my pipe in my mouth and hearing all their talk After this I fell into conversation with them myself and ascertained that there was a vessel going to leave Liverpool in three days by which vessel one of the men was going out This man gave me all the information I required and told me moreover that a stalwart young fellow such as I was could hardly fail to do well in the diggings The thought flashed upon me so suddenly that I grew hot and red in the face and trembled in every limb with excitement This was better than the water at any rate Suppose I stole away from my darling leaving her safe under her fathers roof and went and made a fortune in the new world and came back in a twelvemonth to throw it into her lap for I was so sanguine in those days that I counted on making my fortune in a year or so I thanked the man for his information and late at night strolled homeward It was bitter winter weather but I had been too full of passion to feel cold and I walked through the quiet streets with the snow drifting in my face and a desperate hopefulness in my heart The old man was sitting drinking brandyandwater in the little diningroom and my wife was upstairs sleeping peacefully with the baby on her breast I sat down and wrote a few brief lines which told her that I never had loved her better than now when I seemed to desert her that I was going to try my fortune in the new world and that if I succeeded I should come back to bring her plenty and happiness but that if I failed I should never look upon her face again I divided the remainder of our money—something over forty pounds—into two equal portions leaving one for her and putting the other in my pocket I knelt down and prayed for my wife and child with my head upon the white counterpane that covered them I wasnt much of a praying man at ordinary times but God knows that was a heartfelt prayer I kissed her once and the baby once and then crept out of the room The diningroom door was open and the old man was nodding over his paper He looked up as he heard my step in the passage and asked me where I was going To have a smoke in the street I answered and as this was a common habit of mine he believed me Three nights after I was out at sea bound for Melbourne—a steerage passenger with a diggers tools for my baggage and about seven shillings in my pocket
And you succeeded asked Miss Morley
Not till I had long despaired of success not until poverty and I had become such old companions and bedfellows that looking back at my past life I wondered whether that dashing reckless extravagant luxurious champagnedrinking dragoon could have really been the same man who sat on the damp ground gnawing a moldy crust in the wilds of the new world I clung to the memory of my darling and the trust that I had in her love and truth was the one keystone that kept the fabric of my past life together—the one star that lit the thick black darkness of the future I was hailfellowwellmet with bad men I was in the center of riot drunkenness and debauchery but the purifying influence of my love kept me safe from all Thin and gaunt the halfstarved shadow of what I once had been I saw myself one day in a broken bit of lookingglass and was frightened by my own face But I toiled on through all through disappointment and despair rheumatism fever starvation at the very gates of death I toiled on steadily to the end and in the end I conquered
He was so brave in his energy and determination in his proud triumph of success and in the knowledge of the difficulties he had vanquished that the pale governess could only look at him in wondering admiration
How brave you were she said
Brave he cried with a joyous peal of laughter wasnt I working for my darling Through all the dreary time of that probation her pretty white hand seemed beckoning me onward to a happy future Why I have seen her under my wretched canvas tent sitting by my side with her boy in her arms as plainly as I had ever seen her in the one happy year of our wedded life At last one dreary foggy morning just three months ago with a drizzling rain wetting me to the skin up to my neck in clay and mire halfstarved enfeebled by fever stiff with rheumatism a monster nugget turned up under my spade and I was in one minute the richest man in Australia I fell down on the wet clay with my lump of gold in the bosom of my shirt and for the first time in my life cried like a child I traveled posthaste to Sydney realized my price which was worth upward of £20000 and a fortnight afterward took my passage for England in this vessel and in ten days—in ten days I shall see my darling
But in all that time did you never write to your wife
Never till the night before I left Sydney I could not write when everything looked so black I could not write and tell her that I was fighting hard with despair and death I waited for better fortune and when that came I wrote telling her that I should be in England almost as soon as my letter and giving her an address at a coffeehouse in London where she could write to me telling me where to find her though she is hardly likely to have left her fathers house
He fell into a reverie after this and puffed meditatively at his cigar His companion did not disturb him The last ray of summer daylight had died out and the pale light of the crescent moon only remained
Presently George Talboys flung away his cigar and turning to the governess cried abruptly Miss Morley if when I get to England I hear that anything has happened to my wife I shall fall down dead
My dear Mr Talboys why do you think of these things God is very good to us He will not afflict us beyond our power of endurance I see all things perhaps in a melancholy light for the long monotony of my life has given me too much time to think over my troubles
And my life has been all action privation toil alternate hope and despair I have had no time to think upon the chances of anything happening to my darling What a blind reckless fool I have been Three years and a half and not one line—one word from her or from any mortal creature who knows her Heaven above what may not have happened
In the agitation of his mind he began to walk rapidly up and down the lonely deck the governess following and trying to soothe him
I swear to you Miss Morley he said that till you spoke to me tonight I never felt one shadow of fear and now I have that sick sinking dread at my heart which you talked of an hour ago Let me alone please to get over it my own way
She drew silently away from him and seated herself by the side of the vessel looking over into the water
George Talboys walked backward and forward for some time with his head bent upon his breast looking neither to the right nor the left but in about a quarter of an hour he returned to the spot where the governess was seated
I have been praying he said—praying for my darling
He spoke in a voice little above a whisper and she saw his face ineffably calm in the moonlight
CHAPTER III
HIDDEN RELICS
The same August sun which had gone down behind the waste of waters glimmered redly upon the broad face of the old clock over that ivycovered archway which leads into the gardens of Audley Court
A fierce and crimson sunset The mullioned windows and twinkling lattices are all ablaze with the red glory the fading light flickers upon the leaves of the limes in the long avenue and changes the still fishpond into a sheet of burnished copper even into those dim recesses of brier and brushwood amidst which the old well is hidden the crimson brightness penetrates in fitful flashes till the dank weeds and the rusty iron wheel and broken woodwork seem as if they were flecked with blood
The lowing of a cow in the quiet meadows the splash of a trout in the fishpond the last notes of a tired bird the creaking of wagonwheels upon the distant road every now and then breaking the evening silence only made the stillness of the place seem more intense It was almost oppressive this twilight stillness The very repose of the place grew painful from its intensity and you felt as if a corpse must be lying somewhere within that gray and ivycovered pile of building—so deathlike was the tranquillity of all around
As the clock over the archway struck eight a door at the back of the house was softly opened and a girl came out into the gardens
But even the presence of a human being scarcely broke the silence for the girl crept slowly over the thick grass and gliding into the avenue by the side of the fishpond disappeared in the rich shelter of the limes
She was not perhaps positively a pretty girl but her appearance was of that order which is commonly called interesting Interesting it may be because in the pale face and the light gray eyes the small features and compressed lips there was something which hinted at a power of repression and selfcontrol not common in a woman of nineteen or twenty She might have been pretty I think but for the one fault in her small oval face This fault was an absence of color Not one tinge of crimson flushed the waxen whiteness of her cheeks not one shadow of brown redeemed the pale insipidity of her eyebrows and eyelashes not one glimmer of gold or auburn relieved the dull flaxen of her hair Even her dress was spoiled by this same deficiency The pale lavender muslin faded into a sickly gray and the ribbon knotted round her throat melted into the same neutral hue
Her figure was slim and fragile and in spite of her humble dress she had something of the grace and carriage of a gentlewoman but she was only a simple country girl called Phoebe Marks who had been nursemaid in Mr Dawsons family and whom Lady Audley had chosen for her maid after her marriage with Sir Michael
Of course this was a wonderful piece of good fortune for Phoebe who found her wages trebled and her work lightened in the wellordered household at the Court and who was therefore quite as much the object of envy among her particular friends as my lady herself to higher circles
A man who was sitting on the broken woodwork of the well started as the ladysmaid came out of the dim shade of the limes and stood before him among the weeds and brushwood
I have said before that this was a neglected spot it lay in the midst of a low shrubbery hidden away from the rest of the gardens and only visible from the garret windows at the back of the west wing
Why Phoebe said the man shutting a claspknife with which he had been stripping the bark from a blackthorn stake you came upon me so still and sudden that I thought you was an evil spirit Ive come across through the fields and come in here at the gate agen the moat and I was taking a rest before I came up to the house to ask if you was come back
I can see the well from my bedroom window Luke Phoebe answered pointing to an open lattice in one of the gables I saw you sitting here and came down to have a chat its better talking out here than in the house where theres always somebody listening
The man was a big broadshouldered stupidlooking clodhopper of about twentythree years of age His dark red hair grew low upon his forehead and his bushy brows met over a pair of greenish gray eyes his nose was large and wellshaped but the mouth was coarse in form and animal in expression Rosycheeked redhaired and bullnecked he was not unlike one of the stout oxen grazing in the meadows round about the Court
The girl seated herself lightly upon the woodwork at his side and put one of her hands which had grown white in her new and easy service about his thick neck
Are you glad to see me Luke she asked
Of course Im glad lass he answered boorishly opening his knife again and scraping away at the hedgestake
They were first cousins and had been play fellows in childhood and sweethearts in early youth
You dont seem much as if you were glad said the girl you might look at me Luke and tell me if you think my journey has improved me
It aint put any color into your cheeks my girl he said glancing up at her from under his lowering eyebrows youre every bit as white as you was when you went away
But they say traveling makes people genteel Luke Ive been on the Continent with my lady through all manner of curious places and you know when I was a child Squire Hortons daughters taught me to speak a little French and I found it so nice to be able to talk to the people abroad
Genteel cried Luke Marks with a hoarse laugh who wants you to be genteel I wonder Not me for one when youre my wife you wont have overmuch time for gentility my girl French too Dang me Phoebe I suppose when weve saved money enough between us to buy a bit of a farm youll be parleyvooing to the cows
She bit her lip as her lover spoke and looked away He went on cutting and chopping at a rude handle he was fashioning to the stake whistling softly to himself all the while and not once looking at his cousin
For some time they were silent but byandby she said with her face still turned away from her companion
What a fine thing it is for Miss Graham that was to travel with her maid and her courier and her chariot and four and a husband that thinks there isnt one spot upon all the earth thats good enough for her to set her foot upon
Ay it is a fine thing Phoebe to have lots of money answered Luke and I hope youll be warned by that my lass to save up your wages agin we get married
Why what was she in Mr Dawsons house only three months ago continued the girl as if she had not heard her cousins speech What was she but a servant like me Taking wages and working for them as hard or harder than I did You should have seen her shabby clothes Luke—worn and patched and darned and turned and twisted yet always looking nice upon her somehow She gives me more as ladysmaid here than ever she got from Mr Dawson then Why Ive seen her come out of the parlor with a few sovereigns and a little silver in her hand that master had just given her for her quarters salary and now look at her
Never you mind her said Luke take care of yourself Phoebe thats all youve got to do What should you say to a publichouse for you and me byandby my girl Theres a deal of money to be made out of a publichouse
The girl still sat with her face averted from her lover her hands hanging listlessly in her lap and her pale gray eyes fixed upon the last low streak of crimson dying out behind the trunks of the trees
You should see the inside of the house Luke she said its a tumbledown looking place enough outside but you should see my ladys rooms—all pictures and gilding and great lookingglasses that stretch from the ceiling to the floor Painted ceilings too that cost hundreds of pounds the housekeeper told her and all done for her
Shes a lucky one muttered Luke with lazy indifference
You should have seen her while we were abroad with a crowd of gentlemen hanging about her Sir Michael not jealous of them only proud to see her so much admired You should have heard her laugh and talk with them throwing all their compliments and fine speeches back at them as it were as if they had been pelting her with roses She set everybody mad about her wherever she went Her singing her playing her painting her dancing her beautiful smile and sunshiny ringlets She was always the talk of a place as long as we stayed in it
Is she at home tonight
No she has gone out with Sir Michael to a dinner party at the Beeches Theyve seven or eight miles to drive and they wont be back till after eleven
Then Ill tell you what Phoebe if the inside of the house is so mighty fine I should like to have a look at it
You shall then Mrs Barton the housekeeper knows you by sight and she cant object to my showing you some of the best rooms
It was almost dark when the cousins left the shrubbery and walked slowly to the house The door by which they entered led into the servants hall on one side of which was the housekeepers room Phoebe Marks stopped for a moment to ask the housekeeper if she might take her cousin through some of the rooms and having received permission to do so lighted a candle at the lamp in the hall and beckoned to Luke to follow her into the other part of the house
The long black oak corridors were dim in the ghostly twilight—the light carried by Phoebe looking only a poor speck in the broad passages through which the girl led her cousin Luke looked suspiciously over his shoulder now and then halffrightened by the creaking of his own hobnailed boots
Its a mortal dull place Phoebe he said as they emerged from a passage into the principal hall which was not yet lighted Ive heard tell of a murder that was done here in old times
There are murders enough in these times as to that Luke answered the girl ascending the staircase followed by the young man
She led the way through a great drawingroom rich in satin and ormolu buhl and inlaid cabinets bronzes cameos statuettes and trinkets that glistened in the dusky light then through a morning room hung with proof engravings of valuable pictures through this into an antechamber where she stopped holding the light above her head
The young man stared about him openmouthed and openeyed
Its a rare fine place he said and must have cost a heap of money
Look at the pictures on the walls said Phoebe glancing at the panels of the octagonal chamber which were hung with Claudes and Poussins Wouvermans and Cuyps Ive heard that those alone are worth a fortune This is the entrance to my ladys apartments Miss Graham that was She lifted a heavy green cloth curtain which hung across a doorway and led the astonished countryman into a fairylike boudoir and thence to a dressingroom in which the open doors of a wardrobe and a heap of dresses flung about a sofa showed that it still remained exactly as its occupants had left it
Ive got all these things to put away before my lady comes home Luke you might sit down here while I do it I shant be long
Her cousin looked around in gawky embarrassment bewildered by the splendor of the room and after some deliberation selected the most substantial of the chairs on the extreme edge of which he carefully seated himself
I wish I could show you the jewels Luke said the girl but I cant for she always keeps the keys herself thats the case on the dressingtable there
What that cried Luke staring at the massive walnutwood and brass inlaid casket Why thats big enough to hold every bit of clothes Ive got
And its as full as it can be of diamonds rubies pearls and emeralds answered Phoebe busy as she spoke in folding the rustling silk dresses and laying them one by one upon the shelves of the wardrobe As she was shaking out the flounces of the last a jingling sound caught her ear and she put her hand into the pocket
I declare she exclaimed my lady has left her keys in her pocket for once in a way I can show you the jewelry if you like Luke
Well I may as well have a look at it my girl he said rising from his chair and holding the light while his cousin unlocked the casket He uttered a cry of wonder when he saw the ornaments glittering on white satin cushions He wanted to handle the delicate jewels to pull them about and find out their mercantile value Perhaps a pang of longing and envy shot through his heart as he thought how he would have liked to have taken one of them
Why one of those diamond things would set us up in life Phoebe he said turning a bracelet over and over in his big red hands
Put it down Luke Put it down directly cried the girl with a look of terror how can you speak about such things
He laid the bracelet in its place with a reluctant sigh and then continued his examination of the casket
Whats this he asked presently pointing to a brass knob in the framework of the box
He pushed it as he spoke and a secret drawer lined with purple velvet flew out of the casket
Look ye here cried Luke pleased at his discovery
Phoebe Marks threw down the dress she had been folding and went over to the toilette table
Why I never saw this before she said I wonder what there is in it
There was not much in it neither gold nor gems only a babys little worsted shoe rolled up in a piece of paper and a tiny lock of pale and silky yellow hair evidently taken from a babys head Phoebes eyes dilated as she examined the little packet
So this is what my lady hides in the secret drawer she muttered
Its queer rubbish to keep in such a place said Luke carelessly
The girls thin lip curved into a curious smile
You will bear me witness where I found this she said putting the little parcel into her pocket
Why Phoebe youre not going to be such a fool as to take that cried the young man
Id rather have this than the diamond bracelet you would have liked to take she answered you shall have the public house Luke
CHAPTER IV
IN THE FIRST PAGE OF THE TIMES
Robert Audley was supposed to be a barrister As a barrister was his name inscribed in the lawlist as a barrister he had chambers in Figtree Court Temple as a barrister he had eaten the allotted number of dinners which form the sublime ordeal through which the forensic aspirant wades on to fame and fortune If these things can make a man a barrister Robert Audley decidedly was one But he had never either had a brief or tried to get a brief or even wished to have a brief in all those five years during which his name had been painted upon one of the doors in Figtree Court He was a handsome lazy carefornothing fellow of about sevenandtwenty the only son of a younger brother of Sir Michael Audley His father had left him £400 a year which his friends had advised him to increase by being called to the bar and as he found it after due consideration more trouble to oppose the wishes of these friends than to eat so many dinners and to take a set of chambers in the Temple he adopted the latter course and unblushingly called himself a barrister
Sometimes when the weather was very hot and he had exhausted himself with the exertion of smoking his German pipe and reading French novels he would stroll into the Temple Gardens and lying in some shady spot pale and cool with his shirt collar turned down and a blue silk handkerchief tied loosely about his neck would tell grave benchers that he had knocked himself up with over work
The sly old benchers laughed at the pleasant fiction but they all agreed that Robert Audley was a good fellow a generoushearted fellow rather a curious fellow too with a fund of sly wit and quiet humor under his listless dawdling indifferent irresolute manner A man who would never get on in the world but who would not hurt a worm Indeed his chambers were converted into a perfect dogkennel by his habit of bringing home stray and benighted curs who were attracted by his looks in the street and followed him with abject fondness
Robert always spent the hunting season at Audley Court not that he was distinguished as a Nimrod for he would quietly trot to covert upon a mildtempered stoutlimbed bay hack and keep at a very respectful distance from the hard riders his horse knowing quite as well as he did that nothing was further from his thoughts than any desire to be in at the death
The young man was a great favorite with his uncle and by no means despised by his pretty gipsyfaced lighthearted hoydenish cousin Miss Alice Audley It might have seemed to other men that the partiality of a young lady who was sole heiress to a very fine estate was rather well worth cultivating but it did not so occur to Robert Audley Alicia was a very nice girl he said a jolly girl with no nonsense about her—a girl of a thousand but this was the highest point to which enthusiasm could carry him The idea of turning his cousins girlish liking for him to some good account never entered his idle brain I doubt if he even had any correct notion of the amount of his uncles fortune and I am certain that he never for one moment calculated upon the chances of any part of that fortune ultimately coming to himself So that when one fine spring morning about three months before the time of which I am writing the postman brought him the wedding cards of Sir Michael and Lady Audley together with a very indignant letter from his cousin setting forth how her father had just married a waxdollish young person no older than Alicia herself with flaxen ringlets and a perpetual giggle for I am sorry to say that Miss Audleys animus caused her thus to describe that pretty musical laugh which had been so much admired in the late Miss Lucy Graham—when I say these documents reached Robert Audley—they elicited neither vexation nor astonishment in the lymphatic nature of that gentleman He read Alicias angry crossed and recrossed letter without so much as removing the amber mouthpiece of his German pipe from his mustached lips When he had finished the perusal of the epistle which he read with his dark eyebrows elevated to the center of his forehead his only manner of expressing surprise by the way he deliberately threw that and the wedding cards into the wastepaper basket and putting down his pipe prepared himself for the exertion of thinking out the subject
I always said the old buffer would marry he muttered after about half an hours revery Alicia and my lady the stepmother will go at it hammer and tongs I hope they wont quarrel in the hunting season or say unpleasant things to each other at the dinnertable rows always upset a mans digestion
At about twelve oclock on the morning following that night upon which the events recorded in my last chapter had taken place the baronets nephew strolled out of the Temple Blackfriarsward on his way to the city He had in an evil hour obliged some necessitous friend by putting the ancient name of Audley across a bill of accommodation which bill not having been provided for by the drawer Robert was called upon to pay For this purpose he sauntered up Ludgate Hill with his blue necktie fluttering in the hot August air and thence to a refreshingly cool bankinghouse in a shady court out of St Pauls churchyard where he made arrangements for selling out a couple of hundred pounds worth of consols
He had transacted this business and was loitering at the corner of the court waiting for a chance hansom to convey him back to the Temple when he was almost knocked down by a man of about his own age who dashed headlong into the narrow opening
Be so good as to look where youre going my friend Robert remonstrated mildly to the impetuous passenger you might give a man warning before you throw him down and trample upon him
The stranger stopped suddenly looked very hard at the speaker and then gasped for breath
Bob he cried in a tone expressive of the most intense astonishment I only touched British ground after dark last night and to think that I should meet you this morning
Ive seen you somewhere before my bearded friend said Mr Audley calmly scrutinizing the animated face of the other but Ill be hanged if I can remember when or where
What exclaimed the stranger reproachfully You dont mean to say that youve forgotten George Talboys
No I have not said Robert with an emphasis by no means usual to him and then hooking his arm into that of his friend he led him into the shady court saying with his old indifference and now George tell us all about it
George Talboys did tell him all about it He told that very story which he had related ten days before to the pale governess on board the Argus and then hot and breathless he said that he had twenty thousand pounds or so in his pocket and that he wanted to bank it at Messrs —— who had been his bankers many years before
If youll believe me Ive only just left their countinghouse said Robert Ill go back with you and well settle that matter in five minutes
They did contrive to settle it in about a quarter of an hour and then Robert Audley was for starting off immediately for the Crown and Scepter at Greenwich or the Castle at Richmond where they could have a bit of dinner and talk over those good old times when they were together at Eton But George told his friend that before he went anywhere before he shaved or broke his fast or in any way refreshed himself after a night journey from Liverpool by express train he must call at a certain coffeehouse in Bridge street Westminster where he expected to find a letter from his wife
As they dashed through Ludgate Hill Fleet street and the Strand in a fast hansom George Talboys poured into his friends ear all those wild hopes and dreams which had usurped such a dominion over his sanguine nature
I shall take a villa on the banks of the Thames Bob he said for the little wife and myself and well have a yacht Bob old boy and you shall lie on the deck and smoke while my pretty one plays her guitar and sings songs to us Shes for all the world like one of those whatsitsnames who got poor old Ulysses into trouble added the young man whose classic lore was not very great
The waiters at the Westminster coffeehouse stared at the holloweyed unshaven stranger with his clothes of colonial cut and his boisterous excited manner but he had been an old frequenter of the place in his military days and when they heard who he was they flew to do his bidding
He did not want much—only a bottle of sodawater and to know if there was a letter at the bar directed to George Talboys
The waiter brought the sodawater before the young men had seated themselves in a shady box near the disused fireplace No there was no letter for that name
The waiter said it with consummate indifference while he mechanically dusted the little mahogany table
Georges face blanched to a deadly whiteness Talboys he said perhaps you didnt hear the name distinctly—T A L B O Y S Go and look again there must be a letter
The waiter shrugged his shoulders as he left the room and returned in three minutes to say that there was no name at all resembling Talboys in the letter rack There was Brown and Sanderson and Pinchbeck only three letters altogether
The young man drank his sodawater in silence and then leaning his elbows on the table covered his face with his hands There was something in his manner which told Robert Audley that his disappointment trifling as it may appear was in reality a very bitter one He seated himself opposite to his friend but did not attempt to address him
Byandby George looked up and mechanically taking a greasy Times newspaper of the day before from a heap of journals on the table stared vacantly at the first page
I cannot tell how long he sat blankly staring at one paragraph among the list of deaths before his dazed brain took in its full meaning but after considerable pause he pushed the newspaper over to Robert Audley and with a face that had changed from its dark bronze to a sickly chalky grayish white and with an awful calmness in his manner he pointed with his finger to a line which ran thus
On the 24th inst at Ventnor Isle of Wight Helen Talboys aged 22
CHAPTER V
THE HEADSTONE AT VENTNOR
Yes there it was in black and white—Helen Talboys aged 22
When George told the governess on board the Argus that if he heard any evil tidings of his wife he should drop down dead he spoke in perfect good faith and yet here were the worst tidings that could come to him and he sat rigid white and helpless staring stupidly at the shocked face of his friend
The suddenness of the blow had stunned him In this strange and bewildered state of mind he began to wonder what had happened and why it was that one line in the Times newspaper could have so horrible an effect upon him
Then by degrees even this vague consciousness of his misfortune faded slowly out of his mind succeeded by a painful consciousness of external things
The hot August sunshine the dusty windowpanes and shabbypainted blinds a file of flyblown playbills fastened to the wall the black and empty fireplaces a baldheaded old man nodding over the Morning Advertizer the slipshod waiter folding a tumbled tablecloth and Robert Audleys handsome face looking at him full of compassionate alarm—he knew that all these things took gigantic proportions and then one by one melted into dark blots and swam before his eyes He knew that there was a great noise as of half a dozen furious steamengines tearing and grinding in his ears and he knew nothing more—except that somebody or something fell heavily to the ground
He opened his eyes upon the dusky evening in a cool and shaded room the silence only broken by the rumbling of wheels at a distance
He looked about him wonderingly but half indifferently His old friend Robert Audley was seated by his side smoking George was lying on a low iron bedstead opposite to an open window in which there was a stand of flowers and two or three birds in cages
You dont mind the pipe do you George his friend asked quietly
No
He lay for some time looking at the flowers and the birds one canary was singing a shrill hymn to the setting sun
Do the birds annoy you George Shall I take them out of the room
No I like to hear them sing
Robert Audley knocked the ashes out of his pipe laid the precious meerschaum tenderly upon the mantelpiece and going into the next room returned presently with a cup of strong tea
Take this George he said as he placed the cup on a little table close to Georges pillow it will do your head good
The young man did not answer but looked slowly round the room and then at his friends grave face
Bob he said where are we
In my chambers dear boy in the Temple You have no lodgings of your own so you may as well stay with me while youre in town
George passed his hand once or twice across his forehead and then in a hesitating manner said quietly
That newspaper this morning Bob what was it
Never mind just now old boy drink some tea
Yes yes cried George impatiently raising himself upon the bed and staring about him with hollow eyes I remember all about it Helen my Helen my wife my darling my only love Dead dead
George said Robert Audley laying his hand gently upon the young mans arm you must remember that the person whose name you saw in the paper may not be your wife There may have been some other Helen Talboys
No no he cried the age corresponds with hers and Talboys is such an uncommon name
It may be a misprint for Talbot
No no no my wife is dead
He shook off Roberts restraining hand and rising from the bed walked straight to the door
Where are you going exclaimed his friend
To Ventnor to see her grave
Not tonight George not tonight I will go with you myself by the first train tomorrow
Robert led him back to the bed and gently forced him to lie down again He then gave him an opiate which had been left for him by the medical man whom they had called in at the coffeehouse in Bridge street when George fainted
So George Talboys fell into a heavy slumber and dreamed that he went to Ventnor to find his wife alive and happy but wrinkled old and gray and to find his son grown into a young man
Early the next morning he was seated opposite to Robert Audley in the firstclass carriage of an express whirling through the pretty open country toward Portsmouth
They landed at Ventnor under the burning heat of the midday sun As the two young men came from the steamer the people on the pier stared at Georges white face and untrimmed beard
What are we to do George Robert Audley asked We have no clew to finding the people you want to see
The young man looked at him with a pitiful bewildered expression The big dragoon was as helpless as a baby and Robert Audley the most vacillating and unenergetic of men found himself called upon to act for another He rose superior to himself and equal to the occasion
Had we not better ask at one of the hotels about a Mrs Talboys George he said
Her fathers name was Maldon George muttered he could never have sent her here to die alone
They said nothing more but Robert walked straight to a hotel where he inquired for a Mr Maldon
Yes they told him there was a gentleman of that name stopping at Ventnor a Captain Maldon his daughter was lately dead The waiter would go and inquire for the address
The hotel was a busy place at this season people hurrying in and out and a great bustle of grooms and waiters about the halls
George Talboys leaned against the doorpost with much the same look in his face as that which had frightened his friend in the Westminister coffeehouse
The worst was confirmed now His wife Captain Maldons daughter was dead
The waiter returned in about five minutes to say that Captain Maldon was lodging at Lansdowne Cottage No 4
They easily found the house a shabby lowwindowed cottage looking toward the water
Was Captain Maldon at home No the landlady said he had gone out on the beach with his little grandson Would the gentleman walk in and sit down a bit
George mechanically followed his friend into the little front parlor—dusty shabbily furnished and disorderly with a childs broken toys scattered on the floor and the scent of stale tobacco hanging about the muslin windowcurtains
Look said George pointing to a picture over the mantelpiece
It was his own portrait painted in the old dragooning days A pretty good likeness representing him in uniform with his charger in the background
Perhaps the most animated of men would have been scarcely so wise a comforter as Robert Audley He did not utter a word to the stricken widower but quietly seated himself with his back to George looking out of the open window
For some time the young man wandered restlessly about the room looking at and sometimes touching the nicknacks lying here and there
Her workbox with an unfinished piece of work her album full of extracts from Byron and Moore written in his own scrawling hand some books which he had given her and a bunch of withered flowers in a vase they had bought in Italy
Her portrait used to hang by the side of mine he muttered I wonder what they have done with it
Byandby he said after about an hours silence
I should like to see the woman of the house I should like to ask her about—
He broke down and buried his face in his hands
Robert summoned the landlady She was a goodnatured garrulous creature accustomed to sickness and death for many of her lodgers came to her to die
She told all the particulars of Mrs Talboys last hours how she had come to Ventnor only ten days before her death in the last stage of decline and how day by day she had gradually but surely sunk under the fatal malady Was the gentleman any relative she asked of Robert Audley as George sobbed aloud
Yes he is the ladys husband
What the woman cried him as deserted her so cruel and left her with her pretty boy upon her poor old fathers hands which Captain Maldon has told me often with the tears in his poor eyes
I did not desert her George cried out and then he told the history of his three years struggle
Did she speak of me he asked did she speak of me—at—at the last
No she went off as quiet as a lamb She said very little from the first but the last day she knew nobody not even her little boy nor her poor old father who took on awful Once she went off wildlike talking about her mother and about the cruel shame it was to leave her to die in a strange place till it was quite pitiful to hear her
Her mother died when she was quite a child said George To think that she should remember her and speak of her but never once of me
The woman took him into the little bedroom in which his wife had died He knelt down by the bed and kissed the pillow tenderly the landlady crying as he did so
While he was kneeling praying perhaps with his face buried in this humble snowwhite pillow the woman took something from a drawer She gave it to him when he rose from his knees it was a long tress of hair wrapped in silver paper
I cut this off when she lay in her coffin she said poor dear
He pressed the soft lock to his lips Yes he murmured this is the dear hair that I have kissed so often when her head lay upon my shoulder But it always had a rippling wave in it then and now it seems smooth and straight
It changes in illness said the landlady If youd like to see where they have laid her Mr Talboys my little boy shall show you the way to the churchyard
So George Talboys and his faithful friend walked to the quiet spot where beneath a mound of earth to which the patches of fresh turf hardly adhered lay that wife of whose welcoming smile George had dreamed so often in the far antipodes
Robert left the young man by the side of this newlymade grave and returning in about a quarter of an hour found that he had not once stirred
He looked up presently and said that if there was a stonemasons anywhere near he should like to give an order
They very easily found the stonemason and sitting down amidst the fragmentary litter of the mans yard George Talboys wrote in pencil this brief inscription for the headstone of his dead wifes grave
Sacred to the Memory of
HELEN
THE BELOVED WIFE OF GEORGE TALBOYS
Who departed this life
August 24th 18— aged 22
Deeply regretted by her sorrowing Husband
CHAPTER VI
ANYWHERE ANYWHERE OUT OF THE WORLD
When they returned to Lansdowne Cottage they found the old man had not yet come in so they walked down to the beach to look for him After a brief search they found him sitting upon a heap of pebbles reading a newspaper and eating filberts The little boy was at some distance from his grandfather digging in the sand with a wooden spade The crape round the old mans shabby hat and the childs poor little black frock went to Georges heart Go where he would he met fresh confirmation of this great grief of his life His wife was dead
Mr Maldon he said as he approached his fatherinlaw
The old man looked up and dropping his newspaper rose from the pebbles with a ceremonious bow His faded light hair was tinged with gray he had a pinched hook nose watery blue eyes and an irresolutelooking mouth he wore his shabby dress with an affectation of foppish gentility an eyeglass dangled over his closely buttonedup waistcoat and he carried a cane in his ungloved hand
Great Heaven cried George dont you know me
Mr Maldon started and colored violently with something of a frightened look as he recognized his soninlaw
My dear boy he said I did not for the first moment I did not That beard makes such a difference You find the beard makes a great difference do you not sir he said appealing to Robert
Great heavens exclaimed George Talboys is this the way you welcome me I come to England to find my wife dead within a week of my touching land and you begin to chatter to me about my beard—you her father
True true muttered the old man wiping his bloodshot eyes a sad shock a sad shock my dear George If youd only been here a week earlier
If I had cried George in an outburst of grief and passion I scarcely think that I would have let her die I would have disputed for her with death I would I would Oh God why did not the Argus go down with every soul on board her before I came to see this day
He began to walk up and down the beach his fatherinlaw looking helplessly at him rubbing his feeble eyes with a handkerchief
Ive a strong notion that that old man didnt treat his daughter too well thought Robert as he watched the halfpay lieutenant He seems for some reason or other to be half afraid of George
While the agitated young man walked up and down in a fever of regret and despair the child ran to his grandfather and clung about the tails of his coat
Come home grandpa come home he said Im tired
George Talboys turned at the sound of the babyish voice and looked long and earnestly at the boy
He had his fathers brown eyes and dark hair
My darling my darling said George taking the child in his arms I am your father come across the sea to find you Will you love me
The little fellow pushed him away I dont know you he said I love grandpa and Mrs Monks at Southampton
Georgey has a temper of his own sir said the old man He has been spoiled
They walked slowly back to the cottage and once more George Talboys told the history of that desertion which had seemed so cruel He told too of the twenty thousand pounds banked by him the day before He had not the heart to ask any questions about the past and his fatherinlaw only told him that a few months after his departure they had gone from the place where George left them to live at Southampton where Helen got a few pupils for the piano and where they managed pretty well till her health failed and she fell into the decline of which she died Like most sad stories it was a very brief one
The boy seems fond of you Mr Maldon said George after a pause
Yes yes answered the old man smoothing the childs curling hair yes Georgey is very fond of his grandfather
Then he had better stop with you The interest of my money will be about six hundred a year You can draw a hundred of that for Georgeys education leaving the rest to accumulate till he is of age My friend here will be trustee and if he will undertake the charge I will appoint him guardian to the boy allowing him for the present to remain under your care
But why not take care of him yourself George asked Robert Audley
Because I shall sail in the very next vessel that leaves Liverpool for Australia I shall be better in the diggings or the backwoods than ever I could be here Im broken for a civilized life from this hour Bob
The old mans weak eyes sparkled as George declared this determination
My poor boy I think youre right he said I really think youre right The change the wild life the—the— He hesitated and broke down as Robert looked earnestly at him
Youre in a great hurry to get rid of your soninlaw I think Mr Maldon he said gravely
Get rid of him dear boy Oh no no But for his own sake my dear sir for his own sake you know
I think for his own sake hed much better stay in England and look after his son said Robert
But I tell you I cant cried George every inch of this accursed ground is hateful to me—I want to run out of it as I would out of a graveyard Ill go back to town tonight get that business about the money settled early tomorrow morning and start for Liverpool without a moments delay I shall be better when Ive put half the world between me and her grave
Before he left the house he stole out to the landlady and asked same more questions about his dead wife
Were they poor he asked were they pinched for money while she was ill
Oh no the woman answered though the captain dresses shabby he has always plenty of sovereigns in his purse The poor lady wanted for nothing
George was relieved at this though it puzzled him to know where the drunken halfpay lieutenant could have contrived to find money for all the expenses of his daughters illness
But he was too thoroughly broken down by the calamity which had befallen him to be able to think much of anything so he asked no further questions but walked with his fatherinlaw and Robert Audley down to the boat by which they were to cross to Portsmouth
The old man bade Robert a very ceremonious adieu
You did not introduce me to your friend bythebye my dear boy he said George stared at him muttered something indistinct and ran down the ladder to the boat before Mr Maldon could repeat his request The steamer sped away through the sunset and the outline of the island melted in the horizon as they neared the opposite shore
To think said George that two nights ago at this time I was steaming into Liverpool full of the hope of clasping her to my heart and tonight I am going away from her grave
The document which appointed Robert Audley as guardian to little George Talboys was drawn up in a solicitors office the next morning
Its a great responsibility exclaimed Robert I guardian to anybody or anything I who never in my life could take care of myself
I trust in your noble heart Bob said George I know you will take care of my poor orphan boy and see that he is well used by his grandfather I shall only draw enough from Georgeys fortune to take me back to Sydney and then begin my old work again
But it seemed as if George was destined to be himself the guardian of his son for when he reached Liverpool he found that a vessel had just sailed and that there would not be another for a month so he returned to London and once more threw himself upon Robert Audleys hospitality
The barrister received him with open arms he gave him the room with the birds and flowers and had a bed put up in his dressingroom for himself Grief is so selfish that George did not know the sacrifices his friend made for his comfort He only knew that for him the sun was darkened and the business of life done He sat all day long smoking cigars and staring at the flowers and canaries chafing for the time to pass that he might be far out at sea
But just as the hour was drawing near for the sailing of the vessel Robert Audley came in one day full of a great scheme
A friend of his another of those barristers whose last thought is of a brief was going to St Petersburg to spend the winter and wanted Robert to accompany him Robert would only go on condition that George went too
For a long time the young man resisted but when he found that Robert was in a quiet way thoroughly determined upon not going without him he gave in and consented to join the party What did it matter he said One place was the same to him as another anywhere out of England what did he care where
This was not a very cheerful way of looking at things but Robert Audley was quite satisfied with having won his consent
The three young men started under very favorable circumstances carrying letters of introduction to the most influential inhabitants of the Russian capital
Before leaving England Robert wrote to his cousin Alicia telling her of his intended departure with his old friend George Talboys whom he had lately met for the first time after a lapse of years and who had just lost his wife
Alicias reply came by return post and ran thus
MY DEAR ROBERT—How cruel of you to run away to that horrid St Petersburg before the hunting season I have heard that people lose their noses in that disagreeable climate and as yours is rather a long one I should advise you to return before the very severe weather sets in What sort of person is this Mr Talboys If he is very agreeable you may bring him to the Court as soon as you return from your travels Lady Audley tells me to request you to secure her a set of sables You are not to consider the price but to be sure that they are the handsomest that can be obtained Papa is perfectly absurd about his new wife and she and I cannot get on together at all not that she is disagreeable to me for as far as that goes she makes herself agreeable to every one but she is so irretrievably childish and silly
Believe me to be my dear Robert
Your affectionate cousin
ALICIA AUDLEY
CHAPTER VII
AFTER A YEAR
The first year of George Talboys widowhood passed away the deep band of crepe about his hat grew brown and dusty and as the last burning day of another August faded out he sat smoking cigars in the quiet chambers of Figtree Court much as he had done the year before when the horror of his grief was new to him and every object in life however trifling or however important seemed saturated with his one great sorrow
But the big exdragoon had survived his affliction by a twelvemonth and hard as it may be to have to tell it he did not look much the worse for it Heaven knows what wasted agonies of remorse and selfreproach may not have racked Georges honest heart as he lay awake at nights thinking of the wife he had abandoned in the pursuit of a fortune which she never lived to share
Once while they were abroad Robert Audley ventured to congratulate him upon his recovered spirits He burst into a bitter laugh
Do you know Bob he said that when some of our fellows were wounded in India they came home bringing bullets inside them They did not talk of them and they were stout and hearty and looked as well perhaps as you or I but every change in the weather however slight every variation of the atmosphere however trifling brought back the old agony of their wounds as sharp as ever they had felt it on the battlefield Ive had my wound Bob I carry the bullet still and I shall carry it into my coffin
The travelers returned from St Petersburg in the spring and George again took up his quarters at his old friends chambers only leaving them now and then to run down to Southampton and take a look at his little boy He always went loaded with toys and sweetmeats to give to the child but for all this Georgey would not become very familiar with his papa and the young mans heart sickened as he began to fancy that even his child was lost to him
What can I do he thought If I take him away from his grandfather I shall break his heart if I let him remain he will grow up a stranger to me and care more for that drunken old hypocrite than for his own father But then what could an ignorant heavy dragoon like me do with such a child What could I teach him except to smoke cigars and idle around all day with his hands in his pockets
So the anniversary of that 30th of August upon which George had seen the advertisement of his wifes death in the Times newspaper came round for the first time and the young man put off his black clothes and the shabby crape from his hat and laid his mournful garments in a trunk in which he kept a packet of his wifes letters her portrait and that lock of hair which had been cut from her head after death Robert Audley had never seen either the letters the portrait or the long tress of silky hair nor indeed had George ever mentioned the name of his dead wife after that one day at Ventnor on which he learned the full particulars of her decease
I shall write to my cousin Alicia today George the young barrister said upon this very 30th of August Do you know that the day after tomorrow is the 1st of September I shall write and tell her that we will both run down to the Court for a weeks shooting
No no Bob go by yourself they dont want me and Id rather—
Bury yourself in Figtree Court with no company but my dogs and canaries No George you shall do nothing of the kind
But I dont care for shooting
And do you suppose I care for it cried Robert with charming naivete Why man I dont know a partridge from a pigeon and it might be the 1st of April instead of the 1st of September for aught I care I never hurt a bird in my life but I have hurt my own shoulder with the weight of my gun I only go down to Essex for the change of air the good dinners and the sight of my uncles honest handsome face Besides this time Ive another inducement as I want to see this fairhaired paragon—my new aunt Youll go with me George
Yes if you really wish it
The quiet form his grief had taken after its first brief violence left him as submissive as a child to the will of his friend ready to go anywhere or do anything never enjoying himself or originating any enjoyment but joining in the pleasures of others with a hopeless uncomplaining unobtrusive resignation peculiar to his simple nature But the return of post brought a letter from Alicia Audley to say that the two young men could not be received at the Court
There are seventeen spare bedrooms wrote the young lady in an indignant running hand but for all that my dear Robert you cant come for my lady has taken it into her silly head that she is too ill to entertain visitors there is no more the matter with her than there is with me and she cannot have gentlemen great rough men she says in the house Please apologize to your friend Mr Talboys and tell him that papa expects to see you both in the hunting season
My ladys airs and graces shant keep us out of Essex for all that said Robert as he twisted the letter into a pipelight for his big meerschaum Ill tell you what well do George theres a glorious inn at Audley and plenty of fishing in the neighborhood well go there and have a weeks sport Fishing is much better than shooting youve only to lie on a bank and stare at your line I dont find that you often catch anything but its very pleasant
He held the twisted letter to the feeble spark of fire glimmering in the grate as he spoke and then changing his mind deliberately unfolded it and smoothed the crumpled paper with his hand
Poor little Alicia he said thoughtfully its rather hard to treat her letter so cavalierly—Ill keep it upon which Mr Robert Audley put the note back into its envelope and afterward thrust it into a pigeonhole in his office desk marked important Heaven knows what wonderful documents there were in this particular pigeonhole but I do not think it likely to have contained anything of great judicial value If any one could at that moment have told the young barrister that so simple a thing as his cousins brief letter would one day come to be a link in that terrible chain of evidence afterward to be slowly forged in the only criminal case in which he was ever to be concerned perhaps Mr Robert Audley would have lifted his eyebrows a little higher than usual
So the two young men left London the next day with one portmanteau and a rod and tackle between them and reached the straggling oldfashioned fastdecaying village of Audley in time to order a good dinner at the Sun Inn
Audley Court was about threequarters of a mile from the village lying as I have said deep down in the hollow shut in by luxuriant timber You could only reach it by a crossroad bordered by trees and as trimly kept as the avenues in a gentlemans park It was a lonely place enough even in all its rustic beauty for so bright a creature as the late Miss Lucy Graham but the generous baronet had transformed the interior of the gray old mansion into a little palace for his young wife and Lady Audley seemed as happy as a child surrounded by new and costly toys
In her better fortunes as in her old days of dependence wherever she went she seemed to take sunshine and gladness with her In spite of Miss Alicias undisguised contempt for her stepmothers childishness and frivolity Lucy was better loved and more admired than the baronets daughter That very childishness had a charm which few could resist The innocence and candor of an infant beamed in Lady Audleys fair face and shone out of her large and liquid blue eyes The rosy lips the delicate nose the profusion of fair ringlets all contributed to preserve to her beauty the character of extreme youth and freshness She owned to twenty years of age but it was hard to believe her more than seventeen Her fragile figure which she loved to dress in heavy velvets and stiff rustling silks till she looked like a child tricked out for a masquerade was as girlish as if she had just left the nursery All her amusements were childish She hated reading or study of any kind and loved society Rather than be alone she would admit Phoebe Marks into her confidence and loll on one of the sofas in her luxurious dressingroom discussing a new costume for some coming dinnerparty or sit chattering to the girl with her jewelbox beside her upon the satin cushions and Sir Michaels presents spread out in her lap while she counted and admired her treasures
She had appeared at several public balls at Chelmsford and Colchester and was immediately established as the belle of the county Pleased with her high position and her handsome house with every caprice gratified every whim indulged admired and caressed wherever she went fond of her generous husband rich in a noble allowance of pinmoney with no poor relations to worry her with claims upon her purse or patronage it would have been hard to find in the County of Essex a more fortunate creature than Lucy Lady Audley
The two young men loitered over the dinnertable in the private sittingroom at the Sun Inn The windows were thrown wide open and the fresh country air blew in upon them as they dined The weather was lovely the foliage of the woods touched here and there with faint gleams of the earliest tints of autumn the yellow corn still standing in some of the fields in others just falling under the shining sickle while in the narrow lanes you met great wagons drawn by broadchested carthorses carrying home the rich golden store To any one who has been during the hot summer months pent up in London there is in the first taste of rustic life a kind of sensuous rapture scarcely to be described George Talboys felt this and in this he experienced the nearest approach to enjoyment that he had ever known since his wifes death
The clock struck five as they finished dinner
Put on your hat George said Robert Audley they dont dine at the Court till seven we shall have time to stroll down and see the old place and its inhabitants
The landlord who had come into the room with a bottle of wine looked up as the young man spoke
I beg your pardon Mr Audley he said but if you want to see your uncle youll lose your time by going to the Court just now Sir Michael and my lady and Miss Alicia have all gone to the races up at Chorley and they wont be back till nigh upon eight oclock most likely They must pass by here to go home
Under these circumstances of course it was no use going to the Court so the two young men strolled through the village and looked at the old church and then went and reconnoitered the streams in which they were to fish the next day and by such means beguiled the time until after seven oclock At about a quarter past that hour they returned to the inn and seating themselves in the open window lit their cigars and looked out at the peaceful prospect
We hear every day of murders committed in the country Brutal and treacherous murders slow protracted agonies from poisons administered by some kindred hand sudden and violent deaths by cruel blows inflicted with a stake cut from some spreading oak whose every shadow promised—peace In the county of which I write I have been shown a meadow in which on a quiet summer Sunday evening a young farmer murdered the girl who had loved and trusted him and yet even now with the stain of that foul deed upon it the aspect of the spot is—peace No species of crime has ever been committed in the worst rookeries about Seven Dials that has not been also done in the face of that rustic calm which still in spite of all we look on with a tender halfmournful yearning and associate with—peace
It was dusk when gigs and chaises dogcarts and clumsy farmers phaetons began to rattle through the village street and under the windows of the Sun Inn deeper dusk still when an open carriage and four drew suddenly up beneath the rocking signpost
It was Sir Michael Audleys barouche which came to so sudden a stop before the little inn The harness of one of the leaders had become out of order and the foremost postillion dismounted to set it right
Why its my uncle cried Robert Audley as the carriage stopped Ill run down and speak to him
George lit another cigar and sheltered by the windowcurtains looked out at the little party Alicia sat with her back to the horses and he could perceive even in the dusk that she was a handsome brunette but Lady Audley was seated on the side of the carriage furthest from the inn and he could see nothing of the fairhaired paragon of whom he had heard so much
Why Robert exclaimed Sir Michael as his nephew emerged from the inn this is a surprise
I have not come to intrude upon you at the Court my dear uncle said the young man as the baronet shook him by the hand in his own hearty fashion Essex is my native county you know and about this time of year I generally have a touch of homesickness so George and I have come down to the inn for two or three days fishing
George—George who
George Talboys
What has he come cried Alicia Im so glad for Im dying to see this handsome young widower
Are you Alicia said her cousin Then egad Ill run and fetch him and introduce you to him at once
Now so complete was the dominion which Lady Audley had in her own childish unthinking way obtained over her devoted husband that it was very rarely that the baronets eyes were long removed from his wifes pretty face When Robert therefore was about to reenter the inn it needed but the faintest elevation of Lucys eyebrows with a charming expression of weariness and terror to make her husband aware that she did not want to be bored by an introduction to Mr George Talboys
Never mind tonight Bob he said My wife is a little tired after our long days pleasure Bring your friend to dinner tomorrow and then he and Alicia can make each others acquaintance Come round and speak to Lady Audley and then well drive home
My lady was so terribly fatigued that she could only smile sweetly and hold out a tiny gloved hand to her nephew by marriage
You will come and dine with us tomorrow and bring your interesting friend she said in a low and tired voice She had been the chief attraction of the racecourse and was wearied out by the exertion of fascinating half the county
Its a wonder she didnt treat you to her neverending laugh whispered Alicia as she leaned over the carriagedoor to bid Robert goodnight but I dare say she reserves that for your delectation tomorrow I suppose you are fascinated as well as everybody else added the young lady rather snappishly
She is a lovely creature certainly murmured Robert with placid admiration
Oh of course Now she is the first woman of whom I ever heard you say a civil word Robert Audley Im sorry to find you can only admire wax dolls
Poor Alicia had had many skirmishes with her cousin upon that particular temperament of his which while it enabled him to go through life with perfect content and tacit enjoyment entirely precluded his feeling one spark of enthusiasm upon any subject whatever
As to his ever falling in love thought the young lady sometimes the idea is preposterous If all the divinities on earth were ranged before him waiting for his sultanship to throw the handkerchief he would only lift his eyebrows to the middle of his forehead and tell them to scramble for it
But for once in his life Robert was almost enthusiastic
Shes the prettiest little creature you ever saw in your life George he cried when the carriage had driven off and he returned to his friend Such blue eyes such ringlets such a ravishing smile such a fairylike bonnet—all of atremble with heartsease and dewy spangles shining out of a cloud of gauze George Talboys I feel like the hero of a French novel I am falling in love with my aunt
The widower only sighed and puffed his cigar fiercely out of the open window Perhaps he was thinking of that faraway time—little better than five years ago in fact but such an age gone by to him—when he first met the woman for whom he had worn crape round his hat three days before They returned all those old unforgotten feelings they came back with the scene of their birthplace Again he lounged with his brother officers upon the shabby pier at the shabby wateringplace listening to a dreary band with a cornet that was a note and a half flat Again he heard the old operatic airs and again she came tripping toward him leaning on her old fathers arm and pretending with such a charming delicious seriocomic pretense to be listening to the music and quite unaware of the admiration of half a dozen openmouthed cavalry officers Again the old fancy came back that she was something too beautiful for earth or earthly uses and that to approach her was to walk in a higher atmosphere and to breathe a purer air And since this she had been his wife and the mother of his child She lay in the little churchyard at Ventnor and only a year ago he had given the order for her tombstone A few slow silent tears dropped upon his waistcoat as he thought of these things in the quiet and darkening room
Lady Audley was so exhausted when she reached home that she excused herself from the dinnertable and retired at once to her dressingroom attended by her maid Phoebe Marks
She was a little capricious in her conduct to this maid—sometimes very confidential sometimes rather reserved but she was a liberal mistress and the girl had every reason to be satisfied with her situation
This evening in spite of her fatigue she was in extremely high spirits and gave an animated account of the races and the company present at them
I am tired to death though Phoebe she said byandby I am afraid I must look a perfect fright after a day in the hot sun
There were lighted candles on each side of the glass before which Lady Audley was standing unfastening her dress She looked full at her maid as she spoke her blue eyes clear and bright and the rosy childish lips puckered into an arch smile
You are a little pale my lady answered the girl but you look as pretty as ever
Thats right Phoebe she said flinging herself into a chair and throwing back her curls at the maid who stood brush in hand ready to arrange the luxuriant hair for the night Do you know Phoebe I have heard some people say that you and I are alike
I have heard them say so too my lady said the girl quietly but they must be very stupid to say it for your ladyship is a beauty and I am a poor plain creature
Not at all Phoebe said the little lady superbly you are like me and your features are very nice it is only color that you want My hair is pale yellow shot with gold and yours is drab my eyebrows and eyelashes are dark brown and yours are almost—I scarcely like to say it but theyre almost white my dear Phoebe Your complexion is sallow and mine is pink and rosy Why with a bottle of hairdye such as we see advertised in the papers and a pot of rouge youd be as goodlooking as I any day Phoebe
She prattled on in this way for a long time talking of a hundred different subjects and ridiculing the people she had met at the races for her maids amusement Her stepdaughter came into the dressingroom to bid her goodnight and found the maid and mistress laughing aloud over one of the days adventures Alicia who was never familiar with her servants withdrew in disgust at my ladys frivolity
Go on brushing my hair Phoebe Lady Audley said every time the girl was about to complete her task I quite enjoy a chat with you
At last just as she had dismissed her maid she suddenly called her back Phoebe Marks she said I want you to do me a favor
Yes my lady
I want you to go to London by the first train tomorrow morning to execute a little commission for me You may take a days holiday afterward as I know you have friends in town and I shall give you a fivepound note if you do what I want and keep your own counsel about it
Yes my lady
See that that door is securely shut and come and sit on this stool at my feet
The girl obeyed Lady Audley smoothed her maids neutraltinted hair with her plump white and bejeweled hand as she reflected for a few moments
And now listen Phoebe What I want you to do is very simple
It was so simple that it was told in five minutes and then Lady Audley retired into her bedroom and curled herself up cozily under the eiderdown quilt She was a chilly creature and loved to bury herself in soft wrappings of satin and fur
Kiss me Phoebe she said as the girl arranged the curtains I hear Sir Michaels step in the anteroom you will meet him as you go out and you may as well tell him that you are going up by the first train tomorrow morning to get my dress from Madam Frederick for the dinner at Morton Abbey
It was late the next morning when Lady Audley went down to breakfast—past ten oclock While she was sipping her coffee a servant brought her a sealed packet and a book for her to sign
A telegraphic message she cried for the convenient word telegram had not yet been invented What can be the matter
She looked up at her husband with wideopen terrified eyes and seemed half afraid to break the seal The envelope was addressed to Miss Lucy Graham at Mr Dawsons and had been sent on from the village
Read it my darling he said and do not be alarmed it may be nothing of any importance
It came from a Mrs Vincent the schoolmistress with whom she had lived before entering Mr Dawsons family The lady was dangerously ill and implored her old pupil to go and see her
Poor soul she always meant to leave me her money said Lucy with a mournful smile She has never heard of the change in my fortunes Dear Sir Michael I must go to her
To be sure you must dearest If she was kind to my poor girl in her adversity she has a claim upon her prosperity that shall never be forgotten Put on your bonnet Lucy we shall be in time to catch the express
You will go with me
Of course my darling Do you suppose I would let you go alone
I was sure you would go with me she said thoughtfully
Does your friend send any address
No but she always lived at Crescent Villa West Brompton and no doubt she lives there still
There was only time for Lady Audley to hurry on her bonnet and shawl before she heard the carriage drive round to the door and Sir Michael calling to her at the foot of the staircase
Her suite of rooms as I have said opened one out of another and terminated in an octagon antechamber hung with oilpaintings Even in her haste she paused deliberately at the door of this room doublelocked it and dropped the key into her pocket This door once locked cut off all access to my ladys apartments
CHAPTER VIII
BEFORE THE STORM
So the dinner at Audley Court was postponed and Miss Alicia had to wait still longer for an introduction to the handsome young widower Mr George Talboys
I am afraid if the real truth is to be told there was perhaps something of affectation in the anxiety this young lady expressed to make Georges acquaintance but if poor Alicia for a moment calculated upon arousing any latent spark of jealousy lurking in her cousins breast by this exhibition of interest she was not so well acquainted with Robert Audleys disposition as she might have been Indolent handsome and indifferent the young barrister took life as altogether too absurd a mistake for any one event in its foolish course to be for a moment considered seriously by a sensible man
His pretty gipsyfaced cousin might have been over head and ears in love with him and she might have told him so in some charming roundabout womanly fashion a hundred times a day for all the three hundred and sixtyfive days in the year but unless she had waited for some privileged 29th of February and walked straight up to him saying Robert please will you marry me I very much doubt if he would ever have discovered the state of her feelings
Again had he been in love with her himself I fancy that the tender passion would with him have been so vague and feeble a sentiment that he might have gone down to his grave with a dim sense of some uneasy sensation which might be love or indigestion and with beyond this no knowledge whatever of his state
So it was not the least use my poor Alicia to ride about the lanes around Audley during those three days which the two young men spent in Essex it was wasted trouble to wear that pretty cavalier hat and plume and to be always by the most singular of chances meeting Robert and his friend The black curls nothing like Lady Audleys feathery ringlets but heavy clustering locks that clung about your slender brown throat the red and pouting lips the nose inclined to be retrousse the dark complexion with its bright crimson flush always ready to glance up like a signal light in a dusky sky when you came suddenly upon your apathetic cousin—all this coquettish espiegle brunette beauty was thrown away upon the dull eyes of Robert Audley and you might as well have taken your rest in the cool drawingroom at the Court instead of working your pretty mare to death under the hot September sun
Now fishing except to the devoted disciple of Izaak Walton is not the most lively of occupations therefore it is scarcely perhaps to be wondered that on the day after Lady Audleys departure the two young men one of whom was disabled by that heart wound which he bore so quietly from really taking pleasure in anything and the other of whom looked upon almost all pleasure as a negative kind of trouble began to grow weary of the shade of the willows overhanging the winding streams about Audley
Figtree Court is not gay in the long vacation said Robert reflectively but I think upon the whole its better than this at any rate its near a tobacconists he added puffing resignedly at an execrable cigar procured from the landlord of the Sun Inn
George Talboys who had only consented to the Essex expedition in passive submission to his friend was by no means inclined to object to their immediate return to London I shall be glad to get back Bob he said for I want to take a run down to Southampton I havent seen the little one for upward of a month
He always spoke of his son as the little one always spoke of him mournfully rather than hopefully He accounted for this by saying that he had a fancy that the child would never learn to love him and worse even than this fancy a dim presentiment that he would not live to see his little Georgey reach manhood
Im not a romantic man Bob he would say sometimes and I never read a line of poetry in my life that was any more to me than so many words and so much jingle but a feeling has come over me since my wifes death that I am like a man standing upon a long low shore with hideous cliffs frowning down upon him from behind and the rising tide crawling slowly but surely about his feet It seems to grow nearer and nearer every day that black pitiless tide not rushing upon me with a great noise and a mighty impetus but crawling creeping stealing gliding toward me ready to close in above my head when I am least prepared for the end
Robert Audley stared at his friend in silent amazement and after a pause of profound deliberation said solemnly George Talboys I could understand this if you had been eating heavy suppers Cold pork now especially if underdone might produce this sort of thing You want change of air my dear boy you want the refreshing breezes of Figtree Court and the soothing air of Fleet street Or stay he added suddenly I have it Youve been smoking our friend the landlords cigars that accounts for everything
They met Alicia Audley on her mare about half an hour after they had come to the determination of leaving Essex early the next morning The young lady was very much surprised and disappointed at hearing her cousins determination and for that very reason pretended to take the matter with supreme indifference
You are very soon tired of Audley Robert she said carelessly but of course you have no friends here except your relations at the Court while in London no doubt you have the most delightful society and—
I get good tobacco murmured Robert interrupting his cousin Audley is the dearest old place but when a man has to smoke dried cabbage leaves you know Alicia—
Then you are really going tomorrow morning
Positively—by the express train that leaves at 1050
Then Lady Audley will lose an introduction to Mr Talboys and Mr Talboys will lose the chance of seeing the prettiest woman in Essex
Really— stammered George
The prettiest woman in Essex would have a poor chance of getting much admiration out of my friend George Talboys said Robert His heart is at Southampton where he has a curlyheaded little urchin about as high as his knee who calls him the big gentleman and asks him for sugarplums
I am going to write to my stepmother by tonights post said Alicia She asked me particularly in her letter how long you were going to stop and whether there was any chance of her being back in time to receive you
Miss Audley took a letter from the pocket of her ridingjacket as she spoke—a pretty fairylike note written on shining paper of a peculiar creamy hue
She says in her postcript Be sure you answer my question about Mr Audley and his friend you volatile forgetful Alicia
What a pretty hand she writes said Robert as his cousin folded the note
Yes it is pretty is it not Look at it Robert
She put the letter into his hand and he contemplated it lazily for a few minutes while Alicia patted the graceful neck of her chestnut mare which was anxious to be off once more
Presently Atalanta presently Give me back my note Bob
It is the prettiest most coquettish little hand I ever saw Do you know Alicia I have no great belief in those fellows who ask you for thirteen postage stamps and offer to tell you what you have never been able to find out yourself but upon my word I think that if I had never seen your aunt I should know what she was like by this slip of paper Yes here it all is—the feathery goldshot flaxen curls the penciled eyebrows the tiny straight nose the winning childish smile all to be guessed in these few graceful upstrokes and downstrokes George look here
But absentminded and gloomy George Talboys had strolled away along the margin of the ditch and stood striking the bulrushes with his cane half a dozen paces away from Robert and Alicia
Nevermind said the young lady impatiently for she by no means relished this long disquisition upon my ladys note Give me the letter and let me go its past eight and I must answer it by tonights post Come Atalanta Goodby Robert—goodby Mr Talboys A pleasant journey to town
The chestnut mare cantered briskly through the lane and Miss Audley was out of sight before those two big bright tears that stood in her eyes for one moment before her pride sent them back again rose from her angry heart
To have only one cousin in the world she cried passionately my nearest relation after papa and for him to care about as much for me as he would for a dog
By the merest of accidents however Robert and his friend did not go by the 1050 express on the following morning for the young barrister awoke with such a splitting headache that he asked George to send him a cup of the strongest green tea that had ever been made at the Sun and to be furthermore so good as to defer their journey until the next day Of course George assented and Robert Audley spent the forenoon in a darkened room with a fivedaysold Chelmsford paper to entertain himself withal
Its nothing but the cigars George he said repeatedly Get me out of the place without my seeing the landlord for if that man and I meet there will be bloodshed
Fortunately for the peace of Audley it happened to be marketday at Chelmsford and the worthy landlord had ridden off in his chaisecart to purchase supplies for his house—among other things perhaps a fresh stock of those very cigars which had been so fatal in their effect upon Robert
The young men spent a dull dawdling stupid unprofitable day and toward dusk Mr Audley proposed that they should stroll down to the Court and ask Alicia to take them over the house
It will kill a couple of hours you know George and it seems a great pity to drag you away from Audley without having shown you the old place which I give you my honor is very well worth seeing
The sun was low in the skies as they took a short cut through the meadows and crossed a stile into the avenue leading to the archway—a lurid heavylooking ominous sunset and a deathly stillness in the air which frightened the birds that had a mind to sing and left the field open to a few captious frogs croaking in the ditches Still as the atmosphere was the leaves rustled with that sinister shivering motion which proceeds from no outer cause but is rather an instinctive shudder of the frail branches prescient of a coming storm That stupid clock which knew no middle course and always skipped from one hour to the other pointed to seven as the young men passed under the archway but for all that it was nearer eight
They found Alicia in the limewalk wandering listlessly up and down under the black shadow of the trees from which every now and then a withered leaf flapped slowly to the ground
Strange to say George Talboys who very seldom observed anything took particular notice of this place
It ought to be an avenue in a churchyard he said How peacefully the dead might sleep under this somber shade I wish the churchyard at Ventnor was like this
They walked on to the ruined well and Alicia told them some old legend connected with the spot—some gloomy story such as those always attached to an old house as if the past were one dark page of sorrow and crime
We want to see the house before it is dark Alicia said Robert
Then we must be quick she answered Come
She led the way through an open French window modernized a few years before into the library and thence to the hall
In the hall they passed my ladys palefaced maid who looked furtively under her white eyelashes at the two young men
They were going upstairs when Alicia turned and spoke to the girl
After we have been in the drawingroom I should like to show these gentlemen Lady Audleys rooms Are they in good order Phoebe
Yes miss but the door of the anteroom is locked and I fancy that my lady has taken the key to London
Taken the key Impossible cried Alicia
Indeed miss I think she has I cannot find it and it always used to be in the door
I declare said Alicia impatiently that is not at all unlike my lady to have taken this silly freak into her head I dare say she was afraid we should go into her rooms and pry about among her pretty dresses and meddle with her jewelry It is very provoking for the best pictures in the house are in that antechamber There is her own portrait too unfinished but wonderfully like
Her portrait exclaimed Robert Audley I would give anything to see it for I have only an imperfect notion of her face Is there no other way of getting into the room Alicia
Another way
Yes is there any door leading through some of the other rooms by which we can contrive to get into hers
His cousin shook her head and conducted them into a corridor where there were some family portraits She showed them a tapestried chamber the large figures upon the faded canvas looking threatening in the dusky light
That fellow with the battleax looks as if he wanted to split Georges head open said Mr Audley pointing to a fierce warrior whose uplifted arm appeared above George Talboys dark hair
Come out of this room Alicia added the young man nervously I believe its damp or else haunted Indeed I believe all ghosts to be the result of damp or dyspepsia You sleep in a damp bed—you awake suddenly in the dead of the night with a cold shiver and see an old lady in the court costume of George the Firsts time sitting at the foot of the bed The old ladys indigestion and the cold shiver is a damp sheet
There were lighted candles in the drawingroom No newfangled lamps had ever made their appearance at Audley Court Sir Michaels rooms were lighted by honest thick yellowlooking wax candles in massive silver candlesticks and in sconces against the walls
There was very little to see in the drawingroom and George Talboys soon grew tired of staring at the handsome modern furniture and at a few pictures of some of the Academicians
Isnt there a secret passage or an old oak chest or something of that kind somewhere about the place Alicia asked Robert
To be sure cried Miss Audley with a vehemence that startled her cousin of course Why didnt I think of it before How stupid of me to be sure
Why stupid
Because if you dont mind crawling upon your hands and knees you can see my ladys apartments for that passage communicates with her dressingroom She doesnt know of it herself I believe How astonished shed be if some blackvisored burglar with a darklantern were to rise through the floor some night as she sat before her lookingglass having her hair dressed for a party
Shall we try the secret passage George asked Mr Audley
Yes if you wish it
Alicia led them into the room which had once been her nursery It was now disused except on very rare occasions when the house was full of company
Robert Audley lifted a corner of the carpet according to his cousins directions and disclosed a rudelycut trapdoor in the oak flooring
Now listen to me said Alicia You must let yourself down by the hands into the passage which is about four feet high stoop your head walk straight along it till you come to a sharp turn which will take you to the left and at the extreme end of it you will find a short ladder below a trapdoor like this which you will have to unbolt that door opens into the flooring of my ladys dressingroom which is only covered with a square Persian carpet that you can easily manage to raise You understand me
Perfectly
Then take the light Mr Talboys will follow you I give you twenty minutes for your inspection of the paintings—that is about a minute apiece—and at the end of that time I shall expect to see you return
Robert obeyed her implicitly and George submissively following his friend found himself in five minutes standing amidst the elegant disorder of Lady Audleys dressingroom
She had left the house in a hurry on her unlookedfor journey to London and the whole of her glittering toilette apparatus lay about on the marble dressingtable The atmosphere of the room was almost oppressive for the rich odors of perfumes in bottles whose gold stoppers had not been replaced A bunch of hothouse flowers was withering upon a tiny writingtable Two or three handsome dresses lay in a heap upon the ground and the open doors of a wardrobe revealed the treasures within Jewelry ivorybacked hairbrushes and exquisite china were scattered here and there about the apartment George Talboys saw his bearded face and tall gaunt figure reflected in the glass and wondered to see how out of place he seemed among all these womanly luxuries
They went from the dressingroom to the boudoir and through the boudoir into the antechamber in which there were as Alicia had said about twenty valuable paintings besides my ladys portrait
My ladys portrait stood on an easel covered with a green baize in the center of the octagonal chamber It had been a fancy of the artist to paint her standing in this very room and to make his background a faithful reproduction of the pictured walls I am afraid the young man belonged to the preRaphaelite brotherhood for he had spent a most unconscionable time upon the accessories of this picture—upon my ladys crispy ringlets and the heavy folds of her crimson velvet dress
The two young men looked at the paintings on the walls first leaving this unfinished portrait for a bonne bouche
By this time it was dark the candle carried by Robert only making one nucleus of light as he moved about holding it before the pictures one by one The broad bare window looked out upon the pale sky tinged with the last cold flicker of the twilight The ivy rustled against the glass with the same ominous shiver as that which agitated every leaf in the garden prophetic of the storm that was to come
There are our friends eternal white horses said Robert standing beside a Wouvermans Nicholas Poussin—Salvator—ha—hum Now for the portrait
He paused with his hand on the baize and solemnly addressed his friend
George Talboys he said we have between us only one wax candle a very inadequate light with which to look at a painting Let me therefore request that you will suffer us to look at it one at a time if there is one thing more disagreeable than another it is to have a person dodging behind your back and peering over your shoulder when youre trying to see what a pictures made of
George fell back immediately He took no more interest in any ladys picture than in all the other wearinesses of this troublesome world He fell back and leaning his forehead against the windowpanes looked out at the night
When he turned round he saw that Robert had arranged the easel very conveniently and that he had seated himself on a chair before it for the purpose of contemplating the painting at his leisure
He rose as George turned round
Now then for your turn Talboys he said Its an extraordinary picture
He took Georges place at the window and George seated himself in the chair before the easel
Yes the painter must have been a preRaphaelite No one but a preRaphaelite would have painted hair by hair those feathery masses of ringlets with every glimmer of gold and every shadow of pale brown No one but a preRaphaelite would have so exaggerated every attribute of that delicate face as to give a lurid brightness to the blonde complexion and a strange sinister light to the deep blue eyes No one but a preRaphaelite could have given to that pretty pouting mouth the hard and almost wicked look it had in the portrait
It was so like and yet so unlike It was as if you had burned strangecolored fires before my ladys face and by their influence brought out new lines and new expressions never seen in it before The perfection of feature the brilliancy of coloring were there but I suppose the painter had copied quaint mediaeval monstrosities until his brain had grown bewildered for my lady in his portrait of her had something of the aspect of a beautiful fiend
Her crimson dress exaggerated like all the rest in this strange picture hung about her in folds that looked like flames her fair head peeping out of the lurid mass of color as if out of a raging furnace Indeed the crimson dress the sunshine on the face the red gold gleaming in the yellow hair the ripe scarlet of the pouting lips the glowing colors of each accessory of the minutely painted background all combined to render the first effect of the painting by no means an agreeable one
But strange as the picture was it could not have made any great impression on George Talboys for he sat before it for about a quarter of an hour without uttering a word—only staring blankly at the painted canvas with the candlestick grasped in his strong right hand and his left arm hanging loosely by his side He sat so long in this attitude that Robert turned round at last
Why George I thought you had gone to sleep
I had almost
Youve caught a cold from standing in that damp tapestried room Mark my words George Talboys youve caught a cold youre as hoarse as a raven But come along
Robert Audley took the candle from his friends hand and crept back through the secret passage followed by George—very quiet but scarcely more quiet than usual
They found Alicia in the nursery waiting for them
Well she said interrogatively
We managed it capitally But I dont like the portrait theres something odd about it
There is said Alicia Ive a strange fancy on that point I think that sometimes a painter is in a manner inspired and is able to see through the normal expression of the face another expression that is equally a part of it though not to be perceived by common eyes We have never seen my lady look as she does in that picture but I think that she could look so
Alicia said Robert Audley imploringly dont be German
But Robert—
Dont be German Alicia if you love me The picture is—the picture and my lady is—my lady Thats my way of taking things and Im not metaphysical dont unsettle me
He repeated this several times with an air of terror that was perfectly sincere and then having borrowed an umbrella in case of being overtaken by the coming storm left the Court leading passive George Talboys away with him The one hand of the stupid clock had skipped to nine by the time they reached the archway but before they could pass under its shadow they had to step aside to allow a carriage to dash past them It was a fly from the village but Lady Audleys fair face peeped out at the window Dark as it was she could see the two figures of the young men black against the dusk
Who is that she asked putting out her head Is it the gardener
No my dear aunt said Robert laughing it is your most dutiful nephew
He and George stopped by the archway while the fly drew up at the door and the surprised servants came out to welcome their master and mistress
I think the storm will hold off tonight said the baronet looking up at the sky but we shall certainly have it tomorrow
CHAPTER IX
AFTER THE STORM
Sir Michael was mistaken in his prophecy upon the weather The storm did not hold off until next day but burst with terrible fury over the village of Audley about half an hour before midnight
Robert Audley took the thunder and lightning with the same composure with which he accepted all the other ills of life He lay on a sofa in the sittingroom ostensibly reading the fivedaysold Chelmsford paper and regaling himself occasionally with a few sips from a large tumbler of cold punch But the storm had quite a different effect upon George Talboys His friend was startled when he looked at the young mans white face as he sat opposite the open window listening to the thunder and staring at the black sky rent every now and then by forked streaks of steelblue lightning
George said Robert after watching him for some time are you frightened of the lightning
No he answered curtly
But dear boy some of the most courageous men have been frightened of it It is scarcely to be called a fear it is constitutional I am sure you are frightened of it
No I am not
But George if you could see yourself white and haggard with your great hollow eyes staring out at the sky as if they were fixed upon a ghost I tell you I know that you are frightened
And I tell you that I am not
George Talboys you are not only afraid of the lightning but you are savage with yourself for being afraid and with me for telling you of your fear
Robert Audley if you say another word to me I shall knock you down cried George furiously having said which Mr Talboys strode out of the room banging the door after him with a violence that shook the house Those inky clouds which had shut in the sultry earth as if with a roof of hot iron poured out their blackness in a sudden deluge as George left the room but if the young man was afraid of the lightning he certainly was not afraid of the rain for he walked straight downstairs to the inn door and went out into the wet high road He walked up and down up and down in the soaking shower for about twenty minutes and then reentering the inn strode up to his bedroom
Robert Audley met him on the landing with his hair beaten about his white face and his garments dripping wet
Are you going to bed George
Yes
But you have no candle
I dont want one
But look at your clothes man Do you see the wet streaming down your coatsleeves What on earth made you go out upon such a night
I am tired and want to go to bed—dont bother me
Youll take some hot brandyandwater George
Robert Audley stood in his friends way as he spoke anxious to prevent his going to bed in the state he was in but George pushed him fiercely aside and striding past him said in the same hoarse voice Robert had noticed at the Court
Let me alone Robert Audley and keep clear of me if you can
Robert followed George to his bedroom but the young man banged the door in his face so there was nothing for it but to leave Mr Talboys to himself to recover his temper as best he might
He was irritated at my noticing his terror of the lightning though Robert as he calmly retired to rest serenely indifferent to the thunder which seemed to shake him in his bed and the lightning playing fitfully round the razors in his open dressingcase
The storm rolled away from the quiet village of Audley and when Robert awoke the next morning it was to see bright sunshine and a peep of cloudless sky between the white curtains of his bedroom window
It was one of those serene and lovely mornings that sometimes succeed a storm The birds sung loud and cheerily the yellow corn uplifted itself in the broad fields and waved proudly after its sharp tussle with the tempest which had done its best to beat down the heavy ears with cruel wind and driving rain half the night through The vineleaves clustering round Roberts window fluttered with a joyous rustling shaking the raindrops in diamond showers from every spray and tendril
Robert Audley found his friend waiting for him at the breakfasttable
George was very pale but perfectly tranquil—if anything indeed more cheerful than usual
He shook Robert by the hand with something of that hearty manner for which he had been distinguished before the one affliction of his life overtook and shipwrecked him
Forgive me Bob he said frankly for my surly temper of last night You were quite correct in your assertion the thunderstorm did upset me It always had the same effect upon me in my youth
Poor old boy Shall we go up by the express or shall we stop here and dine with my uncle tonight asked Robert
To tell the truth Bob I would rather do neither Its a glorious morning Suppose we stroll about all day take another turn with the rod and line and go up to town by the train that leaves here at 615 in the evening
Robert Audley would have assented to a far more disagreeable proposition than this rather than have taken the trouble to oppose his friend so the matter was immediately agreed upon and after they had finished their breakfast and ordered a four oclock dinner George Talboys took the fishingrod across his broad shoulders and strode out of the house with his friend and companion
But if the equable temperament of Mr Robert Audley had been undisturbed by the crackling peals of thunder that shook the very foundations of the Sun Inn it had not been so with the more delicate sensibilties of his uncles young wife Lady Audley confessed herself terribly frightened of the lightning She had her bedstead wheeled into a corner of the room and with the heavy curtains drawn tightly round her she lay with her face buried in the pillow shuddering convulsively at every sound of the tempest without Sir Michael whose stout heart had never known a fear almost trembled for this fragile creature whom it was his happy privilege to protect and defend My lady would not consent to undress till nearly three oclock in the morning when the last lingering peal of thunder had died away among the distant hills Until that hour she lay in the handsome silk dress in which she had traveled huddled together among the bedclothes only looking up now and then with a scared face to ask if the storm was over
Toward four oclock her husband who spent the night in watching by her bedside saw her drop off into a deep sleep from which she did not awake for nearly five hours
But she came into the breakfastroom at halfpast nine oclock singing a little Scotch melody her cheeks tinged with as delicate a pink as the pale hue of her muslin morning dress Like the birds and the flowers she seemed to recover her beauty and joyousness in the morning sunshine She tripped lightly out onto the lawn gathering a last lingering rosebud here and there and a sprig or two of geranium and returning through the dewy grass warbling long cadences for very happiness of heart and looking as fresh and radiant as the flowers in her hands The baronet caught her in his strong arms as she came in through the open window
My pretty one he said my darling what happiness to see you your own merry self again Do you know Lucy that once last night when you looked out through the darkgreen bedcurtains with your poor white face and the purple rims round your hollow eyes I had almost a difficulty to recognize my little wife in that terrified agonizedlooking creature crying out about the storm Thank God for the morning sun which has brought back the rosy cheeks and bright smile I hope to Heaven Lucy I shall never again see you look as you did last night
She stood on tiptoe to kiss him and then was only tall enough to reach his white beard She told him laughing that she had always been a silly frightened creature—frightened of dogs frightened of cattle frightened of a thunderstorm frightened of a rough sea Frightened of everything and everybody but my dear noble handsome husband she said
She had found the carpet in her dressingroom disarranged and had inquired into the mystery of the secret passage She chid Miss Alicia in a playful laughing way for her boldness in introducing two great men into my ladys rooms
And they had the audacity to look at my picture Alicia she said with mock indignation I found the baize thrown on the ground and a great mans glove on the carpet Look
She held up a thick driving glove as she spoke It was Georges which he had dropped looking at the picture
I shall go up to the Sun and ask those boys to dinner Sir Michael said as he left the Court upon his morning walk around his farm
Lady Audley flitted from room to room in the bright September sunshine—now sitting down to the piano to trill out a ballad or the first page of an Italian bravura or running with rapid fingers through a brilliant waltz—now hovering about a stand of hothouse flowers doing amateur gardening with a pair of fairylike silvermounted embroidery scissors—now strolling into her dressingroom to talk to Phoebe Marks and have her curls rearranged for the third or fourth time for the ringlets were always getting into disorder and gave no little trouble to Lady Audleys maid
My dear lady seemed on this particular September day restless from very joyousness of spirit and unable to stay long in one place or occupy herself with one thing
While Lady Audley amused herself in her own frivolous fashion the two young men strolled slowly along the margin of the stream until they reached a shady corner where the water was deep and still and the long branches of the willows trailed into the brook
George Talboys took the fishingrod while Robert stretched himself at full length on a railway rug and balancing his hat upon his nose as a screen from the sunshine fell fast asleep
Those were happy fish in the stream on the banks of which Mr Talboys was seated They might have amused themselves to their hearts content with timid nibbles at this gentlemans bait without in any manner endangering their safety for George only stared vacantly in the water holding his rod in a loose listless hand and with a strange faraway look in his eyes As the church clock struck two he threw down his rod and striding away along the bank left Robert Audley to enjoy a nap which according to that gentlemans habits was by no means unlikely to last for two or three hours About a quarter of a mile further on George crossed a rustic bridge and struck into the meadows which led to Audley Court
The birds had sung so much all the morning that they had perhaps by this time grown tired the lazy cattle were asleep in the meadows Sir Michael was still away on his mornings ramble Miss Alicia had scampered off an hour before on her chestnut mare the servants were all at dinner in the back part of the house and my lady had strolled book in hand into the shadowy limewalk so the gray old building had never worn a more peaceful aspect than on that bright afternoon when George Talboys walked across the lawn to ring a sonorous peal at the sturdy ironbound oak door
The servant who answered his summons told him that Sir Michael was out and my lady walking in the limetree avenue
He looked a little disappointed at this intelligence and muttering something about wishing to see my lady or going to look for my lady the servant did not clearly distinguish his words strode away from the door without leaving either card or message for the family
It was full an hour and a half after this when Lady Audley returned to the house not coming from the limewalk but from exactly the opposite direction carrying her open book in her hand and singing as she came Alicia had just dismounted from her mare and stood in the lowarched doorway with her great Newfoundland dog by her side
The dog which had never liked my lady showed his teeth with a suppressed growl
Send that horrid animal away Alicia Lady Audley said impatiently The brute knows that I am frightened of him and takes advantage of my terror And yet they call the creatures generous and noblehearted Bah Caesar I hate you and you hate me and if you met me in the dark in some narrow passage you would fly at my throat and strangle me wouldnt you
My lady safely sheltered behind her stepdaughter shook her yellow curls at the angry animal and defied him maliciously
Do you know Lady Audley that Mr Talboys the young widower has been here asking for Sir Michael and you
Lucy Audley lifted her penciled eyebrows I thought they were coming to dinner she said Surely we shall have enough of them then
She had a heap of wild autumn flowers in the skirt of her muslin dress She had come through the fields at the back of the Court gathering the hedgerow blossoms in her way She ran lightly up the broad staircase to her own rooms Georges glove lay on her boudoir table Lady Audley rung the bell violently and it was answered by Phoebe Marks Take that litter away she said sharply The girl collected the glove and a few withered flowers and torn papers lying on the table into her apron
What have you been doing all this morning asked my lady Not wasting your time I hope
No my lady I have been altering the blue dress It is rather dark on this side of the house so I took it up to my own room and worked at the window
The girl was leaving the room as she spoke but she turned around and looked at Lady Audley as if waiting for further orders
Lucy looked up at the same moment and the eyes of the two women met
Phoebe Marks said my lady throwing herself into an easychair and trifling with the wild flowers in her lap you are a good industrious girl and while I live and am prosperous you shall never want a firm friend or a twentypound note
CHAPTER X
MISSING
When Robert Audley awoke he was surprised to see the fishingrod lying on the bank the line trailing idly in the water and the float bobbing harmlessly up and down in the afternoon sunshine The young barrister was a long time stretching his arms and legs in various directions to convince himself by means of such exercise that he still retained the proper use of those members then with a mighty effort he contrived to rise from the grass and having deliberately folded his railway rug into a convenient shape for carrying over his shoulder he strolled away to look for George Talboys
Once or twice he gave a sleepy shout scarcely loud enough to scare the birds in the branches above his head or the trout in the stream at his feet but receiving no answer grew tired of the exertion and dawdled on yawning as he went and still looking for George Talboys
Byandby he took out his watch and was surprised to find that it was a quarter past four
Why the selfish beggar must have gone home to his dinner he muttered reflectively and yet that isnt much like him for he seldom remembers even his meals unless I jog his memory
Even a good appetite and the knowledge that his dinner would very likely suffer by this delay could not quicken Mr Robert Audleys constitutional dawdle and by the time he strolled in at the front door of the Sun the clocks were striking five He so fully expected to find George Talboys waiting for him in the little sittingroom that the absence of that gentleman seemed to give the apartment a dreary look and Robert groaned aloud
This is lively he said A cold dinner and nobody to eat it with
The landlord of the Sun came himself to apologize for his ruined dishes
As fine a pair of ducks Mr Audley as ever you clapped eyes on but burnt up to a cinder along of being kep hot
Never mind the ducks Robert said impatiently wheres Mr Talboys
He aint been in sir since you went out together this morning
What cried Robert Why in heavens name what has the man done with himself
He walked to the window and looked out upon the broad white high road There was a wagon laden with trusses of hay crawling slowly past the lazy horses and the lazy wagoner drooping their heads with a weary stoop under the afternoons sunshine There was a flock of sheep straggling about the road with a dog running himself into a fever in the endeavor to keep them decently together There were some bricklayers just released from work—a tinker mending some kettles by the roadside there was a dogcart dashing down the road carrying the master of the Audley hounds to his seven oclock dinner there were a dozen common village sights and sounds that mixed themselves up into a cheerful bustle and confusion but there was no George Talboys
Of all the extraordinary things that ever happened to me in the whole course of my life said Mr Robert Audley this is the most miraculous
The landlord still in attendance opened his eyes as Robert made this remark What could there be extraordinary in the simple fact of a gentleman being late for his dinner
I shall go and look for him said Robert snatching up his hat and walking straight out of the house
But the question was where to look for him He certainly was not by the trout stream so it was no good going back there in search of him Robert was standing before the inn deliberating on what was best to be done when the landlord came out after him
I forgot to tell you Mr Audley as how your uncle called here five minutes after you was gone and left a message asking of you and the other gentleman to go down to dinner at the Court
Then I shouldnt wonder said Robert if George Talboys has gone down to the Court to call upon my uncle It isnt like him but its just possible that he has done it
It was six oclock when Robert knocked at the door of his uncles house He did not ask to see any of the family but inquired at once for his friend
Yes the servant told him Mr Talboys had been there at two oclock or a little after
And not since
No not since
Was the man sure that it was at two Mr Talboys called Robert asked
Yes perfectly sure He remembered the hour because it was the servants dinner hour and he had left the table to open the door to Mr Talboys
Why what can have become of the man thought Robert as he turned his back upon the Court From two till six—four good hours—and no signs of him
If any one had ventured to tell Mr Robert Audley that he could possibly feel a strong attachment to any creature breathing that cynical gentleman would have elevated his eyebrows in supreme contempt at the preposterous notion Yet here he was flurried and anxious bewildering his brain by all manner of conjectures about his missing friend and false to every attribute of his nature walking fast
I havent walked fast since I was at Eton he murmured as he hurried across one of Sir Michaels meadows in the direction of the village and the worst of it is that I havent the most remote idea where I am going
Here he crossed another meadow and then seating himself upon a stile rested his elbows upon his knees buried his face in his hands and set himself seriously to think the matter out
I have it he said after a few minutes thought the railway station He sprang over the stile and started off in the direction of the little red brick building
There was no train expected for another half hour and the clerk was taking his tea in an apartment on one side of the office on the door of which was inscribed in large white letters Private
But Mr Audley was too much occupied with the one idea of looking for his friend to pay any attention to this warning He strode at once to the door and rattling his cane against it brought the clerk out of his sanctum in a perspiration from hot tea and with his mouth full of bread and butter
Do you remember the gentleman that came down to Audley with me Smithers asked Robert
Well to tell you the real truth Mr Audley I cant say that I do You came by the four oclock if you remember and theres always a good many passengers by that train
You dont remember him then
Not to my knowledge sir
Thats provoking I want to know Smithers whether he has taken a ticket for London since two oclock today Hes a tall broadchested young fellow with a big brown beard You couldnt well mistake him
There was four or five gentlemen as took tickets for the 330 up said the clerk rather vaguely casting an anxious glance over his shoulder at his wife who looked by no means pleased at this interruption to the harmony of the teatable
Four or five gentlemen But did either of them answer to the description of my friend
Well I think one of them had a beard sir
A darkbrown beard
Well I dont know but it was brownishlike
Was he dressed in gray
I believe it was gray a great many gents wear gray He asked for the ticket sharp and shortlike and when hed got it walked straight out onto the platform whistling
Thats George said Robert Thank you Smithers I neednt trouble you any more Its as clear as daylight he muttered as he left the station hes got one of his gloomy fits on him and hes gone back to London without saying a word about it Ill leave Audley myself tomorrow morning and for tonight—why I may as well go down to the Court and make the acquaintance of my uncles young wife They dont dine till seven if I get back across the fields I shall be in time Bob—otherwise Robert Audley—this sort of thing will never do you are falling over head and ears in love with your aunt
CHAPTER XI
THE MARK UPON MY LADYS WRIST
Robert found Sir Michael and Lady Audley in the drawingroom My lady was sitting on a musicstool before the grand piano turning over the leaves of some new music She twirled upon the revolving seat making a rustling with her silk flounces as Mr Robert Audleys name was announced then leaving the piano she made her nephew a pretty mock ceremonious courtesy
Thank you so much for the sables she said holding out her little fingers all glittering and twinkling with the diamonds she wore upon them thank you for those beautiful sables How good it was of you to get them for me
Robert had almost forgotten the commission he had executed for Lady Audley during his Russian expedition His mind was so full of George Talboys that he only acknowledged my ladys gratitude by a bow
Would you believe it Sir Michael he said That foolish chum of mine has gone back to London leaving me in the lurch
Mr George Talboys returned to town exclaimed my lady lifting her eyebrows What a dreadful catastrophe said Alicia maliciously since Pythias in the person of Mr Robert Audley cannot exist for half an hour without Damon commonly known as George Talboys
Hes a very good fellow Robert said stoutly and to tell the honest truth Im rather uneasy about him
Uneasy about him My lady was quite anxious to know why Robert was uneasy about his friend
Ill tell you why Lady Audley answered the young barrister George had a bitter blow a year ago in the death of his wife He has never got over that trouble He takes life pretty quietly—almost as quietly as I do—but he often talks very strangely and I sometimes think that one day this grief will get the better of him and he will do something rash
Mr Robert Audley spoke vaguely but all three of his listeners knew that the something rash to which he alluded was that one deed for which there is no repentance
There was a brief pause during which Lady Audley arranged her yellow ringlets by the aid of the glass over the console table opposite to her
Dear me she said this is very strange I did not think men were capable of these deep and lasting affections I thought that one pretty face was as good as another pretty face to them and that when number one with blue eyes and fair hair died they had only to look out for number two with dark eyes and black hair by way of variety
George Talboys is not one of those men I firmly believe that his wifes death broke his heart
How sad murmured Lady Audley It seems almost cruel of Mrs Talboys to die and grieve her poor husband so much
Alicia was right she is childish thought Robert as he looked at his aunts pretty face
My lady was very charming at the dinnertable she professed the most bewitching incapacity for carving the pheasant set before her and called Robert to her assistance
I could carve a leg of mutton at Mr Dawsons she said laughing but a leg of mutton is so easy and then I used to stand up
Sir Michael watched the impression my lady made upon his nephew with a proud delight in her beauty and fascination
I am so glad to see my poor little woman in her usual good spirits once more he said She was very downhearted yesterday at a disappointment she met with in London
A disappointment
Yes Mr Audley a very cruel one answered my lady I received the other morning a telegraphic message from my dear old friend and schoolmistress telling me that she was dying and that if I wanted to see her again I must hasten to her immediately The telegraphic dispatch contained no address and of course from that very circumstance I imagined that she must be living in the house in which I left her three years ago Sir Michael and I hurried up to town immediately and drove straight to the old address The house was occupied by strange people who could give me no tidings of my friend It is in a retired place where there are very few tradespeople about Sir Michael made inquiries at the few shops there are but after taking an immense deal of trouble could discover nothing whatever likely to lead to the information we wanted I have no friends in London and had therefore no one to assist me except my dear generous husband who did all in his power but in vain to find my friends new residence
It was very foolish not to send the address in the telegraphic message said Robert
When people are dying it is not so easy to think of all these things murmured my lady looking reproachfully at Mr Audley with her soft blue eyes
In spite of Lady Audleys fascination and in spite of Roberts very unqualified admiration of her the barrister could not overcome a vague feeling of uneasiness on this quiet September evening
As he sat in the deep embrasure of a mullioned window talking to my lady his mind wandered away to shady Figtree Court and he thought of poor George Talboys smoking his solitary cigar in the room with the birds and canaries
I wish Id never felt any friendliness for the fellow he thought I feel like a man who has an only son whose life has gone wrong with him I wish to Heaven I could give him back his wife and send him down to Ventnor to finish his days in peace
Still my ladys pretty musical prattle ran on as merrily and continuously as the babble in some brook and still Roberts thoughts wandered in spite of himself to George Talboys
He thought of him hurrying down to Southampton by the mail train to see his boy He thought of him as he had often seen him spelling over the shipping advertisements in the Times looking for a vessel to take him back to Australia Once he thought of him with a shudder lying cold and stiff at the bottom of some shallow stream with his dead face turned toward the darkening sky
Lady Audley noticed his abstraction and asked him what he was thinking of
George Talboys he answered abruptly
She gave a little nervous shudder
Upon my word she said you make me quite uncomfortable by the way in which you talk of Mr Talboys One would think that something extraordinary had happened to him
God forbid But I cannot help feeling uneasy about him
Later in the evening Sir Michael asked for some music and my lady went to the piano Robert Audley strolled after her to the instrument to turn over the leaves of her music but she played from memory and he was spared the trouble his gallantry would have imposed upon him
He carried a pair of lighted candles to the piano and arranged them conveniently for the pretty musician She struck a few chords and then wandered into a pensive sonata of Beethovens It was one of the many paradoxes in her character that love of somber and melancholy melodies so opposite to her gay nature
Robert Audley lingered by her side and as he had no occupation in turning over the leaves of her music he amused himself by watching her jeweled white hands gliding softly over the keys with the lace sleeves dropping away from her graceful arched wrists He looked at her pretty fingers one by one this one glittering with a ruby heart that encircled by an emerald serpent and about them all a starry glitter of diamonds From the fingers his eyes wandered to the rounded wrists the broad flat gold bracelet upon her right wrist dropped over her hand as she executed a rapid passage She stopped abruptly to rearrange it but before she could do so Robert Audley noticed a bruise upon her delicate skin
You have hurt your arm Lady Audley he exclaimed She hastily replaced the bracelet
It is nothing she said I am unfortunate in having a skin which the slightest touch bruises
She went on playing but Sir Michael came across the room to look into the matter of the bruise upon his wifes pretty wrist
What is it Lucy he asked and how did it happen
How foolish you all are to trouble yourselves about anything so absurd said Lady Audley laughing I am rather absent in mind and amused myself a few days ago by tying a piece of ribbon around my arm so tightly that it left a bruise when I removed it
Hum thought Robert My lady tells little childish white lies the bruise is of a more recent date than a few days ago the skin has only just begun to change color
Sir Michael took the slender wrist in his strong hand
Hold the candle Robert he said and let us look at this poor little arm
It was not one bruise but four slender purple marks such as might have been made by the four fingers of a powerful hand that had grasped the delicate wrist a shade too roughly A narrow ribbon bound tightly might have left some such marks it is true and my lady protested once more that to the best of her recollection that must have been how they were made
Across one of the faint purple marks there was a darker tinge as if a ring worn on one of those strong and cruel fingers had been ground into the tender flesh
I am sure my lady must tell white lies thought Robert for I cant believe the story of the ribbon
He wished his relations goodnight and goodby at about half past ten oclock he should run up to London by the first train to look for George in Figtree Court
If I dont find him there I shall go to Southampton he said and if I dont find him there—
What then asked my lady
I shall think that something strange has happened
Robert Audley felt very lowspirited as he walked slowly home between the shadowy meadows more lowspirited still when he reentered the sitting room at Sun Inn where he and George had lounged together staring out of the window and smoking their cigars
To think he said meditatively that it is possible to care so much for a fellow But come what may Ill go up to town after him the first thing tomorrow morning and sooner than be balked in finding him Ill go to the very end of the world
With Mr Audleys lymphatic nature determination was so much the exception rather than the rule that when he did for once in his life resolve upon any course of action he had a certain dogged ironlike obstinacy that pushed him on to the fulfillment of his purpose
The lazy bent of his mind which prevented him from thinking of half a dozen things at a time and not thinking thoroughly of any one of them as is the manner of your more energetic people made him remarkably clearsighted upon any point to which he ever gave his serious attention
Indeed after all though solemn benchers laughed at him and rising barristers shrugged their shoulders under rustling silk gowns when people spoke of Robert Audley I doubt if had he ever taken the trouble to get a brief he might not have rather surprised the magnates who underrated his abilities
CHAPTER XII
STILL MISSING
The September sunlight sparkled upon the fountain in the Temple Gardens when Robert Audley returned to Figtree Court early the following morning
He found the canaries singing in the pretty little room in which George had slept but the apartment was in the same prim order in which the laundress had arranged it after the departure of the two young men—not a chair displaced or so much as the lid of a cigarbox lifted to bespeak the presence of George Talboys With a last lingering hope he searched upon the mantelpieces and tables of his rooms on the chance of finding some letter left by George
He may have slept here last night and started for Southampton early this morning he thought Mrs Maloney has been here very likely to make everything tidy after him
But as he sat looking lazily around the room now and then whistling to his delighted canaries a slipshod foot upon the staircase without bespoke the advent of that very Mrs Maloney who waited upon the two young men
No Mr Talboys had not come home she had looked in as early as six oclock that morning and found the chambers empty
Had anything happened to the poor dear gentleman she asked seeing Robert Audleys pale face
He turned around upon her quite savagely at this question
Happened to him What should happen to him They had only parted at two oclock the day before
Mrs Maloney would have related to him the history of a poor dear young enginedriver who had once lodged with her and who went out after eating a hearty dinner in the best of spirits to meet with his death from the concussion of an express and a luggage train but Robert put on his hat again and walked straight out of the house before the honest Irishwoman could begin her pitiful story
It was growing dusk when he reached Southampton He knew his way to the poor little terrace of houses in a full street leading down to the water where Georges fatherinlaw lived Little Georgey was playing at the open parlor window as the young man walked down the street
Perhaps it was this fact and the dull and silent aspect of the house which filled Robert Audleys mind with a vague conviction that the man he came to look for was not there The old man himself opened the door and the child peeped out of the parlor to see the strange gentleman
He was a handsome boy with his fathers brown eyes and dark waving hair and with some latent expression which was not his fathers and which pervaded his whole face so that although each feature of the child resembled the same feature in George Talboys the boy was not actually like him
Mr Maldon was delighted to see Robert Audley he remembered having had the pleasure of meeting him at Ventnor on the melancholy occasion of—He wiped his watery old eyes by way of conclusion to the sentence Would Mr Audley walk in Robert strode into the parlor The furniture was shabby and dingy and the place reeked with the smell of stale tobacco and brandyandwater The boys broken playthings and the old mans broken clay pipes and torn brandyandwaterstained newspapers were scattered upon the dirty carpet Little Georgey crept toward the visitor watching him furtively out of his big brown eyes Robert took the boy on his knee and gave him his watchchain to play with while he talked to the old man
I need scarcely ask the question that I come to ask he said I was in hopes I should have found your soninlaw here
What you knew that he was coming to Southampton
Knew that he was coming cried Robert brightening up He is here then
No he is not here now but he has been here
When
Late last night he came by the mail
And left again immediately
He stayed little better than an hour
Good Heaven said Robert what useless anxiety that man has given me What can be the meaning of all this
You knew nothing of his intention then
Of what intention
I mean of his determination to go to Australia
I know that it was always in his mind more or less but not more just now than usual
He sails tonight from Liverpool He came here at one oclock this morning to have a look at the boy he said before he left England perhaps never to return He told me he was sick of the world and that the rough life out there was the only thing to suit him He stayed an hour kissed the boy without awaking him and left Southampton by the mail that starts at a quarterpast two
What can be the meaning of all this said Robert What could be his motive for leaving England in this manner without a word to me his most intimate friend—without even a change of clothes for he has left everything at my chambers It is the most extraordinary proceeding
The old man looked very grave Do you know Mr Audley he said tapping his forehead significantly I sometimes fancy that Helens death had a strange effect upon poor George
Pshaw cried Robert contemptuously he felt the blow most cruelly but his brain was as sound as yours or mine
Perhaps he will write to you from Liverpool said Georges fatherinlaw He seemed anxious to smooth over any indignation that Robert might feel at his friends conduct
He ought said Robert gravely for weve been good friends from the days when we were together at Eton It isnt kind of George Talboys to treat me like this
But even at the moment that he uttered the reproach a strange thrill of remorse shot through his heart
It isnt like him he said it isnt like George Talboys
Little Georgey caught at the sound Thats my name he said and my papas name—the big gentlemans name
Yes little Georgey and your papa came last night and kissed you in your sleep Do you remember
No said the boy shaking his curly little head
You must have been very fast asleep little Georgey not to see poor papa
The child did not answer but presently fixing his eyes upon Roberts face he said abruptly
Wheres the pretty lady
What pretty lady
The pretty lady that used to come a long while ago
He means his poor mamma said the old man
No cried the boy resolutely not mamma Mamma was always crying I didnt like mamma—
Hush little Georgey
But I didnt and she didnt like me She was always crying I mean the pretty lady the lady that was dressed so fine and that gave me my gold watch
He means the wife of my old captain—an excellent creature who took a great fancy to Georgey and gave him some handsome presents
Wheres my gold watch Let me show the gentleman my gold watch cried Georgey
Its gone to be cleaned Georgey answered his grandfather
Its always going to be cleaned said the boy
The watch is perfectly safe I assure you Mr Audley murmured the old man apologetically and taking out a pawnbrokers duplicate he handed it to Robert
It was made out in the name of Captain Mortimer Watch set with diamonds £11
Im often hard pressed for a few shillings Mr Audley said the old man My soninlaw has been very liberal to me but there are others there are others Mr Audley—and—and—Ive not been treated well He wiped away some genuine tears as he said this in a pitiful crying voice Come Georgey its time the brave little man was in bed Come along with grandpa Excuse me for a quarter of an hour Mr Audley
The boy went very willingly At the door of the room the old man looked back at his visitor and said in the same peevish voice This is a poor place for me to pass my declining years in Mr Audley Ive made many sacrifices and I make them still but Ive not been treated well
Left alone in the dusky little sittingroom Robert Audley folded his arms and sat absently staring at the floor
George was gone then he might receive some letter of explanation perhaps when he returned to London but the chances were that he would never see his old friend again
And to think that I should care so much for the fellow he said lifting his eyebrows to the center of his forehead
The place smells of stale tobacco like a taproom he muttered presently there can be no harm in my smoking a cigar here
He took one from the case in his pocket there was a spark of fire in the little grate and he looked about for something to light his cigar with
A twisted piece of paper lay half burned upon the hearthrug he picked it up and unfolded it in order to get a better pipelight by folding it the other way of the paper As he did so absently glancing at the penciled writing upon the fragment of thin paper a portion of a name caught his eye—a portion of the name that was most in his thoughts He took the scrap of paper to the window and examined it by the declining light
It was part of a telegraphic dispatch The upper portion had been burnt away but the more important part the greater part of the message itself remained
—alboys came to last night and left by the mail for London on his way to Liverpool whence he was to sail for Sydney
The date and the name and address of the sender of the message had been burnt with the heading Robert Audleys face blanched to a deathly whiteness He carefully folded the scrap of paper and placed it between the leaves of his pocketbook
My God he said what is the meaning of this I shall go to Liverpool tonight and make inquiries there
CHAPTER XIII
TROUBLED DREAMS
Robert Audley left Southampton by the mail and let himself into his chambers just as the dawn was creeping cold and gray into the solitary rooms and the canaries were beginning to rustle their feathers feebly in the early morning
There were several letters in the box behind the door but there was none from George Talboys
The young barrister was worn out by a long day spent in hurrying from place to place The usual lazy monotony of his life had been broken as it had never been broken before in eightandtwenty tranquil easygoing years His mind was beginning to grow confused upon the point of time It seemed to him months since he had lost sight of George Talboys It was so difficult to believe that it was less than fortyeight hours ago that the young man had left him asleep under the willows by the trout stream
His eyes were painfully weary for want of sleep He searched about the room for some time looking in all sorts of impossible places for a letter from George Talboys and then threw himself dressed upon his friends bed in the room with the canaries and geraniums
I shall wait for tomorrow mornings post he said and if that brings no letter from George I shall start for Liverpool without a moments delay
He was thoroughly exhausted and fell into a heavy sleep—a sleep which was profound without being in any way refreshing for he was tormented all the time by disagreeable dreams—dreams which were painful not from any horror in themselves but from a vague and wearying sense of their confusion and absurdity
At one time he was pursuing strange people and entering strange houses in the endeavor to unravel the mystery of the telegraphic dispatch at another time he was in the churchyard at Ventnor gazing at the headstone George had ordered for the grave of his dead wife Once in the long rambling mystery of these dreams he went to the grave and found this headstone gone and on remonstrating with the stonemason was told that the man had a reason for removing the inscription a reason that Robert would some day learn
In another dream he saw the grave of Helen Talboys open and while he waited with the cold horror lifting up his hair to see the dead woman rise and stand before him with her stiff charnelhouse drapery clinging about her rigid limbs his uncles wife tripped gaily out of the open grave dressed in the crimson velvet robes in which the artist had painted her and with her ringlets flashing like red gold in the unearthly light that shone about her
But into all these dreams the places he had last been in and the people with whom he had last been concerned were dimly interwoven—sometimes his uncle sometimes Alicia oftenest of all my lady the trout stream in Essex the limewalk at the Court Once he was walking in the black shadows of this long avenue with Lady Audley hanging on his arm when suddenly they heard a great knocking in the distance and his uncles wife wound her slender arms around him crying out that it was the day of judgment and that all wicked secrets must now be told Looking at her as she shrieked this in his ear he saw that her face had grown ghastly white and that her beautiful golden ringlets were changing into serpents and slowly creeping down her fair neck
He started from his dream to find that there was some one really knocking at the outer door of his chambers
It was a dreary wet morning the rain beating against the windows and the canaries twittering dismally to each other—complaining perhaps of the bad weather Robert could not tell how long the person had been knocking He had mixed the sound with his dreams and when he woke he was only half conscious of other things
Its that stupid Mrs Maloney I dare say he muttered She may knock again for all I care Why cant she use her duplicate key instead of dragging a man out of bed when hes half dead with fatigue
The person whoever it was did knock again and then desisted apparently tired out but about a minute afterward a key turned in the door
She had her key with her all the time then said Robert Im very glad I didnt get up
The door between the sittingroom and bedroom was half open and he could see the laundress bustling about dusting the furniture and rearranging things that had never been disarranged
Is that you Mrs Maloney he asked
Yes sir
Then why in goodness name did you make that row at the door when you had a key with you all the time
A row at the door sir
Yes that infernal knocking
Sure I never knocked Mister Audley but walked straight in with my kay—
Then who did knock Theres been some one kicking up a row at that door for a quarter of an hour I should think you must have met him going downstairs
But Im rather late this morning sir for Ive been in Mr Martins rooms first and Ive come straight from the floor above
Then you didnt see any one at the door or on the stairs
Not a mortal soul sir
Was ever anything so provoking said Robert To think that I should have let this person go away without ascertaining who he was or what he wanted How do I know that it was not some one with a message or a letter from George Talboys
Sure if it was sir hell come again said Mrs Maloney soothingly
Yes of course if it was anything of consequence hell come again muttered Robert The fact was that from the moment of finding the telegraphic message at Southampton all hope of hearing of George had faded out of his mind He felt that there was some mystery involved in the disappearance of his friend—some treachery toward himself or toward George What if the young mans greedy old fatherinlaw had tried to separate them on account of the monetary trust lodged in Robert Audleys hands Or what if since even in these civilized days all kinds of unsuspected horrors are constantly committed—what if the old man had decoyed George down to Southampton and made away with him in order to get possession of that £20000 left in Roberts custody for little Georgeys use
But neither of these suppositions explained the telegraphic message and it was the telegraphic message which had filled Roberts mind with a vague sense of alarm The postman brought no letter from George Talboys and the person who had knocked at the door of the chambers did not return between seven and nine oclock so Robert Audley left Figtree Court once more in search of his friend This time he told the cabman to drive to the Euston Station and in twenty minutes he was on the platform making inquiries about the trains
The Liverpool express had started half an hour before he reached the station and he had to wait an hour and a quarter for a slow train to take him to his destination
Robert Audley chafed cruelly at this delay Half a dozen vessels might sail for Australia while he roamed up and down the long platform tumbling over trucks and porters and swearing at his illluck
He bought the Times newspaper and looked instinctively at the second column with a morbid interest in the advertisements of people missing—sons brothers and husbands who had left their homes never to return or to be heard of more
There was one advertisement of a young man found drowned somewhere on the Lambeth shore
What if that should have been Georges fate No the telegraphic message involved his fatherinlaw in the fact of his disappearance and every speculation about him must start from that one point
It was eight oclock in the evening when Robert got into Liverpool too late for anything except to make inquiries as to what vessel had sailed within the last two days for the antipodes
An emigrant ship had sailed at four oclock that afternoon—the Victoria Regia bound for Melbourne
The result of his inquiries amounted to this—If he wanted to find out who had sailed in the Victoria Regia he must wait till the next morning and apply for information of that vessel
Robert Audley was at the office at nine oclock the next morning and was the first person after the clerks who entered it
He met with every civility from the clerk to whom he applied The young man referred to his books and running his pen down the list of passengers who had sailed in the Victoria Regia told Robert that there was no one among them of the name of Talboys He pushed his inquiries further Had any of the passengers entered their names within a short time of the vessels sailing
One of the other clerks looked up from his desk as Robert asked this question Yes he said he remembered a young mans coming into the office at halfpast three oclock in the afternoon and paying his passage money His name was the last on the list—Thomas Brown
Robert Audley shrugged his shoulders There could have been no possible reason for Georges taking a feigned name He asked the clerk who had last spoken if he could remember the appearance of this Mr Thomas Brown
No the office was crowded at the time people were running in and out and he had not taken any particular notice of this last passenger
Robert thanked them for their civility and wished them goodmorning As he was leaving the office one of the young men called after him
Oh bytheby sir he said I remember one thing about this Mr Thomas Brown—his arm was in a sling
There was nothing more for Robert Audley to do but to return to town He reentered his chambers at six oclock that evening thoroughly worn out once more with his useless search
Mrs Maloney brought him his dinner and a pint of wine from a tavern in the Strand The evening was raw and chilly and the laundress had lighted a good fire in the sittingroom grate
After eating about half a muttonchop Robert sat with his wine untasted upon the table before him smoking cigars and staring into the blaze
George Talboys never sailed for Australia he said after long and painful reflection If he is alive he is still in England and if he is dead his body is hidden in some corner of England
He sat for hours smoking and thinking—trouble and gloomy thoughts leaving a dark shadow upon his moody face which neither the brilliant light of the gas nor the red blaze of the fire could dispel
Very late in the evening he rose from his chair pushed away the table wheeled his desk over to the fireplace took out a sheet of foolscap and dipped a pen in the ink
But after doing this he paused leaned his forehead upon his hand and once more relapsed into thought
I shall draw up a record of all that has occurred between our going down to Essex and tonight beginning at the very beginning
He drew up this record in short detached sentences which he numbered as he wrote
It ran thus
Journal of Facts connected with the Disappearance of George Talboys inclusive of Facts which have no apparent Relation to that Circumstance
In spite of the troubled state of his mind he was rather inclined to be proud of the official appearance of this heading He sat for some time looking at it with affection and with the feather of his pen in his mouth Upon my word he said I begin to think that I ought to have pursued my profession instead of dawdling my life away as I have done
He smoked half a cigar before he had got his thoughts in proper train and then began to write
1 I write to Alicia proposing to take George down to the Court
2 Alicia writes objecting to the visit on the part of Lady Audley
3 We go to Essex in spite of that objection I see my lady My lady refuses to be introduced to George on that particular evening on the score of fatigue
4 Sir Michael invites George and me to dinner for the following evening
5 My lady receives a telegraphic dispatch the next morning which summons her to London
6 Alicia shows me a letter from my lady in which she requests to be told when I and my friend Mr Talboys mean to leave Essex To this letter is subjoined a postscript reiterating the above request
7 We call at the Court and ask to see the house My ladys apartments are locked
8 We get at the aforesaid apartments by means of a secret passage the existence of which is unknown to my lady In one of the rooms we find her portrait
9 George is frightened at the storm His conduct is exceedingly strange for the rest of the evening
10 George quite himself again the following morning I propose leaving Audley Court immediately he prefers remaining till the evening
11 We go out fishing George leaves me to go to the Court
12 The last positive information I can obtain of him in Essex is at the Court where the servant says he thinks Mr Talboys told him he would go and look for my lady in the grounds
13 I receive information about him at the station which may or may not be correct
14 I hear of him positively once more at Southampton where according to his fatherinlaw he had been for an hour on the previous night
15 The telegraphic message
When Robert Audley had completed this brief record which he drew up with great deliberation and with frequent pauses for reflection alterations and erasures he sat for a long time contemplating the written page
At last he read it carefully over stopping at some of the numbered paragraphs and marking some of them with a pencil cross then he folded the sheet of foolscap went over to a cabinet on the opposite side of the room unlocked it and placed the paper in that very pigeonhole into which he had thrust Alicias letter—the pigeonhole marked Important
Having done this he returned to his easychair by the fire pushed away his desk and lighted a cigar Its as dark as midnight from first to last he said and the clew to the mystery must be found either at Southampton or in Essex Be it how it may my mind is made up I shall first go to Audley Court and look for George Talboys in a narrow radius
CHAPTER XIV
PHOEBES SUITOR
Mr George Talboys—Any person who has met this gentleman since the 7th inst or who possesses any information respecting him subsequent to that date will be liberally rewarded on communicating with AZ 14 Chancery Lane
Sir Michael Audley read the above advertisement in the second column of the Times as he sat at breakfast with my lady and Alicia two or three days after Roberts return to town
Roberts friend has not yet been heard of then said the baronet after reading the advertisement to his wife and daughter
As for that replied my lady I cannot help wondering that any one can be silly enough to advertise for him The young man was evidently of a restless roving disposition—a sort of Bamfyld Moore Carew of modern life whom no attraction could ever keep in one spot
Though the advertisement appeared three successive times the party at the Court attached very little importance to Mr Talboys disappearance and after this one occasion his name was never again mentioned by either Sir Michael my lady or Alicia
Alicia Audley and her pretty stepmother were by no means any better friends after that quiet evening on which the young barrister had dined at the Court
She is a vain frivolous heartless little coquette said Alicia addressing herself to her Newfoundland dog Caesar who was the sole recipient of the young ladys confidences she is a practiced and consummate flirt Caesar and not contented with setting her yellow ringlets and her silly giggle at half the men in Essex she must needs make that stupid cousin of mine dance attendance upon her I havent common patience with her
In proof of which last assertion Miss Alice Audley treated her stepmother with such very palpable impertinence that Sir Michael felt himself called upon to remonstrate with his only daughter
The poor little woman is very sensitive you know Alicia the baronet said gravely and she feels your conduct most acutely
I dont believe it a bit papa answered Alicia stoutly You think her sensitive because she has soft little white hands and big blue eyes with long lashes and all manner of affected fantastical ways which you stupid men call fascinating Sensitive Why Ive seen her do cruel things with those slender white fingers and laugh at the pain she inflicted Im very sorry papa she added softened a little by her fathers look of distress though she has come between us and robbed poor Alicia of the love of that dear generous heart I wish I could like her for your sake but I cant I cant and no more can Caesar She came up to him once with her red lips apart and her little white teeth glistening between them and stroked his great head with her soft hand but if I had not had hold of his collar he would have flown at her throat and strangled her She may bewitch every man in Essex but shed never make friends with my dog
Your dog shall be shot answered Sir Michael angrily if his vicious temper ever endangers Lucy
The Newfoundland rolled his eyes slowly round in the direction of the speaker as if he understood every word that had been said Lady Audley happened to enter the room at this very moment and the animal cowered down by the side of his mistress with a suppressed growl There was something in the manner of the dog which was if anything more indicative of terror than of fury incredible as it appears that Caesar should be frightened by so fragile a creature as Lucy Audley
Amicable as was my ladys nature she could not live long at the Court without discovering Alicias dislike to her She never alluded to it but once then shrugging her graceful white shoulders she said with a sigh
It seems very hard that you cannot love me Alicia for I have never been used to make enemies but since it seems that it must be so I cannot help it If we cannot be friends let us be neutral You wont try to injure me
Injure you exclaimed Alicia how should I injure you
Youll not try to deprive me of your fathers affection
I may not be as amiable as you are my lady and I may not have the same sweet smiles and pretty words for every stranger I meet but I am not capable of a contemptible meanness and even if I were I think you are so secure of my fathers love that nothing but your own act will ever deprive you of it
What a severe creature you are Alicia said my lady making a little grimace I suppose you mean to infer by all that that Im deceitful Why I cant help smiling at people and speaking prettily to them I know Im no better than the rest of the world but I cant help it if Im pleasanter Its constitutional
Alicia having thus entirely shut the door upon all intimacy between Lady Audley and herself and Sir Michael being chiefly occupied in agricultural pursuits and manly sports which kept him away from home it was perhaps natural that my lady being of an eminently social disposition should find herself thrown a good deal upon her whiteeyelashed maid for society
Phoebe Marks was exactly the sort of a girl who is generally promoted from the post of ladys maid to that of companion She had just sufficient education to enable her to understand her mistress when Lucy chose to allow herself to run riot in a species of intellectual tarantella in which her tongue went mad to the sound of its own rattle as the Spanish dancer at the noise of his castanets Phoebe knew enough of the French language to be able to dip into the yellowpapercovered novels which my lady ordered from the Burlington Arcade and to discourse with her mistress upon the questionable subjects of these romances The likeness which the ladys maid bore to Lucy Audley was perhaps a point of sympathy between the two women It was not to be called a striking likeness a stranger might have seen them both together and yet have failed to remark it But there were certain dim and shadowy lights in which meeting Phoebe Marks gliding softly through the dark oak passages of the Court or under the shrouded avenues in the garden you might have easily mistaken her for my lady
Sharp October winds were sweeping the leaves from the limes in the long avenue and driving them in withered heaps with a ghostly rustling noise along the dry gravel walks The old well must have been half choked up with the leaves that drifted about it and whirled in eddying circles into its black broken mouth On the still bosom of the fishpond the same withered leaves slowly rotted away mixing themselves with the tangled weeds that discolored the surface of the water All the gardeners Sir Michael could employ could not keep the impress of autumns destroying hand from the grounds about the Court
How I hate this desolate month my lady said as she walked about the garden shivering beneath her sable mantle Every thing dropping to ruin and decay and the cold flicker of the sun lighting up the ugliness of the earth as the glare of gaslamps lights the wrinkles of an old woman Shall I ever grow old Phoebe Will my hair ever drop off as the leaves are falling from those trees and leave me wan and bare like them What is to become of me when I grow old
She shivered at the thought of this more than she had done at the cold wintry breeze and muffling herself closely in her fur walked so fast that her maid had some difficulty in keeping up with her
Do you remember Phoebe she said presently relaxing her pace do you remember that French story we read—the story of a beautiful woman who had committed some crime—I forget what—in the zenith of her power and loveliness when all Paris drank to her every night and when the people ran away from the carriage of the king to flock about hers and get a peep at her face Do you remember how she kept the secret of what she had done for nearly half a century spending her old age in her family chateau beloved and honored by all the province as an uncanonized saint and benefactress to the poor and how when her hair was white and her eyes almost blind with age the secret was revealed through one of those strange accidents by which such secrets always are revealed in romances and she was tried found guilty and condemned to be burned alive The king who had worn her colors was dead and gone the court of which she had been a star had passed away powerful functionaries and great magistrates who might perhaps have helped her were moldering in the graves brave young cavaliers who would have died for her had fallen upon distant battlefields she had lived to see the age to which she had belonged fade like a dream and she went to the stake followed by only a few ignorant country people who forgot all her bounties and hooted at her for a wicked sorceress
I dont care for such dismal stories my lady said Phoebe Marks with a shudder One has no need to read books to give one the horrors in this dull place
Lady Audley shrugged her shoulders and laughed at her maids candor
It is a dull place Phoebe she said though it doesnt do to say so to my dear old husband Though I am the wife of one of the most influential men in the county I dont know that I wasnt nearly as well off at Mr Dawsons and yet its something to wear sables that cost sixty guineas and have a thousand pounds spent on the decoration of ones apartments
Treated as a companion by her mistress in the receipt of the most liberal wages and with perquisites such as perhaps ladys maid never had before it was strange that Phoebe Marks should wish to leave her situation but it was not the less a fact that she was anxious to exchange all the advantages of Audley Court for the very unpromising prospect which awaited her as the wife of her Cousin Luke
The young man had contrived in some manner to associate himself with the improved fortunes of his sweetheart He had never allowed Phoebe any peace till she had obtained for him by the aid of my ladys interference a situation as undergroom of the Court
He never rode out with either Alicia or Sir Michael but on one of the few occasions upon which my lady mounted the pretty little gray thoroughbred reserved for her use he contrived to attend her in her ride He saw enough in the very first half hour they were out to discover that graceful as Lucy Audley might look in her long blue cloth habit she was a timid horsewoman and utterly unable to manage the animal she rode
Lady Audley remonstrated with her maid upon her folly in wishing to marry the uncouth groom
The two women were seated together over the fire in my ladys dressingroom the gray sky closing in upon the October afternoon and the black tracery of ivy darkening the casement windows
You surely are not in love with the awkward ugly creature are you Phoebe asked my lady sharply
The girl was sitting on a low stool at her mistress feet She did not answer my ladys question immediately but sat for some time looking vacantly into the red abyss in the hollow fire
Presently she said rather as if she had been thinking aloud than answering Lucys question
I dont think I can love him We have been together from children and I promised when I was little better than fifteen that Id be his wife I darent break that promise now There have been times when Ive made up the very sentence I meant to say to him telling him that I couldnt keep my faith with him but the words have died upon my lips and Ive sat looking at him with a choking sensation in my throat that wouldnt let me speak I darent refuse to marry him Ive often watched and watched him as he has sat slicing away at a hedgestake with his great claspknife till I have thought that it is just such men as he who have decoyed their sweethearts into lonely places and murdered them for being false to their word When he was a boy he was always violent and revengeful I saw him once take up that very knife in a quarrel with his mother I tell you my lady I must marry him
You silly girl you shall do nothing of the kind answered Lucy You think hell murder you do you Do you think then if murder is in him you would be any safer as his wife If you thwarted him or made him jealous if he wanted to marry another woman or to get hold of some poor pitiful bit of money of yours couldnt he murder you then I tell you you shant marry him Phoebe In the first place I hate the man and in the next place I cant afford to part with you Well give him a few pounds and send him about his business
Phoebe Marks caught my ladys hand in hers and clasped them convulsively
My lady—my good kind mistress she cried vehemently dont try to thwart me in this—dont ask me to thwart him I tell you I must marry him You dont know what he is It will be my ruin and the ruin of others if I break my word I must marry him
Very well then Phoebe answered her mistress I cant oppose you There must be some secret at the bottom of all this There is my lady said the girl with her face turned away from Lucy
I shall be very sorry to lose you but I have promised to stand your friend in all things What does your cousin mean to do for a living when you are married
He would like to take a public house
Then he shall take a public house and the sooner he drinks himself to death the better Sir Michael dines at a bachelors party at Major Margraves this evening and my stepdaughter is away with her friends at the Grange You can bring your cousin into the drawingroom after dinner and Ill tell him what I mean to do for him
You are very good my lady Phoebe answered with a sigh
Lady Audley sat in the glow of firelight and wax candles in the luxurious drawingroom the amber damask cushions of the sofa contrasting with her dark violet velvet dress and her rippling hair falling about her neck in a golden haze Everywhere around her were the evidences of wealth and splendor while in strange contrast to all this and to her own beauty the awkward groom stood rubbing his bullet head as my lady explained to him what she intended to do for her confidential maid Lucys promises were very liberal and she had expected that uncouth as the man was he would in his own rough manner have expressed his gratitude
To her surprise he stood staring at the floor without uttering a word in answer to her offer Phoebe was standing close to his elbow and seemed distressed at the mans rudeness
Tell my lady how thankful you are Luke she said
But Im not so over and above thankful answered her lover savagely Fifty pound aint much to start a public Youll make it a hundred my lady
I shall do nothing of the kind said Lady Audley her clear blue eyes flashing with indignation and I wonder at your impertinence in asking it
Oh yes you will though answered Luke with quiet insolence that had a hidden meaning Youll make it a hundred my lady
Lady Audley rose from her seat looked the man steadfastly in the face till his determined gaze sunk under hers then walking straight up to her maid she said in a high piercing voice peculiar to her in moments of intense agitation
Phoebe Marks you have told this man
The girl fell on her knees at my ladys feet
Oh forgive me forgive me she cried He forced it from me or I would never never have told
CHAPTER XV
ON THE WATCH
Upon a lowering morning late in November with the yellow fog low upon the flat meadows and the blinded cattle groping their way through the dim obscurity and blundering stupidly against black and leafless hedges or stumbling into ditches undistinguishable in the hazy atmosphere with the village church looming brown and dingy through the uncertain light with every winding path and cottage door every gable end and gray old chimney every village child and straggling cur seeming strange and weird of aspect in the semidarkness Phoebe Marks and her Cousin Luke made their way through the churchyard of Audley and presented themselves before a shivering curate whose surplice hung in damp folds soddened by the morning mist and whose temper was not improved by his having waited five minutes for the bride and bridegroom
Luke Marks dressed in his illfitting Sunday clothes looked by no means handsomer than in his everyday apparel but Phoebe arrayed in a rustling silk of delicate gray that had been worn about half a dozen times by her mistress looked as the few spectators of the ceremony remarked quite the lady
A very dim and shadowy lady vague of outline and faint of coloring with eyes hair complexion and dress all melting into such pale and uncertain shades that in the obscure light of the foggy November morning a superstitious stranger might have mistaken the bride for the ghost of some other bride dead and buried in the vault below the church
Mr Luke Marks the hero of the occasion thought very little of all this He had secured the wife of his choice and the object of his lifelong ambition—a public house My lady had provided the seventyfive pounds necessary for the purchase of the goodwill and fixtures with the stock of ales and spirits of a small inn in the center of a lonely little village perched on the summit of a hill and called Mount Stanning It was not a very pretty house to look at it had something of a tumbledown weatherbeaten appearance standing as it did upon high ground sheltered only by four or five bare and overgrown poplars that had shot up too rapidly for their strength and had a blighted forlorn look in consequence The wind had had its own way with the Castle Inn and had sometimes made cruel use of its power It was the wind that battered and bent the low thatched roofs of outhouses and stables till they hung over and lurched forward as a slouched hat hangs over the low forehead of some village ruffian it was the wind that shook and rattled the wooden shutters before the narrow casements till they hung broken and dilapidated upon their rusty hinges it was the wind that overthrew the pigeon house and broke the vane that had been imprudently set up to tell the movements of its mightiness it was the wind that made light of any little bit of wooden trelliswork or creeping plant or tiny balcony or any modest decoration whatsoever and tore and scattered it in its scornful fury it was the wind that left mossy secretions on the discolored surface of the plaster walls it was the wind in short that shattered and ruined and rent and trampled upon the tottering pile of buildings and then flew shrieking off to riot and glory in its destroying strength The dispirited proprietor grew tired of his long struggle with this mighty enemy so the wind was left to work its own will and the Castle Inn fell slowly to decay But for all that it suffered without it was not the less prosperous within doors Sturdy drovers stopped to drink at the little bar welltodo farmers spent their evenings and talked politics in the low wainscoted parlor while their horses munched some suspicious mixture of moldy hay and tolerable beans in the tumbledown stables Sometimes even the members of the Audley hunt stopped to drink and bait their horses at the Castle Inn while on one grand and nevertobeforgotten occasion a dinner had been ordered by the master of the hounds for some thirty gentlemen and the proprietor driven nearly mad by the importance of the demand
So Luke Marks who was by no means troubled with an eye for the beautiful thought himself very fortunate in becoming the landlord of the Castle Inn Mount Stanning
A chaisecart was waiting in the fog to convey the bride and bridegroom to their new home and a few of the villagers who had known Phoebe from a child were lingering around the churchyard gate to bid her goodby Her pale eyes were still paler from the tears she had shed and the red rims which surrounded them The bridegroom was annoyed at this exhibition of emotion
What are you blubbering for lass he said fiercely If you didnt want to marry me you should have told me so I aint going to murder you am I
The ladys maid shivered as he spoke to her and dragged her little silk mantle closely around her
Youre cold in all this here finery said Luke staring at her costly dress with no expression of goodwill Why cant women dress according to their station You wont have no silk gownds out of my pocket I can tell you
He lifted the shivering girl into the chaise wrapped a rough greatcoat about her and drove off through the yellow fog followed by a feeble cheer from two or three urchins clustered around the gate
A new maid was brought from London to replace Phoebe Marks about the person of my lady—a very showy damsel who wore a black satin gown and rosecolored ribbons in her cap and complained bitterly of the dullness of Audley Court
But Christmas brought visitors to the rambling old mansion A country squire and his fat wife occupied the tapestried chamber merry girls scampered up and down the long passages and young men stared out of the latticed windows watching for southerly winds and cloudy skies there was not an empty stall in the roomy old stables an extempore forge had been set up in the yard for the shoeing of hunters yelping dogs made the place noisy with their perpetual clamor strange servants herded together on the garret story and every little casement hidden away under some pointed gable and every dormer window in the quaint old roof glimmered upon the winters night with its separate taper till coming suddenly upon Audley Court the benighted stranger misled by the light and noise and bustle of the place might have easily fallen into young Marlowes error and have mistaken the hospitable mansion for a good oldfashioned inn such as have faded from this earth since the last mail coach and prancing tits took their last melancholy journey to the knackers yard
Among other visitors Mr Robert Audley came down to Essex for the hunting season with half a dozen French novels a case of cigars and three pounds of Turkish tobacco in his portmanteau
The honest young country squires who talked all breakfast time of Flying Dutchman fillies and Voltigeur colts of glorious runs of seven hours hard riding over three counties and a midnight homeward ride of thirty miles upon their covert hacks and who ran away from the wellspread table with their mouths full of cold sirloin to look at that off pastern or that sprained forearm or the colt that had just come back from the veterinary surgeons set down Robert Audley dawdling over a slice of bread and marmalade as a person utterly unworthy of any remark whatsoever
The young barrister had brought a couple of dogs with him and the country gentleman who gave fifty pounds for a pointer and traveled a couple of hundred miles to look at a leash of setters before he struck a bargain laughed aloud at the two miserable curs one of which had followed Robert Audley through Chancery Lane and half the length of Holborn while his companion had been taken by the barrister vi et armis from a costermonger who was illusing him And as Robert furthermore insisted on having these two deplorable animals under his easychair in the drawingroom much to the annoyance of my lady who as we know hated all dogs the visitors at Audley Court looked upon the baronets nephew as an inoffensive species of maniac
During other visits to the Court Robert Audley had made a feeble show of joining in the sports of the merry assembly He had jogged across half a dozen ploughed fields on a quiet gray pony of Sir Michaels and drawing up breathless and panting at door of some farmhouse had expressed his intention of following the hounds no further that morning He had even gone so far as to put on with great labor a pair of skates with a view to taking a turn on the frozen surface of the fishpond and had fallen ignominously at the first attempt lying placidly extended on the flat of his back until such time as the bystanders should think fit to pick him up He had occupied the back seat in a dogcart during a pleasant morning drive vehemently protesting against being taken up hill and requiring the vehicle to be stopped every ten minutes in order to readjust the cushions But this year he showed no inclination for any of these outdoor amusements and he spent his time entirely in lounging in the drawingroom and making himself agreeable after his own lazy fashion to my lady and Alicia
Lady Audley received her nephews attentions in that graceful halfchildish fashion which her admirers found so charming but Alicia was indignant at the change in her cousins conduct
You were always a poor spiritless fellow Bob said the young lady contemptuously as she bounced into the drawingroom in her ridinghabit after a hunting breakfast from which Robert had absented himself preferring a cup of tea in my ladys boudoir but this year I dont know what has come to you You are good for nothing but to hold a skein of silk or read Tennyson to Lady Audley
My dear hasty impetuous Alicia dont be violent said the young man imploringly A conclusion isnt a fivebarred gate and you neednt give your judgment its head as you give your mare Atalanta hers when youre flying across country at the heels of an unfortunate fox Lady Audley interests me and my uncles county friends do not Is that a sufficient answer Alicia
Miss Audley gave her head a little scornful toss
Its as good an answer as I shall ever get from you Bob she said impatiently but pray amuse yourself in your own way loll in an easychair all day with those two absurd dogs asleep on your knees spoil my ladys windowcurtains with your cigars and annoy everybody in the house with your stupid inanimate countenance
Mr Robert Audley opened his handsome gray eyes to their widest extent at this tirade and looked helplessly at Miss Alicia
The young lady was walking up and down the room slashing the skirt of her habit with her ridingwhip Her eyes sparkled with an angry flash and a crimson glow burned under her clear brown skin The young barrister knew very well by these diagnostics that his cousin was in a passion
Yes she repeated your stupid inanimate countenance Do you know Robert Audley that with all your mock amiability you are brimful of conceit and superciliousness You look down upon our amusements you lift up your eyebrows and shrug your shoulders and throw yourself back in your chair and wash your hands of us and our pleasures You are a selfish coldhearted Sybarite—
Alicia Good—gracious—me
The morning paper dropped out of his hands and he sat feebly staring at his assailant
Yes selfish Robert Audley You take home halfstarved dogs because you like halfstarved dogs You stoop down and pat the head of every goodfornothing cur in the village street because you like goodfornothing curs You notice little children and give them halfpence because it amuses you to do so But you lift your eyebrows a quarter of a yard when poor Sir Harry Towers tells a stupid story and stare the poor fellow out of countenance with your lazy insolence As to your amiability you would let a man hit you and say Thank you for the blow rather than take the trouble to hit him again but you wouldnt go half a mile out of your way to serve your dearest friend Sir Harry is worth twenty of you though he did write to ask if my mair Atalanta had recovered from the sprain He cant spell or lift his eyebrows to the roots of his hair but he would go through fire and water for the girl he loves while you—
At this very point when Robert was most prepared to encounter his cousins violence and when Miss Alicia seemed about to make her strongest attack the young lady broke down altogether and burst into tears
Robert sprang from his easychair upsetting his dogs on the carpet
Alicia my darling what is it
Its—its—its the feather of my hat that got into my eyes sobbed his cousin and before he could investigate the truth of this assertion Alicia had darted out of the room
Robert Audley was preparing to follow her when he heard her voice in the courtyard below amidst the tramping of horses and the clamor of visitors dogs and grooms Sir Harry Towers the most aristocratic young sportsman in the neighborhood had just taken her little foot in his hand as she sprung into her saddle
Good Heaven exclaimed Robert as he watched the merry party of equestrians until they disappeared under the archway What does all this mean How charmingly she sits her horse What a pretty figure too and a fine candid brown rosy face but to fly at a fellow like that without the least provocation Thats the consequence of letting a girl follow the hounds She learns to look at everything in life as she does at six feet of timber or a sunk fence she goes through the world as she goes across country—straight ahead and over everything Such a nice girl as she might have been too if shed been brought up in Figtree Court If ever I marry and have daughters which remote contingency may Heaven forefend they shall be educated in Paper Buildings take their sole exercise in the Temple Gardens and they shall never go beyond the gates till they are marriageable when I will walk them straight across Fleet street to St Dunstans church and deliver them into the hands of their husbands
With such reflections as these did Mr Robert Audley beguile the time until my lady reentered the drawingroom fresh and radiant in her elegant morning costume her yellow curls glistening with the perfumed waters in which she had bathed and her velvetcovered sketchbook in her arms She planted a little easel upon a table by the window seated herself before it and began to mix the colors upon her palette Robert watching her out of his halfclosed eyes
You are sure my cigar does not annoy you Lady Audley
Oh no indeed I am quite used to the smell of tobacco Mr Dawson the surgeon smoked all the evening when I lived in his house
Dawson is a good fellow isnt he Robert asked carelessly
My lady burst into her pretty gushing laugh
The dearest of good creatures she said He paid me fiveandtwenty pounds a year—only fancy fiveandtwenty pounds That made six pounds five a quarter How well I remember receiving the money—six dingy old sovereigns and a little heap of untidy dirty silver that came straight from the till in the surgery And then how glad I was to get it While now—I cant help laughing while I think of it—these colors I am using cost a guinea each at Winsor Newtons—the carmine and ultramarine thirty shillings I gave Mrs Dawson one of my silk dresses the other day and the poor thing kissed me and the surgeon carried the bundle home under his cloak
My lady laughed long and joyously at the thought Her colors were mixed she was copying a watercolored sketch of an impossibly Turneresque atmosphere The sketch was nearly finished and she had only to put in some critical little touches with the most delicate of her sable pencils She prepared herself daintily for the work looking sideways at the painting
All this time Mr Robert Audleys eyes were fixed intently on her pretty face
It is a change he said after so long a pause that my lady might have forgotten what she had been talking of it is a change Some women would do a great deal to accomplish such a change as that
Lady Audleys clear blue eyes dilated as she fixed them suddenly on the young barrister The wintry sunlight gleaming full upon her face from a side window lit up the azure of those beautiful eyes till their color seemed to flicker and tremble betwixt blue and green as the opal tints of the sea change upon a summers day The small brush fell from her hand and blotted out the peasants face under a widening circle of crimson lake
Robert Audley was tenderly coaxing the crumbled leaf of his cigar with cautious fingers
My friend at the corner of Chancery Lane has not given me such good Manillas as usual he murmured If ever you smoke my dear aunt and I am told that many women take a quiet weed under the rose be very careful how you choose your cigars
My lady drew a long breath picked up her brush and laughed aloud at Roberts advice
What an eccentric creature you are Mr Audley I Do you know that you sometimes puzzle me—
Not more than you puzzle me dear aunt
My lady put away her colors and sketch book and seating herself in the deep recess of another window at a considerable distance from Robert Audley settled to a large piece of Berlinwool work—a piece of embroidery which the Penelopes of ten or twelve years ago were very fond of exercising their ingenuity upon—the Olden Time at Bolton Abbey
Seated in the embrasure of this window my lady was separated from Robert Audley by the whole length of the room and the young man could only catch an occasional glimpse of her fair face surrounded by its bright aureole of hazy golden hair
Robert Audley had been a week at the Court but as yet neither he nor my lady had mentioned the name of George Talboys
This morning however after exhausting the usual topics of conversation Lady Audley made an inquiry about her nephews friend That Mr George—George— she said hesitating
Talboys suggested Robert
Yes to be sure—Mr George Talboys Rather a singular name bytheby and certainly by all accounts a very singular person Have you seen him lately
I have not seen him since the 7th of September last—the day upon which he left me asleep in the meadows on the other side of the village
Dear me exclaimed my lady what a very strange young man this Mr George Talboys must be Pray tell me all about it
Robert told in a few words of his visit to Southampton and his journey to Liverpool with their different results my lady listening very attentively
In order to tell this story to better advantage the young man left his chair and crossing the room took up his place opposite to Lady Audley in the embrasure of the window
And what do you infer from all this asked my lady after a pause
It is so great a mystery to me he answered that I scarcely dare to draw any conclusion whatever but in the obscurity I think I can grope my way to two suppositions which to me seem almost certainties
And they are—
First that George Talboys never went beyond Southampton Second that he never went to Southampton at all
But you traced him there His fatherinlaw had seen him
I have reason to doubt his fatherinlaws integrity
Good gracious me cried my lady piteously What do you mean by all this
Lady Audley answered the young man gravely I have never practiced as a barrister I have enrolled myself in the ranks of a profession the members of which hold solemn responsibilities and have sacred duties to perform and I have shrunk from those responsibilities and duties as I have from all the fatigues of this troublesome life But we are sometimes forced into the very position we have most avoided and I have found myself lately compelled to think of these things Lady Audley did you ever study the theory of circumstantial evidence
How can you ask a poor little woman about such horrid things exclaimed my lady
Circumstantial evidence continued the young man as if he scarcely heard Lady Audleys interruption—that wonderful fabric which is built out of straws collected at every point of the compass and which is yet strong enough to hang a man Upon what infinitesimal trifles may sometimes hang the whole secret of some wicked mystery inexplicable heretofore to the wisest upon the earth A scrap of paper a shred of some torn garment the button off a coat a word dropped incautiously from the overcautious lips of guilt the fragment of a letter the shutting or opening of a door a shadow on a windowblind the accuracy of a moment tested by one of Bensons watches—a thousand circumstances so slight as to be forgotten by the criminal but links of iron in the wonderful chain forged by the science of the detective officer and lo the gallows is built up the solemn bell tolls through the dismal gray of the early morning the drop creaks under the guilty feet and the penalty of crime is paid
Faint shadows of green and crimson fell upon my ladys face from the painted escutcheons in the mullioned window by which she sat but every trace of the natural color of that face had faded out leaving it a ghastly ashen gray
Sitting quietly in her chair her head fallen back upon the amber damask cushions and her little hands lying powerless in her lap Lady Audley had fainted away
The radius grows narrower day by day said Robert Audley George Talboys never reached Southampton
CHAPTER XVI
ROBERT AUDLEY GETS HIS CONGE
The Christmas week was over and one by one the country visitors dropped away from Audley Court The fat squire and his wife abandoned the gray tapestried chamber and left the blackbrowed warriors looming from the wall to scowl upon and threaten new guests or to glare vengefully upon vacancy The merry girls on the second story packed or caused to be packed their trunks and imperials and tumbled gauze balldresses were taken home that had been brought fresh to Audley Blundering old family chariots with horses whose untrimmed fetlocks told of rougher work than even country roads were brought round to the broad space before the grim oak door and laden with chaotic heaps of womanly luggage Pretty rosy faces peeped out of carriage windows to smile the last farewell upon the group at the hall door as the vehicle rattled and rumbled under the ivied archway Sir Michael was in request everywhere Shaking hands with the young sportsmen kissing the rosycheeked girls sometimes even embracing portly matrons who came to thank him for their pleasant visit everywhere genial hospitable generous happy and beloved the baronet hurried from room to room from the hall to the stables from the stables to the courtyard from the courtyard to the arched gateway to speed the parting guest
My ladys yellow curls flashed hither and thither like wandering gleams of sunshine on these busy days of farewell Her great blue eyes had a pretty mournful look in charming unison with the soft pressure of her little hand and that friendly though perhaps rather stereotyped speech in which she told her visitors how she was so sorry to lose them and how she didnt know what she should do till they came once more to enliven the court by their charming society
But however sorry my lady might be to lose her visitors there was at least one guest whose society she was not deprived of Robert Audley showed no intention of leaving his uncles house He had no professional duties he said Figtree Court was delightfully shady in hot weather but there was a sharp corner round which the wind came in the summer months armed with avenging rheumatisms and influenzas Everybody was so good to him at the Court that really he had no inclination to hurry away
Sir Michael had but one answer to this Stay my dear boy stay my dear Bob as long as ever you like I have no son and you stand to me in the place of one Make yourself agreeable to Lucy and make the Court your home as long as you live
To which Robert would merely reply by grasping his uncles hand vehemently and muttering something about a jolly old prince
It was to be observed that there was sometimes a certain vague sadness in the young mans tone when he called Sir Michael a jolly old prince some shadow of affectionate regret that brought a mist into Roberts eyes as he sat in a corner of the room looking thoughtfully at the whitebearded baronet
Before the last of the young sportsmen departed Sir Harry Towers demanded and obtained an interview with Miss Alicia Audley in the oak library—an interview in which considerable emotion was displayed by the stalwart young foxhunter so much emotion indeed and of such a genuine and honest character that Alicia fairly broke down as she told him she should forever esteem and respect him for his true and noble heart but that he must never never unless he wished to cause her the most cruel distress ask more from her than this esteem and respect
Sir Harry left the library by the French window opening into the pondgarden He strolled into that very limewalk which George Talboys had compared to an avenue in a churchyard and under the leafless trees fought the battle of his brave young heart
What a fool I am to feel it like this he cried stamping his foot upon the frosty ground I always knew it would be so I always knew that she was a hundred times too good for me God bless her How nobly and tenderly she spoke how beautiful she looked with the crimson blushes under her brown skin and the tears in her big gray eyes—almost as handsome as the day she took the sunk fence and let me put the brush in her hat as we rode home God bless her I can get over anything as long as she doesnt care for that sneaking lawyer But I couldnt stand that
That sneaking lawyer by which appellation Sir Harry alluded to Mr Robert Audley was standing in the hall looking at a map of the midland counties when Alicia came out of the library with red eyes after her interview with the foxhunting baronet
Robert who was shortsighted had his eyes within half an inch of the surface of the map as the young lady approached him
Yes he said Norwich is in Norfolk and that fool young Vincent said it was in Herefordshire Ha Alicia is that you
He turned round so as to intercept Miss Audley on her way to the staircase
Yes replied his cousin curtly trying to pass him
Alicia you have been crying
The young lady did not condescend to reply
You have been crying Alicia Sir Harry Towers of Towers Park in the county of Herts has been making you an offer of his hand eh
Have you been listening at the door Mr Audley
I have not Miss Audley On principle I object to listen and in practice I believe it to be a very troublesome proceeding but I am a barrister Miss Alicia and able to draw a conclusion by induction Do you know what inductive evidence is Miss Audley
No replied Alicia looking at her cousin as a handsome young panther might look at its daring tormentor
I thought not I dare say Sir Harry would ask if it was a new kind of horseball I knew by induction that the baronet was going to make you an offer first because he came downstairs with his hair parted on the wrong side and his face as pale as a tablecloth secondly because he couldnt eat any breakfast and let his coffee go the wrong way and thirdly because he asked for an interview with you before he left the Court Well hows it to be Alicia Do we marry the baronet and is poor Cousin Bob to be the best man at the wedding
Sir Harry Towers is a noblehearted young man said Alicia still trying to pass her cousin
But do we accept him—yes or no Are we to be Lady Towers with a superb estate in Hertfordshire summer quarters for our hunters and a drag with outriders to drive us across to papas place in Essex Is it to be so Alicia or not
What is that to you Mr Robert Audley cried Alicia passionately What do you care what becomes of me or whom I marry If I married a chimneysweep youd only lift up your eyebrows and say Bless my soul she was always eccentric I have refused Sir Harry Towers but when I think of his generous and unselfish affection and compare it with the heartless lazy selfish supercilious indifference of other men Ive a good mind to run after him and tell him—
That youll retract and be my Lady Towers
Yes
Then dont Alicia dont said Robert Audley grasping his cousins slender little wrist and leading her upstairs Come into the drawingroom with me Alicia my poor little cousin my charming impetuous alarming little cousin Sit down here in this mullioned window and let us talk seriously and leave off quarreling if we can
The cousins had the drawingroom all to themselves Sir Michael was out my lady in her own apartments and poor Sir Harry Towers walking up and down upon the gravel walk darkened with the flickering shadows of the leafless branches in the cold winter sunshine
My poor little Alicia said Robert as tenderly as if he had been addressing some spoiled child do you suppose that because people dont wear vinegar tops or part their hair on the wrong side or conduct themselves altogether after the manner of wellmeaning maniacs by way of proving the vehemence of their passion—do you suppose because of this Alicia Audley that they may not be just as sensible of the merits of a dear little warmhearted and affectionate girl as ever their neighbors can be Life is such a very troublesome matter when all is said and done that its as well even to take its blessings quietly I dont make a great howling because I can get good cigars one door from the corner of Chancery Lane and have a dear good girl for my cousin but I am not the less grateful to Providence that it is so
Alicia opened her gray eyes to their widest extent looking her cousin full in the face with a bewildered stare Robert had picked up the ugliest and leanest of his attendant curs and was placidly stroking the animals ears
Is this all you have to say to me Robert asked Miss Audley meekly
Well yes I think so replied her cousin after considerable deliberation I fancy that what I wanted to say was this—dont marry the foxhunting baronet if you like anybody else better for if youll only be patient and take life easily and try and reform yourself of banging doors bouncing in and out rooms talking of the stables and riding across country Ive no doubt the person you prefer will make you a very excellent husband
Thank you cousin said Miss Audley crimsoning with bright indignant blushes up to the roots of her waving brown hair but as you may not know the person I prefer I think you had better not take upon yourself to answer for him
Robert pulled the dogs ears thoughtfully for some moments
No to be sure he said after a pause Of course if I dont know him—I thought I did
Did you exclaimed Alicia and opening the door with a violence that made her cousin shiver she bounced out of the drawingroom
I only said I thought I knew him Robert called after her and then as he sunk into an easychair he murmured thoughtfully Such a nice girl too if she didnt bounce
So poor Sir Harry Towers rode away from Audley Court looking very crestfallen and dismal
He had very little pleasure in returning to the stately mansion hidden among sheltering oaks and venerable beeches The square red brick house gleaming at the end of a long arcade of leafless trees was to be forever desolate he thought since Alicia would not come to be its mistress
A hundred improvements planned and thought of were dismissed from his mind as useless now The hunter that Jim the trainer was breaking in for a lady the two pointer pups that were being reared for the next shooting season the big black retriever that would have carried Alicias parasol the pavilion in the garden disused since his mothers death but which he had meant to have restored for Miss Audley—all these things were now so much vanity and vexation of spirit
Whats the good of being rich if one has no one to help spend ones money said the young baronet One only grows a selfish beggar and takes to drinking too much port Its a hard thing that a girl can refuse a true heart and such stables as weve got at the park It unsettles a man somehow
Indeed this unlooked for rejection had very much unsettled the few ideas which made up the small sum of the baronets mind
He had been desperately in love with Alicia ever since the last hunting season when he had met her at the county ball His passion cherished through the slow monotony of a summer had broken out afresh in the merry winter months and the young mans mauvaise honte alone had delayed the offer of his hand But he had never for a moment supposed that he would be refused he was so used to the adulation of mothers who had daughters to marry and of even the daughters themselves he had been so accustomed to feel himself the leading personage in an assembly although half the wits of the age had been there and he could only say Haw to be sure and By Jove—hum he had been so spoiled by the flatteries of bright eyes that looked or seemed to look the brighter when he drew near that without being possessed of one shadow of personal vanity he had yet come to think that he had only to make an offer to the prettiest girl in Essex to behold himself immediately accepted
Yes he would say complacently to some admiring satellite I know Im a good match and I know what makes the gals so civil Theyre very pretty and theyre very friendly to a fellow but I dont care about em Theyre all alike—they can only drop their eyes and say Lor Sir Harry why do you call that curly black dog a retriever or Oh Sir Harry and did the poor mare really sprain her pastern shoulderblade I havent got much brains myself I know the baronet would add deprecatingly and I dont want a strongminded woman who writes books and wears green spectacles but hang it I like a gal who knows what shes talking about
So when Alicia said No or rather made that pretty speech about esteem and respect which wellbred young ladies substitute for the obnoxious monosyllable Sir Harry Towers felt that the whole fabric of the future he had built so complacently was shivered into a heap of dingy ruins
Sir Michael grasped him warmly by the hand just before the young man mounted his horse in the courtyard
Im very sorry Towers he said Youre as good a fellow as ever breathed and would have made my girl an excellent husband but you know theres a cousin and I think that—
Dont say that Sir Michael interrupted the foxhunter energetically I can get over anything but that A fellow whose hand upon the curb weighs half a ton why he pulled the Cavaliers mouth to pieces sir the day you let him ride the horse a fellow who turns his collars down and eats bread and marmalade No no Sir Michael its a queer world but I cant think that of Miss Audley There must be some one in the background sir it cant be the cousin
Sir Michael shook his head as the rejected suitor rode away
I dont know about that he muttered Bobs a good lad and the girl might do worse but he hangs back as if he didnt care for her Theres some mystery—theres some mystery
The old baronet said this in that semithoughtful tone with which we speak of other peoples affairs The shadows of the early winter twilight gathering thickest under the low oak ceiling of the hall and the quaint curve of the arched doorway fell darkly round his handsome head but the light of his declining life his beautiful and beloved young wife was near him and he could see no shadows when she was by
She came skipping through the hall to meet him and shaking her golden ringlets buried her bright head on her husbands breast
So the last of our visitors is gone dear and were all alone she said Isnt that nice
Yes darling he answered fondly stroking her bright hair
Except Mr Robert Audley How long is that nephew of yours going to stay here
As long as he likes my pet hes always welcome said the baronet and then as if remembering himself he added tenderly But not unless his visit is agreeable to you darling not if his lazy habits or his smoking or his dogs or anything about him is displeasing to you
Lady Audley pursed up her rosy lips and looked thoughtfully at the ground
It isnt that she said hesitatingly Mr Audley is a very agreeable young man and a very honorable young man but you know Sir Michael Im rather a young aunt for such a nephew and—
And what Lucy asked the baronet fiercely
Poor Alicia is rather jealous of any attention Mr Audley pays me and—and—I think it would be better for her happiness if your nephew were to bring his visit to a close
He shall go tonight Lucy exclaimed Sir Michael I am a blind neglectful fool not to have thought of this before My lovely little darling it was scarcely just to Bob to expose the poor lad to your fascinations I know him to be as good and truehearted a fellow as ever breathed but—but—he shall go tonight
But you wont be too abrupt dear You wont be rude
Rude No Lucy I left him smoking in the limewalk Ill go and tell him that he must get out of the house in an hour
So in that leafless avenue under whose gloomy shade George Talboys had stood on that thunderous evening before the day of his disappearance Sir Michael Audley told his nephew that the Court was no home for him and that my lady was too young and pretty to accept the attentions of a handsome nephew of eightandtwenty
Robert only shrugged his shoulders and elevated his thick black eyebrows as Sir Michael delicately hinted all this
I have been attentive to my lady he said She interests me and then with a change in his voice and an emotion not common to him he turned to the baronet and grasping his hand exclaimed God forbid my dear uncle that I should ever bring trouble upon such a noble heart as yours God forbid that the slightest shadow of dishonor should ever fall upon your honored head—least of all through agency of mine
The young man uttered these few words in a broken and disjointed fashion in which Sir Michael had never heard him speak before and then turning away his head fairly broke down
He left the court that night but he did not go far Instead of taking the evening train for London he went straight up to the little village of Mount Stanning and walking into the neatlykept inn asked Phoebe Marks if he could be accommodated with apartments
CHAPTER XVII
AT THE CASTLE INN
The little sittingroom into which Phoebe Marks ushered the baronets nephew was situated on the ground floor and only separated by a lathandplaster partition from the little barparlor occupied by the innkeeper and his wife
It seemed as though the wise architect who had superintended the building of the Castle Inn had taken especial care that nothing but the frailest and most flimsy material should be used and that the wind having a special fancy for this unprotected spot should have full play for the indulgence of its caprices
To this end pitiful woodwork had been used instead of solid masonry rickety ceilings had been propped up by fragile rafters and beams that threatened on every stormy night to fall upon the heads of those beneath them doors whose specialty was never to be shut yet always to be banging windows constructed with a peculiar view to letting in the draft when they were shut and keeping out the air when they were open The hand of genius had devised this lonely country inn and there was not an inch of woodwork or trowelful of plaster employed in all the rickety construction that did not offer its own peculiar weak point to every assault of its indefatigable foe
Robert looked about him with a feeble smile of resignation
It was a change decidedly from the luxurious comforts of Audley Court and it was rather a strange fancy of the young barrister to prefer loitering at this dreary village hostelry to returning to his snug chambers in Figtree Court
But he had brought his Lares and Penates with him in the shape of his German pipe his tobacco canister half a dozen French novels and his two illconditioned canine favorites which sat shivering before the smoky little fire barking shortly and sharply now and then by way of hinting for some slight refreshment
While Mr Robert Audley contemplated his new quarters Phoebe Marks summoned a little village lad who was in the habit of running errands for her and taking him into the kitchen gave him a tiny note carefully folded and sealed
You know Audley Court
Yes mum
If youll run there with this letter tonight and see that its put safely in Lady Audleys hands Ill give you a shilling
Yes mum
You understand Ask to see my lady you can say youve a message—not a note mind—but a message from Phoebe Marks and when you see her give this into her own hand
Yes mum
You wont forget
No mum
Then be off with you
The boy waited for no second bidding but in another moment was scudding along the lonely high road down the sharp descent that led to Audley
Phoebe Marks went to the window and looked out at the black figure of the lad hurrying through the dusky winter evening
If theres any bad meaning in his coming here she thought my lady will know of it in time at any rate
Phoebe herself brought the neatly arranged teatray and the little covered dish of ham and eggs which had been prepared for this unlookedfor visitor Her pale hair was as smoothly braided and her light gray dress fitted as precisely as of old The same neutral tints pervaded her person and her dress no showy rosecolored ribbons or rustling silk gown proclaimed the welltodo innkeepers wife Phoebe Marks was a person who never lost her individuality Silent and selfconstrained she seemed to hold herself within herself and take no color from the outer world
Robert looked at her thoughtfully as she spread the cloth and drew the table nearer to the fireplace
That he thought is a woman who could keep a secret
The dogs looked rather suspiciously at the quiet figure of Mrs Marks gliding softly about the room from the teapot to the caddy and from the caddy to the kettle singing on the hob
Will you pour out my tea for me Mrs Marks said Robert seating himself on a horsehaircovered armchair which fitted him as tightly in every direction as if he had been measured for it
You have come straight from the Court sir said Phoebe as she handed Robert the sugarbasin
Yes I only left my uncles an hour ago
And my lady sir was she quite well
Yes quite well
As gay and lighthearted as ever sir
As gay and lighthearted as ever
Phoebe retired respectfully after having given Mr Audley his tea but as she stood with her hand upon the lock of the door he spoke again
You knew Lady Audley when she was Miss Lucy Graham did you not he asked
Yes sir I lived at Mrs Dawsons when my lady was governess there
Indeed Was she long in the surgeons family
A year and a half sir
And she came from London
Yes sir
And she was an orphan I believe
Yes sir
Always as cheerful as she is now
Always sir
Robert emptied his teacup and handed it to Mrs Marks Their eyes met—a lazy look in his and an active searching glance in hers
This woman would be good in a witnessbox he thought it would take a clever lawyer to bother her in a crossexamination
He finished his second cup of tea pushed away his plate fed his dogs and lighted his pipe while Phoebe carried off the teatray
The wind came whistling up across the frosty open country and through the leafless woods and rattled fiercely at the windowframes
Theres a triangular draught from those two windows and the door that scarcely adds to the comfort of this apartment murmured Robert and there certainly are pleasanter sensations than that of standing up to ones knees in cold water
He poked the fire patted his dogs put on his great coat rolled a rickety old sofa close to the hearth wrapped his legs in his railway rug and stretching himself at full length upon the narrow horsehair cushion smoked his pipe and watched the bluishgray wreaths curling upward to the dingy ceiling
No he murmured again that is a woman who can keep a secret A counsel for the prosecution could get very little out of her
I have said that the barparlor was only separated from the sittingroom occupied by Robert by a lathandplaster partition The young barrister could hear the two or three village tradesmen and a couple of farmers laughing and talking round the bar while Luke Marks served them from his stock of liquors
Very often he could even hear their words especially the landlords for he spoke in a coarse loud voice and had a more boastful manner than any of his customers
The man is a fool said Robert as he laid down his pipe Ill go and talk to him byandby
He waited till the few visitors to the Castle had dropped away one by one and when Luke Marks had bolted the door upon the last of his customers he strolled quietly into the barparlor where the landlord was seated with his wife
Phoebe was busy at a little table upon which stood a prim workbox with every reel of cotton and glistening steel bodkin in its appointed place She was darning the coarse gray stockings that adorned her husbands awkward feet but she did her work as daintily as if they had been my ladys delicate silken hose
I say that she took no color from external things and that the vague air of refinement that pervaded her nature clung to her as closely in the society of her boorish husband at the Castle Inn as in Lady Audleys boudoir at the Court
She looked up suddenly as Robert entered the barparlor There was some shade of vexation in her pale gray eyes which changed to an expression of anxiety—nay rather of almost terror—as she glanced from Mr Audley to Luke Marks
I have come in for a few minutes chat before I go to bed said Robert settling himself very comfortably before the cheerful fire Would you object to a cigar Mrs Marks I mean of course to my smoking one he added explanatorily
Not at all sir
It would be a good un her objectin to a bit o bacca growled Mr Marks when me and the customers smokes all day
Robert lighted his cigar with a giltpaper match of Phoebes making that adorned the chimneypiece and took half a dozen reflective puffs before he spoke
I want you to tell me all about Mount Stanning Mr Marks he said presently
Then thats pretty soon told replied Luke with a harsh grating laugh Of all the dull holes as ever a man set foot in this is about the dullest Not that the business dont pay pretty tidy I dont complain of that but I should ha liked a public at Chelmsford or Brentwood or Romford or some place where theres a bit of life in the streets and I might have had it he added discontentedly if folks hadnt been so precious stingy
As her husband muttered this complaint in a grumbling undertone Phoebe looked up from her work and spoke to him
We forgot the brewhouse door Luke she said Will you come with me and help me put up the bar
The brewhouse door can bide for tonight said Mr Marks I aint agoin to move now Ive seated myself for a comfortable smoke
He took a long clay pipe from a corner of the fender as he spoke and began to fill it deliberately
I dont feel easy about that brewhouse door Luke remonstrated his wife there are always tramps about and they can get in easily when the bar isnt up
Go and put the bar up yourself then cant you answered Mr Marks
Its too heavy for me to lift
Then let it bide if youre too fine a lady to see to it yourself Youre very anxious all of a sudden about this here brewhouse door I suppose you dont want me to open my mouth to this here gent thats about it Oh you neednt frown at me to stop my speaking Youre always putting in your tongue and clipping off my words before Ive half said em but I wont stand it
Do you hear I wont stand it
Phoebe Marks shrugged her shoulders folded her work shut her workbox and crossing her hands in her lap sat with her gray eyes fixed upon her husbands bulllike face
Then you dont particularly care to live at Mount Stanning said Robert politely as if anxious to change the conversation
No I dont answered Luke and I dont care who knows it and as I said before if folks hadnt been so precious stingy I might have had a public in a thrivin market town instead of this tumbledown old place where a man has his hair blowed off his head on a windy day Whats fifty pound or whats a hundred pound—
Luke Luke
No youre not goin to stop my mouth with all your Luke Lukes answered Mr Marks to his wifes remonstrance I say again whats a hundred pound
No answered Robert Audley with wonderful distinctness and addressing his words to Luke Marks but fixing his eyes upon Phoebes anxious face What indeed is a hundred pounds to a man possessed of the power which you hold or rather which your wife holds over the person in question
Phoebes face at all times almost colorless seemed scarcely capable of growing paler but as her eyelids drooped under Robert Audleys searching glance a visible change came over the pallid hues of her complexion
A quarter to twelve said Robert looking at his watch
Late hours for such a quiet village as Mount Stanning Goodnight my worthy host Goodnight Mrs Marks You neednt send me my shaving water till nine oclock tomorrow morning
CHAPTER XVIII
ROBERT RECEIVES A VISITOR WHOM HE HAD SCARCELY EXPECTED
Eleven oclock struck the next morning and found Mr Robert Audley still lounging over the well ordered little breakfast table with one of his dogs at each side of his armchair regarding him with watchful eyes and opened mouths awaiting the expected morsel of ham or toast Robert had a county paper on his knees and made a feeble effort now and then to read the first page which was filled with advertisements of farming stock quack medicines and other interesting matter
The weather had changed and the snow which had for the last few days been looming blackly in the frosty sky fell in great feathery flakes against the windows and lay piled in the little bit of gardenground without
The long lonely road leading toward Audley seemed untrodden by a footstep as Robert Audley looked out at the wintry landscape
Lively he said for a man used to the fascinations of Temple Bar
As he watched the snowflakes falling every moment thicker and faster upon the lonely road he was surprised by seeing a brougham driving slowly up the hill
I wonder what unhappy wretch has too restless a spirit to stop at home on such a morning as this he muttered as he returned to the armchair by the fire
He had only reseated himself a few moments when Phoebe Marks entered the room to announce Lady Audley
Lady Audley Pray beg her to come in said Robert and then as Phoebe left the room to usher in this unexpected visitor he muttered between his teeth—A false move my lady and one I never looked for from you
Lucy Audley was radiant on this cold and snowy January morning Other peoples noses are rudely assailed by the sharp fingers of the grim iceking but not my ladys other peoples lips turn pale and blue with the chilling influence of the bitter weather but my ladys pretty little rosebud of a mouth retained its brightest coloring and cheeriest freshness
She was wrapped in the very sables which Robert Audley had brought from Russia and carried a muff that the young man thought seemed almost as big as herself
She looked a childish helpless babyfied little creature and Robert looked down upon her with some touch of pity in his eyes as she came up to the hearth by which he was standing and warmed her tiny gloved hands at the blaze
What a morning Mr Audley she said what a morning
Yes indeed Why did you come out in such weather
Because I wished to see you—particularly
Indeed
Yes said my lady with an air of considerable embarrassment playing with the button of her glove and almost wrenching it off in her restlessness—yes Mr Audley I felt that you had not been well treated that—that you had in short reason to complain and that an apology was due to you
I do not wish for any apology Lady Audley
But you are entitled to one answered my lady quietly Why my dear Robert should we be so ceremonious toward each other You were very comfortable at Audley we were very glad to have you there but my dear silly husband must needs take it into his foolish head that it is dangerous for his poor little wifes peace of mind to have a nephew of eight or nine and twenty smoking his cigars in her boudoir and behold our pleasant little family circle is broken up
Lucy Audley spoke with that peculiar childish vivacity which seemed so natural to her Robert looking down almost sadly at her bright animated face
Lady Audley he said Heaven forbid that either you or I should ever bring grief or dishonor upon my uncles generous heart Better perhaps that I should be out of the house—better perhaps that I had never entered it
My lady had been looking at the fire while her nephew spoke but at his last words she lifted her head suddenly and looked him full in the face with a wondering expression—an earnest questioning gaze whose full meaning the young barrister understood
Oh pray do not be alarmed Lady Audley he said gravely You have no sentimental nonsense no silly infatuation borrowed from Balzac or Dumas fils to fear from me The benchers of the Inner Temple will tell you that Robert Audley is troubled with none of the epidemics whose outward signs are turndown collars and Byronic neckties I say that I wish I had never entered my uncles house during the last year but I say it with a far more solemn meaning than any sentimental one
My lady shrugged her shoulders
If you insist on talking in enigmas Mr Audley she said you must forgive a poor little woman if she declines to answer them
Robert made no reply to this speech
But tell me said my lady with an entire change of tone what could have induced you to come up to this dismal place
Curiosity
Curiosity
Yes I felt an interest in that bullnecked man with the darkred hair and wicked gray eyes A dangerous man my lady—a man in whose power I should not like to be
A sudden change came over Lady Audleys face the pretty roseate flush faded out from her cheeks and left them waxen white and angry flashes lightened in her blue eyes
What have I done to you Robert Audley she cried passionately—what have I done to you that you should hate me so
He answered her very gravely
I had a friend Lady Audley whom I loved very dearly and since I have lost him I fear that my feelings toward other people are strangely embittered
You mean the Mr Talboys who went to Australia
Yes I mean the Mr Talboys who I was told set out for Liverpool with the idea of going to Australia
And you do not believe in his having sailed for Australia
I do not
But why not
Forgive me Lady Audley if I decline to answer that question
As you please she said carelessly
A week after my friend disappeared continued Robert I posted an advertisement to the Sydney and Melbourne papers calling upon him if he was in either city when the advertisement appeared to write and tell me of his whereabouts and also calling on any one who had met him either in the colonies or on the voyage out to give me any information respecting him George Talboys left Essex or disappeared from Essex on the 6th of September last I ought to receive some answer to this advertisement by the end of this month Today is the 27th the time draws very near
And if you receive no answer asked Lady Audley
If I receive no answer I shall think that my fears have been not unfounded and I shall do my best to act
What do you mean by that
Ah Lady Audley you remind me how very powerless I am in this matter My friend might have been made away with in this very inn and I might stay here for a twelvemonth and go away at the last as ignorant of his fate as if I had never crossed the threshold What do we know of the mysteries that may hang about the houses we enter If I were to go tomorrow into that commonplace plebeian eightroomed house in which Maria Manning and her husband murdered their guest I should have no awful prescience of that bygone horror Foul deeds have been done under the most hospitable roofs terrible crimes have been committed amid the fairest scenes and have left no trace upon the spot where they were done I do not believe in mandrake or in bloodstains that no time can efface I believe rather that we may walk unconsciously in an atmosphere of crime and breathe none the less freely I believe that we may look into the smiling face of a murderer and admire its tranquil beauty
My lady laughed at Roberts earnestness
You seem to have quite a taste for discussing these horrible subjects she said rather scornfully you ought to have been a detective police officer
I sometimes think I should have been a good one
Why
Because I am patient
But to return to Mr George Talboys whom we lost sight of in your eloquent discussion What if you receive no answer to your advertisements
I shall then consider myself justified in concluding my friend is dead
Yes and then—
I shall examine the effects he left at my chambers
Indeed and what are they Coats waistcoats varnished boots and meerschaum pipes I suppose said Lady Audley laughing
No letters—letters from his friends his old schoolfellows his father his brother officers
Yes
Letters too from his wife
My lady was silent for some few moments looking thoughtfully at the fire
Have you ever seen any of the letters written by the late Mrs Talboys she asked presently
Never Poor soul her letters are not likely to throw much light upon my friends fate I dare say she wrote the usual womanly scrawl There are very few who write so charming and uncommon a hand as yours Lady Audley
Ah you know my hand of course
Yes I know it very well indeed
My lady warmed her hands once more and then taking up the big muff which she had laid aside upon a chair prepared to take her departure
You have refused to accept my apology Mr Audley she said but I trust you are not the less assured of my feelings toward you
Perfectly assured Lady Audley
Then goodby and let me recommend you not to stay long in this miserable draughty place if you do not wish to take rheumatism back to Figtree Court
I shall return to town tomorrow morning to see after my letters
Then once more goodby
She held out her hand he took it loosely in his own It seemed such a feeble little hand that he might have crushed it in his strong grasp had he chosen to be so pitiless
He attended her to her carriage and watched it as it drove off not toward Audley but in the direction of Brentwood which was about six miles from Mount Stanning
About an hour and a half after this as Robert stood at the door of the inn smoking a cigar and watching the snow falling in the whitened fields opposite he saw the brougham drive back empty this time to the door of the inn
Have you taken Lady Audley back to the Court he said to the coachman who had stopped to call for a mug of hot spiced ale
No sir Ive just come from the Brentwood station My lady started for London by the 1240 train
For town
Yes sir
My lady gone to London said Robert as he returned to the little sittingroom Then Ill follow her by the next train and if Im not very much mistaken I know where to find her
He packed his portmanteau paid his bill fastened his dogs together with a couple of leathern collars and a chain and stepped into the rumbling fly kept by the Castle Inn for the convenience of Mount Stanning He caught an express that left Brentwood at three oclock and settled himself comfortably in a corner of an empty firstclass carriage coiled up in a couple of railway rugs and smoking a cigar in mild defiance of the authorities
CHAPTER XIX
THE WRITING IN THE BOOK
It was exactly five minutes past four as Mr Robert Audley stepped out upon the platform at Shoreditch and waited placidly until such time as his dogs and his portmanteau should be delivered up to the attendant porter who had called his cab and undertaken the general conduct of his affairs with that disinterested courtesy which does such infinite credit to a class of servitors who are forbidden to accept the tribute of a grateful public
Robert Audley waited with consummate patience for a considerable time but as the express was generally a long train and as there were a great many passengers from Norfolk carrying guns and pointers and other paraphernalia of a critical description it took a long while to make matters agreeable to all claimants and even the barristers seraphic indifference to mundane affairs nearly gave way
Perhaps when that gentleman who is making such a noise about a pointer with livercolored spots has discovered the particular pointer and spots that he wants—which happy combination of events scarcely seems likely to arrive—theyll give me my luggage and let me go The designing wretches knew at a glance that I was born to be imposed upon and that if they were to trample the life out of me upon this very platform I should never have the spirit to bring an action against the company
Suddenly an idea seemed to strike him and he left the porter to struggle for the custody of his goods and walked round to the other side of the station
He heard a bell ring and looking at the clock had remembered that the down train for Colchester started at this time He had learned what it was to have an earnest purpose since the disappearance of George Talboys and he reached the opposite platform in time to see the passengers take their seats
There was one lady who had evidently only just arrived at the station for she hurried on to the platform at the very moment that Robert approached the train and almost ran against that gentleman in her haste and excitement
I beg your pardon she began ceremoniously then raising her eyes from Mr Audleys waistcoat which was about on a level with her pretty face she exclaimed Robert you in London already
Yes Lady Audley you were quite right the Castle Inn is a dismal place and—
You got tired of it—I knew you would Please open the carriage door for me the train will start in two minutes
Robert Audley was looking at his uncles wife with rather a puzzled expression of countenance
What does it mean he thought She is altogether a different being to the wretched helpless creature who dropped her mask for a moment and looked at me with her own pitiful face in the little room at Mount Stanning four hours ago What has happened to cause the change
He opened the door for her while he thought this and helped her to settle herself in her seat spreading her furs over her knees and arranging the huge velvet mantle in which her slender little figure was almost hidden
Thank you very much how good you are to me she said as he did this You will think me very foolish to travel upon such a day without my dear darlings knowledge too but I went up to town to settle a very terrific milliners bill which I did not wish my best of husbands to see for indulgent as he is he might think me extravagant and I cannot bear to suffer even in his thoughts
Heaven forbid that you ever should Lady Audley Robert said gravely
She looked at him for a moment with a smile which had something defiant in its brightness
Heaven forbid it indeed she murmured I dont think I ever shall
The second bell rung and the train moved as she spoke The last Robert Audley saw of her was that bright defiant smile
Whatever object brought her to London has been successfully accomplished he thought Has she baffled me by some piece of womanly jugglery Am I never to get any nearer to the truth but am I to be tormented all my life by vague doubts and wretched suspicions which may grow upon me till I become a monomaniac Why did she come to London
He was still mentally asking himself this question as he ascended the stairs in Figtree Court with one of his dogs under each arm and his railway rugs over his shoulder
He found his chambers in their accustomed order The geraniums had been carefully tended and the canaries had retired for the night under cover of a square of green baize testifying to the care of honest Mrs Maloney Robert cast a hurried glance round the sittingroom then setting down the dogs upon the hearthrug he walked straight into the little inner chamber which served as his dressingroom
It was in this room that he kept disused portmanteaus battered japanned cases and other lumber and it was in this room that George Talboys had left his luggage Robert lifted a portmanteau from the top of a large trunk and kneeling down before it with a lighted candle in his hand carefully examined the lock
To all appearance it was exactly in the same condition in which George had left it when he laid his mourning garments aside and placed them in this shabby repository with all other memorials of his dead wife Robert brushed his coat sleeve across the worn leathercovered lid upon which the initials G T were inscribed with big brassheaded nails but Mrs Maloney the laundress must have been the most precise of housewives for neither the portmanteau nor the trunk were dusty
Mr Audley dispatched a boy to fetch his Irish attendant and paced up and down his sittingroom waiting anxiously for her arrival
She came in about ten minutes and after expressing her delight in the return of the master humbly awaited his orders
I only sent for you to ask if anybody has been here that is to say if anybody has applied to you for the key of my rooms today—any lady
Lady No indeed yer honor theres been no lady for the kay barrin its the blacksmith
The blacksmith
Yes the blacksmith your honor ordered to come today
I order a blacksmith exclaimed Robert I left a bottle of French brandy in the cupboard he thought and Mrs M has been evidently enjoying herself
Sure and the blacksmith your honor tould to see to the locks replied Mrs Maloney Its him that lives down in one of the little streets by the bridge she added giving a very lucid description of the mans whereabouts
Robert lifted his eyebrows in mute despair
If youll sit down and compose yourself Mrs M he said—he abbreviated her name thus on principle for the avoidance of unnecessary labor—perhaps we shall be able by and by to understand each other You say a blacksmith has been here
Sure and I did sir
Today
Quite correct sir
Step by step Mr Audley elicited the following information A locksmith had called upon Mrs Maloney that afternoon at three oclock and had asked for the key of Mr Audleys chambers in order that he might look to the locks of the doors which he stated were all out of repair He declared that he was acting upon Mr Audleys own orders conveyed to him by a letter from the country where the gentleman was spending his Christmas Mrs Maloney believing in the truth of this statement had admitted the man to the chambers where he stayed about half an hour
But you were with him while he examined the locks I suppose Mr Audley asked
Sure I was sir in and out as you may say all the time for Ive been cleaning the stairs this afternoon and I took the opportunity to begin my scouring while the man was at work
Oh you were in and out all the time If you could conveniently give me a plain answer Mrs M I should be glad to know what was the longest time that you were out while the locksmith was in my chambers
But Mrs Maloney could not give a plain answer It might have been ten minutes though she didnt think it was as much It might have been a quarter of an hour but she was sure it wasnt more It didnt seem to her more than five minutes but thim stairs your honor and here she rambled off into a disquisition upon the scouring of stairs in general and the stairs outside Roberts chambers in particular
Mr Audley sighed the weary sigh of mournful resignation
Never mind Mrs M he said the locksmith had plenty of time to do anything he wanted to do I dare say without your being any the wiser
Mrs Maloney stared at her employer with mingled surprise and alarm
Sure there wasnt anything for him to stale your honor barrin the birds and the geranums and—
No no I understand There thatll do Mrs M Tell me where the man lives and Ill go and see him
But youll have a bit of dinner first sir
Ill go and see the locksmith before I have my dinner
He took up his hat as he announced his determination and walked toward the door
The mans address Mrs M
The Irishwoman directed him to a small street at the back of St Brides Church and thither Mr Robert Audley quietly strolled through the miry slush which simple Londoners call snow
He found the locksmith and at the sacrifice of the crown of his hat contrived to enter the low narrow doorway of a little open shop A jet of gas was flaring in the unglazed window and there was a very merry party in the little room behind the shop but no one responded to Roberts Hulloa The reason of this was sufficiently obvious The merry party was so much absorbed in its own merriment as to be deaf to all commonplace summonses from the outer world and it was only when Robert advancing further into the cavernous little shop made so bold as to open the halfglass door which separated him from the merrymakers that he succeeded in obtaining their attention
A very jovial picture of the Teniers school was presented to Mr Robert Audley upon the opening of this door
The locksmith with his wife and family and two or three droppersin of the female sex were clustered about a table which was adorned by two bottles not vulgar bottles of that colorless extract of the juniper berry much affected by the masses but of bona fide port and sherry—fiercely strong sherry which left a fiery taste in the mouth nutbrown sherry—rather unnaturally brown if anything—and fine old port no sickly vintage faded and thin from excessive age but a rich fullbodied wine sweet and substantial and high colored
The locksmith was speaking as Robert Audley opened the door
And with that he said she walked off as graceful as you please
The whole party was thrown into confusion by the appearance of Mr Audley but it was to be observed that the locksmith was more embarrassed than his companions He set down his glass so hurriedly that he spilt his wine and wiped his mouth nervously with the back of his dirty hand
You called at my chambers today Robert said quietly Dont let me disturb you ladies This to the droppersin You called at my chambers today Mr White and—
The man interrupted him
I hope sir you will be so good as to look over the mistake he stammered Im sure sir Im very sorry it should have occurred I was sent for to another gentlemans chambers Mr Aulwin in Garden Court and the name slipped my memory and havin done odd jobs before for you I thought it must be you as wanted me today and I called at Mrs Maloneys for the key accordin but directly I see the locks in your chambers I says to myself the gentlemans locks aint out of order the gentleman dont want all his locks repaired
But you stayed half an hour
Yes sir for there was one lock out of order—the door nighest the staircase—and I took it off and cleaned it and put it on again I wont charge you nothin for the job and I hope as youll be as good as to look over the mistake as has occurred which Ive been in business thirteen years come July and—
Nothing of this kind ever happened before I suppose said Robert gravely No its altogether a singular kind of business not likely to come about every day Youve been enjoying yourself this evening I see Mr White Youve done a good stroke of work today Ill wager—made a lucky hit and youre what you call standing treat eh
Robert Audley looked straight into the mans dingy face as he spoke The locksmith was not a badlooking fellow and there was nothing that he need have been ashamed of in his face except the dirt and that as Hamlets mother says is common but in spite of this Mr Whites eyelids dropped under the young barristers calm scrutiny and he stammered out some apologetic sort of speech about his missus and his missus neighbors and port wine and sherry wine with as much confusion as if he an honest mechanic in a free country were called upon to excuse himself to Robert Audley for being caught in the act of enjoying himself in his own parlor
Robert cut him short with a careless nod
Pray dont apologize he said I like to see people enjoy themselves Goodnight Mr White goodnight ladies
He lifted his hat to the missus and the missus neighbors who were much fascinated by his easy manner and his handsome face and left the shop
And so he muttered to himself as he went back to his chambers with that she walked off as graceful as you pleaseWho was it that walked off and what was the story which the locksmith was telling when I interrupted him at that sentence Oh George Talboys George Talboys am I ever to come any nearer to the secret of your fate Am I coming nearer to it now slowly but surely Is the radius to grow narrower day by day until it draws a dark circle around the home of those I love How is it all to end
He sighed wearily as he walked slowly back across the flagged quadrangles in the Temple to his own solitary chambers
Mrs Maloney had prepared for him that bachelors dinner which however excellent and nutritious in itself has no claim to the special charm of novelty She had cooked for him a muttonchop which was soddening itself between two plates upon the little table near the fire
Robert Audley sighed as he sat down to the familiar meal remembering his uncles cook with a fond regretful sorrow
Her cutlets a la Maintenon made mutton seem more than mutton a sublimated meat that could scarcely have grown upon any mundane sheep he murmured sentimentally and Mrs Maloneys chops are apt to be tough but such is life—what does it matter
He pushed away his plate impatiently after eating a few mouthfuls
I have never eaten a good dinner at this table since I lost George Talboys he said The place seems as gloomy as if the poor fellow had died in the next room and had never been taken away to be buried How long ago that September afternoon appears as I look back at it—that September afternoon upon which I parted with him alive and well and lost him as suddenly and unaccountably as if a trapdoor had opened in the solid earth and let him through to the antipodes
Mr Audley rose from the dinnertable and walked over to the cabinet in which he kept the document he had drawn up relating to George Talboys He unlocked the doors of his cabinet took the paper from the pigeonhole marked important and seated himself at his desk to write He added several paragraphs to those in the document numbering the fresh paragraphs as carefully as he had numbered the old ones
Heaven help us all he muttered once is this paper with which no attorney has had any hand to be my first brief
He wrote for about half an hour then replaced the document in the pigeonhole and locked the cabinet When he had done this he took a candle in his hand and went into the room in which were his own portmanteaus and the trunk belonging to George Talboys
He took a bunch of keys from his pocket and tried them one by one The lock of the shabby old trunk was a common one and at the fifth trial the key turned easily
Thered be no need for any one to break open such a lock as this muttered Robert as he lifted the lid of the trunk
He slowly emptied it of its contents taking out each article separately and laying it carefully upon a chair by his side He handled the things with a respectful tenderness as if he had been lifting the dead body of his lost friend One by one he laid the neatly folded mourning garments on the chair He found old meerschaum pipes and soiled crumpled gloves that had once been fresh from the Parisian maker old playbills whose biggest letters spelled the names of actors who were dead and gone old perfumebottles fragrant with essences whose fashion had passed away neat little parcels of letters each carefully labeled with the name of the writer fragments of old newspapers and a little heap of shabby dilapidated books each of which tumbled into as many pieces as a pack of cards in Roberts incautious hand But among all the mass of worthless litter each scrap of which had once had its separate purpose Robert Audley looked in vain for that which he sought—the packet of letters written to the missing man by his dead wife Helen Talboys He had heard George allude more than once to the existence of these letters He had seen him once sorting the faded papers with a reverent hand and he had seen him replace them carefully tied together with a faded ribbon which had once been Helens among the mourning garments in the trunk Whether he had afterward removed them or whether they had been removed since his disappearance by some other hand it was not easy to say but they were gone
Robert Audley sighed wearily as he replaced the things in the empty box one by one as he had taken them out He stopped with the little heap of tattered books in his hand and hesitated for a moment
I will keep these out he muttered there may be something to help me in one of them
Georges library was no very brilliant collection of literature There was an old Greek Testament and the Eton Latin Grammar a French pamphlet on the cavalry swordexercise an odd volume of Tom Jones with one half of its stiff leather cover hanging to it by a thread Byrons Don Juan printed in a murderous type which must have been invented for the special advantage of oculists and opticians and a fat book in a faded gilt and crimson cover
Robert Audley locked the trunk and took the books under his arm Mrs Maloney was clearing away the remains of his repast when he returned to the sittingroom He put the books aside on a little table in a corner of the fireplace and waited patiently while the laundress finished her work He was in no humor even for his meerschaum consoler the yellowpapered fictions on the shelves above his head seemed stale and profitless—he opened a volume of Balzac but his uncles wifes golden curls danced and trembled in a glittering haze alike upon the metaphysical diablerie of the Peau de Chagrin and the hideous social horrors of Cousine Bette The volume dropped from his hand and he sat wearily watching Mrs Maloney as she swept up the ashes on the hearth replenished the fire drew the dark damask curtains supplied the simple wants of the canaries and put on her bonnet in the disused clerks office prior to bidding her employer goodnight As the door closed upon the Irishwoman he arose impatiently from his chair and paced up and down the room
Why do I go on with this he said when I know that it is leading me step by step day by day hour by hour nearer to that conclusion which of all others I should avoid Am I tied to a wheel and must I go with its every revolution let it take me where it will Or can I sit down here tonight and say I have done my duty to my missing friend I have searched for him patiently but I have searched in vain Should I be justified in doing this Should I be justified in letting the chain which I have slowly put together link by link drop at this point or must I go on adding fresh links to that fatal chain until the last rivet drops into its place and the circle is complete I think and I believe that I shall never see my friends face again and that no exertion of mine can ever be of any benefit to him In plainer crueler words I believe him to be dead Am I bound to discover how and where he died or being as I think on the road to that discovery shall I do a wrong to the memory of George Talboys by turning back or stopping still What am I to do—what am I to do
He rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands The one purpose which had slowly grown up in his careless nature until it had become powerful enough to work a change in that very nature made him what he had never been before—a Christian conscious of his own weakness anxious to keep to the strict line of duty fearful to swerve from the conscientious discharge of the strange task that had been forced upon him and reliant on a stronger hand than his own to point the way which he was to go Perhaps he uttered his first earnest prayer that night seated by his lonely fireside thinking of George Talboys When he raised his head from that long and silent revery his eyes had a bright determined glance and every feature in his face seemed to wear a new expression
Justice to the dead first he said mercy to the living afterward
He wheeled his easychair to the table trimmed the lamp and settled himself to the examination of the books
He took them up one by one and looked carefully through them first looking at the page on which the name of the owner is ordinarily written and then searching for any scrap of paper which might have been left within the leaves On the first page of the Eton Latin Grammar the name of Master Talboys was written in a prim scholastic hand the French pamphlet had a careless GT scrawled on the cover in pencil in Georges big slovenly calligraphy the Tom Jones had evidently been bought at a bookstall and bore an inscription dated March 14th 1788 setting forth that the book was a tribute of respect to Mr Thos Scrowton from his obedient servant James Anderley the Don Juan and the Testament were blank Robert Audley breathed more freely he had arrived at the last but one of the books without any result whatever and there only remained the fat giltandcrimsonbound volume to be examined before his task was finished
It was an annual of the year 1845 The copperplate engravings of lovely ladies who had flourished in that day were yellow and spotted with mildew the costumes grotesque and outlandish the simpering beauties faded and commonplace Even the little clusters of verses in which the poets feeble candle shed its sickly light upon the obscurities of the artists meaning had an oldfashioned twang like music on a lyre whose strings are slackened by the damps of time Robert Audley did not stop to read any of the mild productions He ran rapidly through the leaves looking for any scrap of writing or fragment of a letter which might have been used to mark a place He found nothing but a bright ring of golden hair of that glittering hue which is so rarely seen except upon the head of a child—a sunny lock which curled as naturally as the tendril of a vine and was very opposite in texture if not different in hue to the soft smooth tresses which the landlady at Ventnor had given to George Talboys after his wifes death Robert Audley suspended his examination of the book and folded this yellow lock in a sheet of letter paper which he sealed with his signetring and laid aside with the memorandum about George Talboys and Alicias letter in the pigeonhole marked important He was going to replace the fat annual among the other books when he discovered that the two blank leaves at the beginning were stuck together He was so determined to prosecute his search to the very uttermost that he took the trouble to part these leaves with the sharp end of his paperknife and he was rewarded for his perseverance by finding an inscription upon one of them This inscription was in three parts and in three different hands The first paragraph was dated as far back as the year in which the annual had been published and set forth that the book was the property of a certain Miss Elizabeth Ann Bince who had obtained the precious volume as a reward for habits of order and for obedience to the authorities of Camford House Seminary Torquay The second paragraph was dated five years later and was in the handwriting of Miss Bince herself who presented the book as a mark of undying affection and unfading esteem Miss Bince was evidently of a romantic temperament to her beloved friend Helen Maldon The third paragraph was dated September 1853 and was in the hand of Helen Maldon who gave the annual to George Talboys and it was at the sight of this third paragraph that Mr Robert Audleys face changed from its natural hue to a sickly leaden pallor
I thought it would be so said the young man shutting the book with a weary sigh God knows I was prepared for the worst and the worst has come I can understand all now My next visit must be to Southampton I must place the boy in better hands
CHAPTER XX
MRS PLOWSON
Among the packet of letters which Robert Audley had found in Georges trunk there was one labeled with the name of the missing mans father—the father who had never been too indulgent a friend to his younger son and who had gladly availed himself of the excuse afforded by Georges imprudent marriage to abandon the young man to his own resources Robert Audley had never seen Mr Harcourt Talboys but Georges careless talk of his father had given his friend some notion of that gentlemans character He had written to Mr Talboys immediately after the disappearance of George carefully wording his letter which vaguely hinted at the writers fear of some foul play in the mysterious business and after the lapse of several weeks he had received a formal epistle in which Mr Harcourt Talboys expressly declared that he had washed his hands of all responsibility in his son Georges affairs upon the young mans weddingday and that his absurd disappearance was only in character with his preposterous marriage The writer of this fatherly letter added in a postscript that if George Talboys had any low design of alarming his friends by this pretended disappearance and thereby playing on their feelings with a view to pecuniary advantage he was most egregiously deceived in the character of those persons with whom he had to deal
Robert Audley had answered this letter by a few indignant lines informing Mr Talboys that his son was scarcely likely to hide himself for the furtherance of any deeplaid design on the pockets of his relatives as he had left twenty thousand pounds in his bankers hands at the time of his disappearance After dispatching this letter Robert had abandoned all thought of assistance from the man who in the natural course of things should have been most interested in Georges fate but now that he found himself advancing every day some step nearer to the end that lay so darkly before him his mind reverted to this heartlessly indifferent Mr Harcourt Talboys
I will run into Dorsetshire after I leave Southampton he said and see this man If he is content to let his sons fate rest a dark and cruel mystery to all who knew him—if he is content to go down to his grave uncertain to the last of this poor fellows end—why should I try to unravel the tangled skein to fit the pieces of the terrible puzzle and gather together the stray fragments which when collected may make such a hideous whole I will go to him and lay my darkest doubts freely before him It will be for him to say what I am to do
Robert Audley started by an early express for Southampton The snow lay thick and white upon the pleasant country through which he went and the young barrister had wrapped himself in so many comforters and railway rugs as to appear a perambulating mass of woollen goods rather than a living member of a learned profession He looked gloomily out of the misty window opaque with the breath of himself and an elderly Indian officer who was his only companion and watched the fleeting landscape which had a certain phantomlike appearance in its shroud of snow He wrapped himself in the vast folds of his railway rug with a peevish shiver and felt inclined to quarrel with the destiny which compelled him to travel by an early train upon a pitiless winters day
Who would have thought that I could have grown so fond of the fellow he muttered or feel so lonely without him Ive a comfortable little fortune in the three per cents Im heir presumptive to my uncles title and I know of a certain dear little girl who as I think would do her best to make me happy but I declare that I would freely give up all and stand penniless in the world tomorrow if this mystery could be satisfactorily cleared away and George Talboys could stand by my side
He reached Southampton between eleven and twelve oclock and walked across the platform with the snow drifting in his face toward the pier and the lower end of the town The clock of St Michaels Church was striking twelve as he crossed the quaint old square in which that edifice stands and groped his way through the narrow streets leading down to the water
Mr Maldon had established his slovenly household gods in one of those dreary thoroughfares which speculative builders love to raise upon some miserable fragment of waste ground hanging to the skirts of a prosperous town Brigsomes Terrace was perhaps one of the most dismal blocks of building that was ever composed of brick and mortar since the first mason plied his trowel and the first architect drew his plan The builder who had speculated in the ten dreary eightroomed prisonhouses had hung himself behind the parlor door of an adjacent tavern while the carcases were yet unfinished The man who had bought the brick and mortar skeletons had gone through the bankruptcy court while the paperhangers were still busy in Brigsomes Terrace and had whitewashed his ceilings and himself simultaneously Ill luck and insolvency clung to the wretched habitations The bailiff and the brokers man were as well known as the butcher and the baker to the noisy children who played upon the waste ground in front of the parlor windows Solvent tenants were disturbed at unhallowed hours by the noise of ghostly furniture vans creeping stealthily away in the moonless night Insolvent tenants openly defied the collector of the waterrate from their tenroomed strongholds and existed for weeks without any visible means of procuring that necessary fluid
Robert Audley looked about him with a shudder as he turned from the waterside into this povertystricken locality A childs funeral was leaving one of the houses as he approached and he thought with a thrill of horror that if the little coffin had held Georges son he would have been in some measure responsible for the boys death
The poor child shall not sleep another night in this wretched hovel he thought as he knocked at the door of Mr Maldons house He is the legacy of my best friend and it shall be my business to secure his safety
A slipshod servant girl opened the door and looked at Mr Audley rather suspiciously as she asked him very much through her nose what he pleased to want The door of the little sitting room was ajar and Robert could hear the clattering of knives and forks and the childish voice of little George prattling gayly He told the servant that he had come from London that he wanted to see Master Talboys and that he would announce himself and walking past her without further ceremony he opened the door of the parlor The girl stared at him aghast as he did this and as if struck by some sudden and terrible conviction threw her apron over her head and ran out into the snow She darted across the waste ground plunged into a narrow alley and never drew breath till she found herself upon the threshold of a certain tavern called the Coach and Horses and much affected by Mr Maldon The lieutenants faithful retainer had taken Robert Audley for some new and determined collector of poors rates—rejecting that gentlemans account of himself as an artful fiction devised for the destruction of parochial defaulters—and had hurried off to give her master timely warning of the enemys approach
When Robert entered the sittingroom he was surprised to find little George seated opposite to a woman who was doing the honors of a shabby repast spread upon a dirty tablecloth and flanked by a pewter beer measure The woman rose as Robert entered and courtesied very humbly to the young barrister She looked about fifty years of age and was dressed in rusty widows weeds Her complexion was insipidly fair and the two smooth bands of hair beneath her cap were of that sunless flaxen hue which generally accompanies pink cheeks and white eyelashes She had been a rustic beauty perhaps in her time but her features although tolerably regular in their shape had a mean pinched look as if they had been made too small for her face This defect was peculiarly noticeable in her mouth which was an obvious misfit for the set of teeth it contained She smiled as she courtesied to Mr Robert Audley and her smile which laid bare the greater part of this set of square hungrylooking teeth by no means added to the beauty of her personal appearance
Mr Maldon is not at home sir she said with insinuating civility but if its for the waterrate he requested me to say that—
She was interrupted by little George Talboys who scrambled down from the high chair upon which he had been perched and ran to Robert Audley
I know you he said you came to Ventnor with the big gentleman and you came here once and you gave me some money and I gave it to granpa to take care of and granpa kept it and he always does
Robert Audley took the boy in his arms and carried him to a little table in the window
Stand there Georgey he said I want to have a good look at you
He turned the boys face to the light and pushed the brown curls off his forehead with both hands
You are growing more like your father every day Georgey and youre growing quite a man too he said would you like to go to school
Oh yes please I should like it very much the boy answered eagerly I went to school at Miss Pevins once—dayschool you know—round the corner in the next street but I caught the measles and granpa wouldnt let me go any more for fear I should catch the measles again and granpa wont let me play with the little boys in the street because theyre rude boys he said blackguard boys but he said I mustnt say blackguard boys because its naughty He says damn and devil but he says he may because hes old I shall say damn and devil when Im old and I should like to go to school please and I can go today if you like Mrs Plowson will get my frocks ready wont you Mrs Plowson
Certainly Master Georgey if your grandpapa wishes it the woman answered looking rather uneasily at Mr Robert Audley
What on earth is the matter with this woman thought Robert as he turned from the boy to the fairhaired widow who was edging herself slowly toward the table upon which little George Talboys stood talking to his guardian Does she still take me for a taxcollector with inimical intentions toward these wretched goods and chattels or can the cause of her fidgety manner lie deeper still Thats scarcely likely though for whatever secrets Lieutenant Maldon may have its not very probable that this woman has any knowledge of them
Mrs Plowson had edged herself close to the little table by this time and was making a stealthy descent upon the boy when Robert turned sharply round
What are you going to do with the child he said
I was only going to take him away to wash his pretty face sir and smooth his hair answered the woman in the most insinuating tone in which she had spoken of the waterrate You dont see him to any advantage sir while his precious face is dirty I wont be five minutes making him as neat as a new pin
She had her long thin arms about the boy as she spoke and she was evidently going to carry him off bodily when Robert stopped her
Id rather see him as he is thank you he said My time in Southampton isnt very long and I want to hear all that the little man can tell me
The little man crept closer to Robert and looked confidingly into the barristers gray eyes
I like you very much he said I was frightened of you when you came before because I was shy I am not shy now—I am nearly six years old
Robert patted the boys head encouragingly but he was not looking at little George he was watching the fairhaired widow who had moved to the window and was looking out at the patch of waste ground
Youre rather fidgety about some one maam Im afraid said Robert
She colored violently as the barrister made this remark and answered him in a confused manner
I was looking for Mr Maldon sir she said hell be so disappointed if he doesnt see you
You know who I am then
No sir but—
The boy interrupted her by dragging a little jeweled watch from his bosom and showing it to Robert
This is the watch the pretty lady gave me he said Ive got it now—but I havent had it long because the jeweler who cleans it is an idle man granpa says and always keeps it such a long time and granpa says it will have to be cleaned again because of the taxes He always takes it to be cleaned when theres taxes—but he says if he were to lose it the pretty lady would give me another Do you know the pretty lady
No Georgey but tell me about her
Mrs Plowson made another descent upon the boy She was armed with a pockethandkerchief this time and displayed great anxiety about the state of little Georges nose but Robert warded off the dreaded weapon and drew the child away from his tormentor
The boy will do very well maam he said if youll be good enough to let him alone for five minutes Now Georgey suppose you sit on my knee and tell me all about the pretty lady
The child clambered from the table onto Mr Audleys knees assisting his descent by a very unceremonious manipulation of his guardians coatcollar
Ill tell you all about the pretty lady he said because I like you very much Granpa told me not to tell anybody but Ill tell you you know because I like you and because youre going to take me to school The pretty lady came here one night—long ago—oh so long ago said the boy shaking his head with a face whose solemnity was expressive of some prodigious lapse of time She came when I was not nearly so big as I am now—and she came at night—after Id gone to bed and she came up into my room and sat upon the bed and cried—and she left the watch under my pillow and she—Why do you make faces at me Mrs Plowson I may tell this gentleman Georgey added suddenly addressing the widow who was standing behind Roberts shoulder
Mrs Plowson mumbled some confused apology to the effect that she was afraid Master George was troublesome
Suppose you wait till I say so maam before you stop the little fellows mouth said Robert Audley sharply A suspicious person might think from your manner that Mr Maldon and you had some conspiracy between you and that you were afraid of what the boys talk may let slip
He rose from his chair and looked full at Mrs Plowson as he said this The fairhaired widows face was as white as her cap when she tried to answer him and her pale lips were so dry that she was compelled to wet them with her tongue before the words would come
The little boy relieved her embarrassment
Dont be cross to Mrs Plowson he said Mrs Plowson is very kind to me Mrs Plowson is Matildas mother You dont know Matilda Poor Matilda was always crying she was ill she—
The boy was stopped by the sudden appearance of Mr Maldon who stood on the threshold of the parlor door staring at Robert Audley with a halfdrunken halfterrified aspect scarcely consistent with the dignity of a retired naval officer The servant girl breathless and panting stood close behind her master Early in the day though it was the old mans speech was thick and confused as he addressed himself fiercely to Mrs Plowson
Youre a prett creature to call yoursel sensible woman he said Why dont you take th chile way er wash s face Dyer want to ruin me Dyer want to stroy me Take th chile way Mr Audley sir Im ver glad to see yer ver appy to ceive yer in m humbl bode the old man added with tipsy politeness dropping into a chair as he spoke and trying to look steadily at his unexpected visitor
Whatever this mans secrets are thought Robert as Mrs Plowson hustled little George Talboys out of the room that woman has no unimportant share of them Whatever the mystery may be it grows darker and thicker at every step but I try in vain to draw back or to stop short upon the road for a stronger hand than my own is pointing the way to my lost friends unknown grave
CHAPTER XXI
LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME
I am going to take your grandson away with me Mr Maldon Robert said gravely as Mrs Plowson retired with her young charge
The old mans drunken imbecility was slowly clearing away like the heavy mists of a London fog through which the feeble sunshine struggles dimly to appear The very uncertain radiance of Lieutenant Maldons intellect took a considerable time in piercing the hazy vapors of rumandwater but the flickering light at last faintly glimmered athwart the clouds and the old man screwed his poor wits to the stickingpoint
Yes yes he said feebly take the boy away from his poor old grandfather I always thought so
You always thought that I should take him away scrutinizing the halfdrunken countenance with a searching glance Why did you think so Mr Maldon
The fogs of intoxication got the better of the light of sobriety for a moment and the lieutenant answered vaguely
Thought so—cause I thought so
Meeting the young barristers impatient frown he made another effort and the light glimmered again
Because I thought you or his father would fetch m away
When I was last in this house Mr Maldon you told me that George Talboys had sailed for Australia
Yes yes—I know I know the old man answered confusedly shuffling his scanty limp gray hairs with his two wandering hands—I know but he might have come back—mightnt he He was restless and—and—queer in his mind perhaps sometimes He might have come back
He repeated this two or three times in feeble muttering tones groping about on the littered mantlepiece for a dirtylooking clay pipe and filling and lighting it with hands that trembled violently
Robert Audley watched those poor withered tremulous fingers dropping shreds of tobacco upon the hearth rug and scarcely able to kindle a lucifer for their unsteadiness Then walking once or twice up and down the little room he left the old man to take a few puffs from the great consoler
Presently he turned suddenly upon the halfpay lieutenant with a dark solemnity in his handsome face
Mr Maldon he said slowly watching the effect of every syllable as he spoke George Talboys never sailed for Australia—that I know More than this he never came to Southampton and the lie you told me on the 8th of last September was dictated to you by the telegraphic message which you received on that day
The dirty clay pipe dropped from the tremulous hand and shivered against the iron fender but the old man made no effort to find a fresh one he sat trembling in every limb and looking Heaven knows how piteously at Robert Audley
The lie was dictated to you and you repeated your lesson But you no more saw George Talboys here on the 7th of September than I see him in this room now You thought you had burnt the telegraphic message but you had only burnt a part of it—the remainder is in my possession
Lieutenant Maldon was quite sober now
What have I done he murmured hopelessly Oh my God what have I done
At two oclock on the 7th of September last continued the pitiless accusing voice George Talboys was seen alive and well at a house in Essex
Robert paused to see the effect of these words They had produced no change in the old man He still sat trembling from head to foot and staring with the fixed and solid gaze of some helpless wretch whose every sense is gradually becoming numbed by terror
At two oclock on that day remarked Robert Audley my poor friend was seen alive and well at —— at the house of which I speak From that hour to this I have never been able to hear that he has been seen by any living creature I have taken such steps as must have resulted in procuring the information of his whereabouts were he alive I have done this patiently and carefully—at first even hopefully Now I know that he is dead
Robert Audley had been prepared to witness some considerable agitation in the old mans manner but he was not prepared for the terrible anguish the ghastly terror which convulsed Mr Maldons haggard face as he uttered the last word
No no no no reiterated the lieutenant in a shrill halfscreaming voice no no For Gods sake dont say that Dont think it—dont let me think it—dont let me dream of it Not dead—anything but dead Hidden away perhaps—bribed to keep out of the way perhaps but not dead—not dead—not dead
He cried these words aloud like one beside himself beating his hands upon his gray head and rocking backward and forward in his chair His feeble hands trembled no longer—they were strengthened by some convulsive force that gave them a new power
I believe said Robert in the same solemn relentless voice that my friend left Essex and I believe he died on the 7th of September last
The wretched old man still beating his hands among his thin gray hair slid from his chair to the ground and groveled at Roberts feet
Oh no no—for Gods no he shrieked hoarsely No you dont know what you say—you dont know what your words mean
I know their weight and value only too well—as well as I see you do Mr Maldon God help us
Oh what am I doing what am I doing muttered the old man feebly then raising himself from the ground with an effort he drew himself to his full height and said in a manner which was new to him and which was not without a certain dignity of his own—that dignity which must be always attached to unutterable misery in whatever form it may appear—he said gravely
You have no right to come here and terrify a man who has been drinking and who is not quite himself You have no right to do it Mr Audley Even the—the officer sir who—who— He did not stammer but his lips trembled so violently that his words seemed to be shaken into pieces by their motion The officer I repeat sir who arrests a—thief or a— He stopped to wipe his lips and to still them if he could by doing so which he could not A thief or a murderer— His voice died suddenly away upon the last word and it was only by the motion of those trembling lips that Robert knew what he meant Gives him warning sir fair warning that he may say nothing which shall commit himself—or—or—other people The—the—law sir has that amount of mercy for a—a—suspected criminal But you sir—you come to my house and you come at a time when—when—contrary to my usual habits—which as people will tell you are sober—you take the opportunity to—terrify me—and it is not right sir—it is—
Whatever he would have said died away into inarticulate gasps which seemed to choke him and sinking into a chair he dropped his face upon the table and wept aloud Perhaps in all the dismal scenes of domestic misery which had been acted in those spare and dreary houses—in all the petty miseries the burning shames the cruel sorrows the bitter disgraces which own poverty for their father—there had never been such a scene as this An old man hiding his face from the light of day and sobbing aloud in his wretchedness Robert Audley contemplated the painful picture with a hopeless and pitying face
If I had known this he thought I might have spared him It would have been better perhaps to have spared him
The shabby room the dirt the confusion the figure of the old man with his gray head upon the soiled tablecloth amid the muddled debris of a wretched dinner grew blurred before the sight of Robert Audley as he thought of another man as old as this one but ah how widely different in every other quality who might come by and by to feel the same or even a worse anguish and to shed perhaps yet bitterer tears The moment in which the tears rose to his eyes and dimmed the piteous scene before him was long enough to take him back to Essex and to show him the image of his uncle stricken by agony and shame
Why do I go on with this he thought how pitiless I am and how relentlessly I am carried on It is not myself it is the hand which is beckoning me further and further upon the dark road whose end I dare not dream of
He thought this and a hundred times more than this while the old man sat with his face still hidden wrestling with his anguish but without power to keep it down
Mr Maldon Robert Audley said after a pause I do not ask you to forgive me for what I have brought upon you for the feeling is strong within me that it must have come to you sooner or later—if not through me through some one else There are— he stopped for a moment hesitating The sobbing did not cease it was sometimes low sometimes loud bursting out with fresh violence or dying away for an instant but never ceasing There are some things which as people say cannot be hidden I think there is truth in that common saying which had its origin in that old worldly wisdom which people gathered from experience and not from books If—if I were content to let my friend rest in his hidden grave it is but likely that some stranger who had never heard the name of George Talboys might fall by the remotest accident upon the secret of his death Tomorrow perhaps or ten years hence or in another generation when the—the hand that wronged him is as cold as his own If I could let the matter rest if—if I could leave England forever and purposely fly from the possibility of ever coming across another clew to the secret I would do it—I would gladly thankfully do it—but I cannot A hand which is stronger than my own beckons me on I wish to take no base advantage of you less than of all other people but I must go on I must go on If there is any warning you would give to any one give it If the secret toward which I am traveling day by day hour by hour involves any one in whom you have an interest let that person fly before I come to the end Let them leave this country let them leave all who know them—all whose peace their wickedness has endangered let them go away—they shall not be pursued But if they slight your warning—if they try to hold their present position in defiance of what it will be in your power to tell them—let them beware of me for when the hour comes I swear that I will not spare them
The old man looked up for the first time and wiped his wrinkled face upon a ragged silk handkerchief
I declare to you that I do not understand you he said I solemnly declare to you that I cannot understand and I do not believe that George Talboys is dead
I would give ten years of my own life if I could see him alive answered Robert sadly I am sorry for you Mr Maldon—I am sorry for all of us
I do not believe that my soninlaw is dead said the lieutenant I do not believe that the poor lad is dead
He endeavored in a feeble manner to show to Robert Audley that his wild outburst of anguish had been caused by his grief for the loss of George but the pretense was miserably shallow
Mrs Plowson reentered the room leading little Georgey whose face shone with that brilliant polish which yellow soap and friction can produce upon the human countenance
Dear heart alive exclaimed Mrs Plowson what has the poor old gentleman been taking on about We could hear him in the passage sobbin awful
Little George crept up to his grandfather and smoothed the wet and wrinkled face with his pudgy hand
Dont cry granpa he said dont cry You shall have my watch to be cleaned and the kind jeweler shall lend you the money to pay the taxman while he cleans the watch—I dont mind granpa Lets go to the jeweler the jeweler in High street you know with golden balls painted upon his door to show that he comes from Lombar—Lombardshire said the boy making a dash at the name Come granpa
The little fellow took the jeweled toy from his bosom and made for the door proud of being possessed of a talisman which he had seen so often made useful
There are wolves at Southampton he said with rather a triumphant nod to Robert Audley My granpa says when he takes my watch that he does it to keep the wolf from the door Are there wolves where you live
The young barrister did not answer the childs question but stopped him as he was dragging his grandfather toward the door
Your grandpapa does not want the watch today Georgey he said gravely
Why is he sorry then asked Georgey naively when he wants the watch he is always sorry and beats his poor forehead so—the boy stopped to pantomime with his small fists—and says that she—the pretty lady I think he means—uses him very hard and that he cant keep the wolf from the door and then I say Granpa have the watch and then he takes me in his arms and says Oh my blessed angel how can I rob my blessed angel and then he cries but not like today—not loud you know only tears running down his poor cheeks not so that you could hear him in the passage
Painful as the childs prattle was to Robert Audley it seemed a relief to the old man He did not hear the boys talk but walked two or three times up and down the little room and smoothed his rumpled hair and suffered his cravat to be arranged by Mrs Plowson who seemed very anxious to find out the cause of his agitation
Poor dear old gentleman she said looking at Robert
What has happened to upset him so
His soninlaw is dead answered Mr Audley fixing his eyes upon Mrs Plowsons sympathetic face He died within a year and a half after the death of Helen Talboys who lies burried in Ventnor churchyard
The face into which he was looking changed very slightly but the eyes that had been looking at him shifted away as he spoke and Mrs Plowson was obliged to moisten her white lips with her tongue before she answered him
Poor Mr Talboys dead she said that is bad news indeed sir
Little George looked wistfully up at his guardians face as this was said
Whos dead he said George Talboys is my name Whos dead
Another person whose name is Talboys Georgey
Poor person Will he go to the pithole
The boy had that notion of death which is generally imparted to children by their wise elders and which always leads the infant mind to the open grave and rarely carries it any higher
I should like to see him put in the pithole Georgey remarked after a pause He had attended several infant funerals in the neighborhood and was considered valuable as a mourner on account of his interesting appearance He had come therefore to look upon the ceremony of interment as a solemn festivity in which cake and wine and a carriage drive were the leading features
You have no objection to my taking Georgey away with me Mr Maldon asked Robert Audley
The old mans agitation had very much subsided by this time He had found another pipe stuck behind the tawdry frame of the lookingglass and was trying to light it with a bit of twisted newspaper
You do not object Mr Maldon
No sir—no sir you are his guardian and you have a right to take him where you please He has been a very great comfort to me in my lonely old age but I have been prepared to lose him I—I may not have always done my duty to him sir in—in the way of schooling and—and boots The number of boots which boys of his age wear out sir is not easily realized by the mind of a young man like yourself he has been kept away from school perhaps sometimes and occasionally worn shabby boots when our funds have got low but he has not been unkindly treated No sir if you were to question him for a week I dont think youd hear that his poor old grandfather ever said a harsh word to him
Upon this Georgie perceiving the distress of his old protector set up a terrible howl and declared that he would never leave him
Mr Maldon said Robert Audley with a tone which was halfmournful halfcompassionate when I looked at my position last night I did not believe that I could ever come to think it more painful than I thought it then I can only say—God have mercy upon us all I feel it my duty to take the child away but I shall take him straight from your house to the best school in Southampton and I give you my honor that I will extort nothing from his innocent simplicity which can in any manner—I mean he said breaking off abruptly I mean this I will not seek to come one step nearer the secret through him I—I am not a detective officer and I do not think the most accomplished detective would like to get his information from a child
The old man did not answer he sat with his face shaded by his hand and with his extinguished pipe between the listless fingers of the other
Take the boy away Mrs Plowson he said after a pause take him away and put his things on He is going with Mr Audley
Which I do say that its not kind of the gentleman to take his poor grandpas pet away Mrs Plowson exclaimed suddenly with respectful indignation
Hush Mrs Plowson the old man answered piteously Mr Audley is the best judge I—I havent many years to live I shant trouble anybody long
The tears oozed slowly through the dirty fingers with which he shaded his bloodshot eyes as he said this
God knows I never injured your friend sir he said byandby when Mrs Plowson and Georgey had returned nor even wished him any ill He was a good soninlaw to me—better than many a son I never did him any wilful wrong sir I—I spent his money perhaps but I am sorry for it—I am very sorry for it now But I dont believe he is dead—no sir no I dont believe it exclaimed the old man dropping his hand from his eyes and looking with new energy at Robert Audley I—I dont believe it sir How—how should he be dead
Robert did not answer this eager questioning He shook his head mournfully and walking to the little window looked out across a row of straggling geraniums at the dreary patch of waste ground on which the children were at play
Mrs Plowson returned with little Georgey muffled in a coat and comforter and Robert took the boys hand
The little fellow sprung toward the old man and clinging about him kissed the dirty tears from his faded cheeks
Dont be sorry for me granpa he said I am going to school to learn to be a clever man and I shall come home to see you and Mrs Plowson shant I he added turning to Robert
Yes my dear byandby
Take him away sir—take him away cried Mr Maldon you are breaking my heart
The little fellow trotted away contentedly at Roberts side He was very well pleased at the idea of going to school though he had been happy enough with his drunken old grandfather who had always displayed a maudlin affection for the pretty child and had done his best to spoil Georgey by letting him have his own way in everything in consequence of which indulgence Master Talboys had acquired a taste for late hours hot suppers of the most indigestible nature and sips of rumandwater from his grandfathers glass
He communicated his sentiments upon many subjects to Robert Audley as they walked to the Dolphin Hotel but the barrister did not encourage him to talk
It was no very difficult matter to find a good school in such a place as Southampton Robert Audley was directed to a pretty house between the Bar and the Avenue and leaving Georgey to the care of a goodnatured waiter who seemed to have nothing to do but to look out of the window and whisk invisible dust off the brightly polished tables the barrister walked up the High street toward Mr Marchmonts academy for young gentlemen
He found Mr Marchmont a very sensible man and he met a file of orderlylooking young gentlemen walking townward under the escort of a couple of ushers as he entered the house
He told the schoolmaster that little George Talboys had been left in his charge by a dear friend who had sailed for Australia some months before and whom he believed to be dead He confided him to Mr Marchmonts especial care and he further requested that no visitors should be admitted to see the boy unless accredited by a letter from himself Having arranged the matter in a very few businesslike words he returned to the hotel to fetch Georgey
He found the little man on intimate terms with the idle waiter who had been directing Master Georgeys attention to the different objects of interest in the High street
Poor Robert had about as much notion of the requirements of a child as he had of those of a white elephant He had catered for silkworms guineapigs dormice canarybirds and dogs without number during his boyhood but he had never been called upon to provide for a young person of five years old
He looked back fiveandtwenty years and tried to remember his own diet at the age of five
Ive a vague recollection of getting a good deal of bread and milk and boiled mutton he thought and Ive another vague recollection of not liking them I wonder if this boy likes bread and milk and boiled mutton
He stood pulling his thick mustache and staring thoughtfully at the child for some minutes before he could get any further
I dare say youre hungry Georgey he said at last
The boy nodded and the waiter whisked some more invisible dust from the nearest table as a preparatory step toward laying a cloth
Perhaps youd like some lunch Mr Audley suggested still pulling his mustache
The boy burst out laughing
Lunch he cried Why its afternoon and Ive had my dinner
Robert Audley felt himself brought to a standstill What refreshment could he possibly provide for a boy who called it afternoon at three oclock
You shall have some bread and milk Georgey he said presently Waiter bread and milk and a pint of hock
Master Talboys made a wry face
I never have bread and milk he said I dont like it I like what granpa calls something savory I should like a veal cutlet Granpa told me he dined here once and the veal cutlets were lovely granpa said Please may I have a veal cutlet with egg and breadcrumb you know and lemonjuice you know he added to the waiter Granpa knows the cook here The cooks such a nice gentleman and once gave me a shilling when granpa brought me here The cook wears better clothes than granpa—better than yours even said Master Georgey pointing to Roberts rough greatcoat with a depreciating nod
Robert Audley stared aghast How was he to deal with this epicure of five years old who rejected bread and milk and asked for veal cutlets
Ill tell you what Ill do with you little Georgey he exclaimed after a pause—Ill give you a dinner
The waiter nodded briskly
Upon my word sir he said approvingly I think the little gentleman will know how to eat it
Ill give you a dinner Georgey repeated Robert—some stewed eels a little Julienne a dish of cutlets a bird and a pudding What do you say to that Georgey
I dont think the young gentleman will object to it when he sees it sir said the waiter Eels Julienne cutlets bird pudding—Ill go and tell the cook sir What time sir
Well well say six and Master Georgey will get to his new school by bedtime You can contrive to amuse the child for this afternoon I dare say I have some business to settle and shant be able to take him out I shall sleep here tonight Goodby Georgey take care of yourself and try and get your appetite in order against six oclock
Robert Audley left the boy in charge of the idle waiter and strolled down to the water side choosing that lonely bank which leads away under the moldering walls of the town toward the little villages beside the narrowing river
He had purposely avoided the society of the child and he walked through the light drifting snow till the early darkness closed upon him
He went back to the town and made inquiries at the station about the trains for Dorsetshire
I shall start early tomorrow morning he thought and see Georges father before nightfall I will tell him all—all but the interest which I take in—in the suspected person and he shall decide what is next to be done
Master Georgey did very good justice to the dinner which Robert had ordered He drank Bass pale ale to an extent which considerably alarmed his entertainer and enjoyed himself amazingly showing an appreciation of roast pheasant and breadsauce which was beyond his years At eight oclock a fly was brought out for his accommodation and he departed in the highest spirits with a sovereign in his pocket and a letter from Robert to Mr Marchmont inclosing a check for the young gentlemans outfit
Im glad Im going to have new clothes he said as he bade Robert goodby for Mrs Plowson has mended the old ones ever so many times She can have them now for Billy
Whos Billy Robert asked laughing at the boys chatter
Billy is poor Matildas little boy Hes a common boy you know Matilda was common but she—
But the flyman snapping his whip at this moment the old horse jogged off and Robert Audley heard no more of Matilda
CHAPTER XXII
COMING TO A STANDSTILL
Mr Harcourt Talboys lived in a prim square redbrick mansion within a mile of a little village called Grange Heath in Dorsetshire The prim square redbrick mansion stood in the center of prim square grounds scarcely large enough to be called a park too large to be called anything else—so neither the house nor the grounds had any name and the estate was simply designated Squire Talboys
Perhaps Mr Harcourt Talboys was the last person in this world with whom it was possible to associate the homely hearty rural old English title of squire He neither hunted nor farmed He had never worn crimson pink or topboots in his life A southerly wind and a cloudy sky were matters of supreme indifference to him so long as they did not in any way interfere with his own prim comforts and he only cared for the state of the crops inasmuch as it involved the hazard of certain rents which he received for the farms upon his estate He was a man of about fifty years of age tall straight bony and angular with a square pale face light gray eyes and scanty dark hair brushed from either ear across a bald crown and thus imparting to his physiognomy some faint resemblance to that of a terrier—a sharp uncompromising hardheaded terrier—a terrier not to be taken in by the cleverest dogstealer who ever distinguished himself in his profession
Nobody ever remembered getting upon what is popularly called the blind side of Harcourt Talboys He was like his own squarebuilt northernfronted shelterless house There were no shady nooks in his character into which one could creep for shelter from his hard daylight He was all daylight He looked at everything in the same broad glare of intellectual sunlight and would see no softening shadows that might alter the sharp outlines of cruel facts subduing them to beauty I do not know if I express what I mean when I say that there were no curves in his character—that his mind ran in straight lines never diverging to the right or the left to round off their pitiless angles With him right was right and wrong was wrong He had never in his merciless conscientious life admitted the idea that circumstances might mitigate the blackness of wrong or weaken the force of right He had cast off his only son because his only son had disobeyed him and he was ready to cast off his only daughter at five minutes notice for the same reason
If this squarebuilt hardheaded man could be possessed of such a weakness as vanity he was certainly vain of his hardness He was vain of that inflexible squareness of intellect which made him the disagreeable creature that he was He was vain of that unwavering obstinacy which no influence of love or pity had ever been known to bend from its remorseless purpose He was vain of the negative force of a nature which had never known the weakness of the affections or the strength which may be born of that very weakness
If he had regretted his sons marriage and the breach of his own making between himself and George his vanity had been more powerful than his regret and had enabled him to conceal it Indeed unlikely as it appears at the first glance that such a man as this could have been vain I have little doubt that vanity was the center from which radiated all the disagreeable lines in the character of Mr Harcourt Talboys I dare say Junius Brutus was vain and enjoyed the approval of awestricken Rome when he ordered his son off for execution Harcourt Talboys would have sent poor George from his presence between the reversed fasces of the lictors and grimly relished his own agony Heaven only knows how bitterly this hard man may have felt the separation between himself and his only son or how much the more terrible the anguish might have been made by that unflinching selfconceit which concealed the torture
My son did me an unpardonable wrong by marrying the daughter of a drunken pauper Mr Talboys would answer to any one who had the temerity to speak to him about George and from that hour I had no longer a son I wish him no ill He is simply dead to me I am sorry for him as I am sorry for his mother who died nineteen years ago If you talk to me of him as you would talk of the dead I shall be ready to hear you If you speak of him as you would speak of the living I must decline to listen
I believe that Harcourt Talboys hugged himself upon the gloomy Roman grandeur of this speech and that he would like to have worn a toga and wrapped himself sternly in its folds as he turned his back upon poor Georges intercessor George never in his own person made any effort to soften his fathers verdict He knew his father well enough to know that the case was hopeless
If I write to him he will fold my letter with the envelope inside and indorse it with my name and the date of its arrival the young man would say and call everybody in the house to witness that it had not moved him to one softening recollection or one pitiful thought He will stick to his resolution to his dying day I dare say if the truth was known he is glad that his only son has offended him and given him the opportunity of parading his Roman virtues
George had answered his wife thus when she and her father had urged him to ask assistance from Harcourt Talboys
No my darling he would say conclusively Its very hard perhaps to be poor but we will bear it We wont go with pitiful faces to the stern father and ask him to give us food and shelter only to be refused in long Johnsonian sentences and made a classical example for the benefit of the neighborhood No my pretty one it is easy to starve but it is difficult to stoop
Perhaps poor Mrs George did not agree very heartily to the first of these two propositions She had no great fancy for starving and she whimpered pitifully when the pretty pint bottles of champagne with Cliquots and Moets brands upon their corks were exchanged for sixpenny ale procured by a slipshod attendant from the nearest beershop George had been obliged to carry his own burden and lend a helping hand with that of his wife who had no idea of keeping her regrets or disappointments a secret
I thought dragoons were always rich she used to say peevishly Girls always want to marry dragoons and tradespeople always want to serve dragoons and hotelkeepers to entertain dragoons and theatrical managers to be patronized by dragoons Who could have ever expected that a dragoon would drink sixpenny ale smoke horrid birdseye tobacco and let his wife wear a shabby bonnet
If there were any selfish feelings displayed in such speeches as these George Talboys had never discovered it He had loved and believed in his wife from the first to the last hour of his brief married life The love that is not blind is perhaps only a spurious divinity after all for when Cupid takes the fillet from his eyes it is a fatally certain indication that he is preparing to spread his wings for a flight George never forgot the hour in which he had first become bewitched by Lieutenant Maldons pretty daughter and however she might have changed the image which had charmed him then unchanged and unchanging represented her in his heart
Robert Audley left Southampton by a train which started before daybreak and reached Wareham station early in the day He hired a vehicle at Wareham to take him over to Grange Heath
The snow had hardened upon the ground and the day was clear and frosty every object in the landscape standing in sharp outline against the cold blue sky The horses hoofs clattered upon the icebound road the iron shoes striking on the ground that was almost as iron as themselves The wintry day bore some resemblance to the man to whom Robert was going Like him it was sharp frigid and uncompromising like him it was merciless to distress and impregnable to the softening power of sunshine It would accept no sunshine but such January radiance as would light up the bleak bare country without brightening it and thus resembled Harcourt Talboys who took the sternest side of every truth and declared loudly to the disbelieving world that there never had been and never could be any other side
Robert Audleys heart sunk within him as the shabby hired vehicle stopped at a sternlooking barred fence and the driver dismounted to open a broad iron gate which swung back with a clanking noise and was caught by a great iron tooth planted in the ground which snapped at the lowest bar of the gate as if it wanted to bite
This iron gate opened into a scanty plantation of straightlimbed firtrees that grew in rows and shook their sturdy winter foliage defiantly in the very teeth of the frosty breeze A straight graveled carriagedrive ran between these straight trees across a smoothly kept lawn to a square redbrick mansion every window of which winked and glittered in the January sunlight as if it had been that moment cleaned by some indefatigable housemaid
I dont know whether Junius Brutus was a nuisance in his own house but among other of his Roman virtues Mr Talboys owned an extreme aversion to disorder and was the terror of every domestic in his establishment
The windows winked and the flight of stone steps glared in the sunlight the prim garden walks were so freshly graveled that they gave a sandy gingery aspect to the place reminding one unpleasantly of red hair The lawn was chiefly ornamented with dark wintry shrubs of a funereal aspect which grew in beds that looked like problems in algebra and the flight of stone steps leading to the square halfglass door of the hall was adorned with darkgreen wooden tubs containing the same sturdy evergreens
If the man is anything like his house Robert thought I dont wonder that poor George and he parted
At the end of a scanty avenue the carriagedrive turned a sharp corner it would have been made to describe a curve in any other mans grounds and ran before the lower windows of the house The flyman dismounted at the steps ascended them and rang a brasshandled bell which flew back to its socket with an angry metallic snap as if it had been insulted by the plebeian touch of the mans hand
A man in black trousers and a striped linen jacket which was evidently fresh from the hands of the laundress opened the door Mr Talboys was at home Would the gentleman send in his card
Robert waited in the hall while his card was taken to the master of the house
The hall was large and lofty paved with stone The panels of the oaken wainscot shone with the same uncompromising polish which was on every object within and without the redbricked mansion
Some people are so weakminded as to affect pictures and statues Mr Harcourt Talboys was far too practical to indulge in any foolish fancies A barometer and an umbrellastand were the only adornments of his entrancehall
Robert Audley looked at these while his name was being submitted to Georges father
The linenjacketed servant returned presently He was a square palefaced man of almost forty and had the appearance of having outlived every emotion to which humanity is subject
If you will step this way sir he said Mr Talboys will see you although he is at breakfast He begged me to state that everybody in Dorsetshire was acquainted with his breakfast hour
This was intended as a stately reproof to Mr Robert Audley It had however very small effect upon the young barrister He merely lifted his eyebrows in placid deprecation of himself and everybody else
I dont belong to Dorsetshire he said Mr Talboys might have known that if hed done me the honor to exercise his powers of ratiocination Drive on my friend
The emotionless man looked at Robert Audley with a vacant stare of unmitigated horror and opening one of the heavy oak doors led the way into a large diningroom furnished with the severe simplicity of an apartment which is meant to be ate in but never lived in and at top of a table which would have accommodated eighteen persons Robert beheld Mr Harcourt Talboys
Mr Talboys was robed in a dressinggown of gray cloth fastened about his waist with a girdle It was a severe looking garment and was perhaps the nearest approach to the toga to be obtained within the range of modern costume He wore a buff waistcoat a stiffly starched cambric cravat and a faultless shirt collar The cold gray of his dressing gown was almost the same as the cold gray of his eyes and the pale buff of his waistcoat was the pale buff of his complexion
Robert Audley had not expected to find Harcourt Talboys at all like George in his manners or disposition but he had expected to see some family likeness between the father and the son There was none It would have been impossible to imagine any one more unlike George than the author of his existence Robert scarcely wondered at the cruel letter he received from Mr Talboys when he saw the writer of it Such a man could scarcely have written otherwise
There was a second person in the large room toward whom Robert glanced after saluting Harcourt Talboys doubtful how to proceed This second person was a lady who sat at the last of a range of four windows employed with some needlework the kind which is generally called plain work and with a large wicker basket filled with calicoes and flannels standing by her
The whole length of the room divided this lady from Robert but he could see that she was young and that she was like George Talboys
His sister he thought in that one moment during which he ventured to glance away from the master of the house toward the female figure at the window His sister no doubt He was fond of her I know Surely she is not utterly indifferent as to his fate
The lady half rose from her seat letting her work which was large and awkward fall from her lap as she did so and dropping a reel of cotton which rolled away upon the polished oaken flooring beyond the margin of the Turkey carpet
Sit down Clara said the hard voice of Mr Talboys
That gentleman did not appear to address his daughter nor had his face been turned toward her when she rose It seemed as if he had known it by some social magnetism peculiar to himself it seemed as his servants were apt disrespectfully to observe as if he had eyes in the back of his head
Sit down Clara he repeated and keep your cotton in your workbox
The lady blushed at this reproof and stooped to look for the cotton Mr Robert Audley who was unabashed by the stern presence of the master of the house knelt on the carpet found the reel and restored it to its owner Harcourt Talboys staring at the proceeding with an expression of unmitigated astonishment
Perhaps Mr —— Mr Robert Audley he said looking at the card which he held between his finger and thumb perhaps when you have finished looking for reels of cotton you will be good enough to tell me to what I owe the honor of this visit
He waved his wellshaped hand with a gesture which might have been admired in the stately John Kemble and the servant understanding the gesture brought forward a ponderous redmorocco chair
The proceeding was so slow and solemn that Robert had at first thought that something extraordinary was about to be done but the truth dawned upon him at last and he dropped into the massive chair
You may remain Wilson said Mr Talboys as the servant was about to withdraw Mr Audley would perhaps like coffee
Robert had eaten nothing that morning but he glanced at the long expanse of dreary tablecloth the silver tea and coffee equipage the stiff splendor and the very little appearance of any substantial entertainment and he declined Mr Talboys invitation
Mr Audley will not take coffee Wilson said the master of the house You may go
The man bowed and retired opening and shutting the door as cautiously as if he were taking a liberty in doing it at all or as if the respect due to Mr Talboys demanded his walking straight through the oaken panel like a ghost in a German story
Mr Harcourt Talboys sat with his gray eyes fixed severely on his visitor his elbows on the redmorocco arms of his chair and his fingertips joined It was the attitude in which had he been Junius Brutus he would have sat at the trial of his son Had Robert Audley been easily to be embarrassed Mr Talboys might have succeeded in making him feel so as he would have sat with perfect tranquility upon an open gunpowder barrel lighting his cigar he was not at all disturbed upon this occasion The fathers dignity seemed a very small thing to him when he thought of the possible causes of the sons disappearance
I wrote to you some time since Mr Talboys he said quietly when he saw that he was expected to open the conversation
Harcourt Talboys bowed He knew that it was of his lost son that Robert came to speak Heaven grant that his icy stoicism was the paltry affectation of a vain man rather than the utter heartlessness which Robert thought it He bowed across his fingertips at his visitor The trial had begun and Junius Brutus was enjoying himself
I received your communication Mr Audley he said It is among other business letters it was duly answered
That letter concerned your son
There was a little rustling noise at the window where the lady sat as Robert said this he looked at her almost instantaneously but she did not seem to have stirred She was not working but she was perfectly quiet
Shes as heartless as her father I expect though she is like George thought Mr Audley
If your letter concerned the person who was once my son perhaps sir said Harcourt Talboys I must ask you to remember that I have no longer a son
You have no reason to remind me of that Mr Talboys answered Robert gravely I remember it only too well I have fatal reason to believe that you have no longer a son I have bitter cause to think that he is dead
It may be that Mr Talboys complexion faded to a paler shade of buff as Robert said this but he only elevated his bristling gray eyebrows and shook his head gently
No he said no I assure you no
I believe that George Talboys died in the month of September
The girl who had been addressed as Clara sat with work primly folded upon her lap and her hands lying clasped together on her work and never stirred when Robert spoke of his friends death He could not distinctly see her face for she was seated at some distance from him and with her back to the window
No no I assure you repeated Mr Talboys you labor under a sad mistake
You believe that I am mistaken in thinking your son dead asked Robert
Most certainly replied Mr Talboys with a smile expressive of the serenity of wisdom Most certainly my dear sir The disappearance was a very clever trick no doubt but it was not sufficiently clever to deceive me You must permit me to understand this matter a little better than you Mr Audley and you must also permit me to assure you of three things In the first place your friend is not dead In the second place he is keeping out of the way for the purpose of alarming me of trifling with my feelings as a—as a man who was once his father and of ultimately obtaining my forgiveness In the third place he will not obtain that forgiveness however long he may please to keep out of the way and he would therefore act wisely by returning to his ordinary residence and avocations without delay
Then you imagine him to purposely hide himself from all who know him for the purpose of—
For the purpose of influencing me exclaimed Mr Talboys who taking a stand upon his own vanity traced every event in life from that one center and resolutely declined to look at it from any other point of view For the purpose of influencing me He knew the inflexibility of my character to a certain degree he was acquainted with me and knew that all attempts at softening my decision or moving me from the fixed purpose of my life would fail He therefore tried extraordinary means he has kept out of the way in order to alarm me and when after due time he discovers that he has not alarmed me he will return to his old haunts When he does so said Mr Talboys rising to sublimity I will forgive him Yes sir I will forgive him I shall say to him You have attempted to deceive me and I have shown you that I am not to be deceived you have tried to frighten me and I have convinced you that I am not to be frightened you did not believe in my generosity I will show you that I can be generous
Harcourt Talboys delivered himself of these superb periods with a studied manner that showed they had been carefully composed long ago
Robert Audley sighed as he heard them
Heaven grant that you may have an opportunity of saying this to your son sir he answered sadly I am very glad to find that you are willing to forgive him but I fear that you will never see him again upon this earth I have a great deal to say to you upon this—this sad subject Mr Talboys but I would rather say it to you alone he added glancing at the lady in the window
My daughter knows my ideas upon this subject Mr Audley said Harcourt Talboys there is no reason why she should not hear all you have to say Miss Clara Talboys Mr Robert Audley he added waving his hand majestically
The young lady bent her head in recognition of Roberts bow
Let her hear it he thought If she has so little feeling as to show no emotion upon such a subject let her hear the worst I have to tell
There was a few minutes pause during which Robert took some papers from his pocket among them the document which he had written immediately after Georges disappearance
I shall require all your attention Mr Talboys he said for that which I have to disclose to you is of a very painful nature Your son was my very dear friend—dear to me for many reasons Perhaps most of all dear because I had known him and been with him through the great trouble of his life and because he stood comparatively alone in the world—cast off by you who should have been his best friend bereft of the only woman he had ever loved
The daughter of a drunken pauper Mr Talboys remarked parenthetically
Had he died in his bed as I sometimes thought he would continued Robert Audley of a broken heart I should have mourned for him very sincerely even though I had closed his eyes with my own hands and had seen him laid in his quiet restingplace I should have grieved for my old schoolfellow and for the companion who had been dear to me But this grief would have been a very small one compared to that which I feel now believing as I do only too firmly that my poor friend has been murdered
Murdered
The father and daughter simultaneously repeated the horrible word The fathers face changed to a ghastly duskiness of hue the daughters face dropped upon her clasped hands and was never lifted again throughout the interview
Mr Audley you are mad exclaimed Harcourt Talboys you are mad or else you are commissioned by your friend to play upon my feelings I protest against this proceeding as a conspiracy and I—I revoke my intended forgiveness of the person who was once my son
He was himself again as he said this The blow had been a sharp one but its effect had been momentary
It is far from my wish to alarm you unnecessarily sir answered Robert Heaven grant that you may be right and I wrong I pray for it but I cannot think it—I cannot even hope it I come to you for advice I will state to you plainly and dispassionately the circumstances which have aroused my suspicions If you say those suspicions are foolish and unfounded I am ready to submit to your better judgment I will leave England and I abandon my search for the evidence wanting to—to confirm my fears If you say go on I will go on
Nothing could be more gratifying to the vanity of Mr Harcourt Talboys than this appeal He declared himself ready to listen to all that Robert might have to say and ready to assist him to the uttermost of his power
He laid some stress upon this last assurance deprecating the value of his advice with an affectation that was as transparent as his vanity itself
Robert Audley drew his chair nearer to that of Mr Talboys and commenced a minutely detailed account of all that had occurred to George from the time of his arrival in England to the hour of his disappearance as well as all that had occurred since his disappearance in any way touching upon that particular subject Harcourt Talboys listened with demonstrative attention now and then interrupting the speaker to ask some magisterial kind of question Clara Talboys never once lifted her face from her clasped hands
The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past eleven when Robert began his story The clock struck twelve as he finished
He had carefully suppressed the names of his uncle and his uncles wife in relating the circumstances in which they had been concerned
Now sir he said when the story had been told I await your decision You have heard my reasons for coming to this terrible conclusion In what manner do these reasons influence you
They dont in any way turn me from my previous opinion answered Mr Harcourt Talboys with the unreasoning pride of an obstinate man I still think as I thought before that my son is alive and that his disappearance is a conspiracy against myself I decline to become the victim of that conspiracy
And you tell me to stop asked Robert solemnly
I tell you only this If you go on you go on for your own satisfaction not for mine I see nothing in what you have told me to alarm me for the safety of—your friend
So be it then exclaimed Robert suddenly from this moment I wash my hands of this business From this moment the purpose of my life shall be to forget it
He rose as he spoke and took his hat from the table on which he had placed it He looked at Clara Talboys Her attitude had never changed since she had dropped her face upon her hands Good morning Mr Talboys he said gravely God grant that you are right God grant that I am wrong But I fear a day will come when you will have reason to regret your apathy respecting the untimely fate of your only son
He bowed gravely to Mr Harcourt Talboys and to the lady whose face was hidden by her hands
He lingered for a moment looking at Miss Talboys thinking that she would look up that she would make some sign or show some desire to detain him
Mr Talboys rang for the emotionless servant who led Robert off to the halldoor with the solemnity of manner which would have been in perfect keeping had he been leading him to execution
She is like her father thought Mr Audley as he glanced for the last time at the drooping head Poor George you had need of one friend in this world for you have had very few to love you
CHAPTER XXIII
CLARA
Robert Audley found the driver asleep upon the box of his lumbering vehicle He had been entertained with beer of so hard a nature as to induce temporary strangulation in the daring imbiber thereof and he was very glad to welcome the return of his fare The old white horse who looked as if he had been foaled in the year in which the carriage had been built and seemed like the carriage to have outlived the fashion was as fast asleep as his master and woke up with a jerk as Robert came down the stony flight of steps attended by his executioner who waited respectfully till Mr Audley had entered the vehicle and been turned off
The horse roused by a smack of his drivers whip and a shake of the shabby reins crawled off in a semisomnambulent state and Robert with his hat very much over his eyes thought of his missing friend
He had played in these stiff gardens and under these dreary firs years ago perhaps—if it were possible for the most frolicsome youth to be playful within the range of Mr Harcourt Talboys hard gray eyes He had played beneath these dark trees perhaps with the sister who had heard of his fate to day without a tear Robert Audley looked at the rigid primness of the orderly grounds wondering how George could have grown up in such a place to be the frank generous careless friend whom he had known How was it that with his father perpetually before his eyes he had not grown up after the fathers disagreeable model to be a nuisance to his fellowmen How was it Because we have Some One higher than our parents to thank for the souls which make us great or small and because while family noses and family chins may descend in orderly sequence from father to son from grandsire to grandchild as the fashion of the fading flowers of one year is reproduced in the budding blossoms of the next the spirit more subtle than the wind which blows among those flowers independent of all earthly rule owns no order but the harmonious law of God
Thank God thought Robert Audley thank God it is over My poor friend must rest in his unknown grave and I shall not be the means of bringing disgrace upon those I love It will come perhaps sooner or later but it will not come through me The crisis is past and I am free
He felt an unutterable relief in this thought His generous nature revolted at the office into which he had found himself drawn—the office of spy the collector of damning facts that led on to horrible deductions
He drew a long breath—a sigh of relief at his release It was all over now
The fly was crawling out of the gate of the plantation as he thought this and he stood up in the vehicle to look back at the dreary firtrees the gravel paths the smooth grass and the great desolatelooking redbrick mansion
He was startled by the appearance of a woman running almost flying along the carriagedrive by which he had come and waving a handkerchief in her uplifted hand
He stared at this singular apparition for some moments in silent wonder before he was able to reduce his stupefaction into words
Is it me the flying female wants he exclaimed at last Youd better stop perhaps he added to the flyman It is an age of eccentricity an abnormal era of the worlds history She may want me Very likely I left my pockethandkerchief behind me and Mr Talboys has sent this person with it Perhaps Id better get out and go and meet her Its civil to send my handkerchief
Mr Robert Audley deliberately descended from the fly and walked slowly toward the hurrying female figure which gained upon him rapidly
He was rather short sighted and it was not until she came very near to him that he saw who she was
Good Heaven he exclaimed its Miss Talboys
It was Miss Talboys flushed and breathless with a woolen shawl thrown over her head
Robert Audley now saw her face clearly for the first time and he saw that she was very handsome She had brown eyes like Georges a pale complexion she had been flushed when she approached him but the color faded away as she recovered her breath regular features with a mobility of expression which bore record of every change of feeling He saw all this in a few moments and he wondered only the more at the stoicism of her manner during his interview with Mr Talboys There were no tears in her eyes but they were bright with a feverish luster—terribly bright and dry—and he could see that her lips trembled as she spoke to him
Miss Talboys he said what can I—why—
She interrupted him suddenly catching at his wrist with her disengaged hand—she was holding her shawl in the other
Oh let me speak to you she cried—let me speak to you or I shall go mad I heard it all I believe what you believe and I shall go mad unless I can do something—something toward avenging his death
For a few moments Robert Audley was too much bewildered to answer her Of all things possible upon earth he had least expected to behold her thus
Take my arm Miss Talboys he said Pray calm yourself Let us walk a little way back toward the house and talk quietly I would not have spoken as I did before you had I known—
Had you known that I loved my brother she said quickly How should you know that I loved him How should any one think that I loved him when I have never had power to give him a welcome beneath that roof or a kindly word from his father How should I dare to betray my love for him in that house when I knew that even a sisters affection would be turned to his disadvantage You do not know my father Mr Audley I do I knew that to intercede for George would have been to ruin his cause I knew that to leave matters in my fathers hands and to trust to time was my only chance of ever seeing that dear brother again And I waited—waited patiently always hoping for the best for I knew that my father loved his only son I see your contemptuous smile Mr Audley and I dare say it is difficult for a stranger to believe that underneath his affected stoicism my father conceals some degree of affection for his children—no very warm attachment perhaps for he has always ruled his life by the strict law of duty Stop she said suddenly laying her hand upon his arm and looking back through the straight avenue of pines I ran out of the house by the back way Papa must not see me talking to you Mr Audley and he must not see the fly standing at the gate Will you go into the highroad and tell the man to drive on a little way I will come out of the plantation by a little gate further on and meet you in the road
But you will catch cold Miss Talboys remonstrated Robert looking at her anxiously for he saw that she was trembling You are shivering now
Not with cold she answered I am thinking of my brother George If you have any pity for the only sister of your lost friend do what I ask you Mr Audley I must speak to you—I must speak to you—calmly if I can
She put her hand to her head as if trying to collect her thoughts and then pointed to the gate Robert bowed and left her He told the man to drive slowly toward the station and walked on by the side of the tarred fence surrounding Mr Talboys grounds About a hundred yards beyond the principal entrance he came to a little wooden gate in the fence and waited at it for Miss Talboys
She joined him presently with her shawl still over her head and her eyes still bright and tearless
Will you walk with me inside the plantation she said We might be observed on the highroad
He bowed passed through the gate and shut it behind him
When she took his offered arm he found that she was still trembling—trembling very violently
Pray pray calm yourself Miss Talboys he said I may have been deceived in the opinion which I have formed I may—
No no no she exclaimed you are not deceived My brother has been murdered Tell me the name of that woman—the woman whom you suspect of being concerned in his disappearance—in his murder
That I cannot do until—
Until when
Until I know that she is guilty
You told my father that you would abandon all idea of discovering the truth—that you would rest satisfied to leave my brothers fate a horrible mystery never to be solved upon this earth but you will not do so Mr Audley—you will not be false to the memory of your friend You will see vengeance done upon those who have destroyed him You will do this will you not
A gloomy shadow spread itself like a dark veil over Robert Audleys handsome face
He remembered what he had said the day before at Southampton
A hand that is stronger than my own is beckoning me onward upon the dark road
A quarter of an hour before he had believed that all was over and that he was released from the dreadful duty of discovering the secret of Georges death Now this girl this apparently passionless girl had found a voice and was urging him on toward his fate
If you knew what misery to me may be involved in discovering the truth Miss Talboys he said you would scarcely ask me to pursue this business any farther
But I do ask you she answered with suppressed passion—I do ask you I ask you to avenge my brothers untimely death Will you do so Yes or no
What if I answer no
Then I will do it myself she exclaimed looking at him with her bright brown eyes I myself will follow up the clew to this mystery I will find this woman—though you refuse to tell me in what part of England my brother disappeared I will travel from one end of the world to the other to find the secret of his fate if you refuse to find it for me I am of age my own mistress rich for I have money left me by one of my aunts I shall be able to employ those who will help me in my search and I will make it to their interest to serve me well Choose between the two alternatives Mr Audley Shall you or I find my brothers murderer
He looked in her face and saw that her resolution was the fruit of no transient womanish enthusiasm which would give way under the iron hand of difficulty Her beautiful features naturally statuesque in their noble outlines seemed transformed into marble by the rigidity of her expression The face in which he looked was the face of a woman whom death only could turn from her purpose
I have grown up in an atmosphere of suppression she said quietly I have stifled and dwarfed the natural feelings of my heart until they have become unnatural in their intensity I have been allowed neither friends nor lovers My mother died when I was very young My father has always been to me what you saw him today I have had no one but my brother All the love that my heart can hold has been centered upon him Do you wonder then that when I hear that his young life has been ended by the hand of treachery that I wish to see vengeance done upon the traitor Oh my God she cried suddenly clasping her hands and looking up at the cold winter sky lead me to the murderer of my brother and let mine be the hand to avenge his untimely death
Robert Audley stood looking at her with awestricken admiration Her beauty was elevated into sublimity by the intensity of her suppressed passion She was different to all other women that he had ever seen His cousin was pretty his uncles wife was lovely but Clara Talboys was beautiful Niobes face sublimated by sorrow could scarcely have been more purely classical than hers Even her dress puritan in its gray simplicity became her beauty better than a more beautiful dress would have become a less beautiful woman
Miss Talboys said Robert after a pause your brother shall not be unavenged He shall not be forgotten I do not think that any professional aid which you could procure would lead you as surely to the secret of this mystery as I can lead you if you are patient and trust me
I will trust you she answered for I see that you will help me
I believe that it is my destiny to do so he said solemnly
In the whole course of his conversation with Harcourt Talboys Robert Audley had carefully avoided making any deductions from the circumstances which he had submitted to Georges father He had simply told the story of the missing mans life from the hour of his arriving in London to that of his disappearance but he saw that Clara Talboys had arrived at the same conclusion as himself and that it was tacitly understood between them
Have you any letters of your brothers Miss Talboys he asked
Two One written soon after his marriage the other written at Liverpool the night before he sailed for Australia
Will you let me see them
Yes I will send them to you if you will give me your address You will write to me from time to time will you not to tell me whether you are approaching the truth I shall be obliged to act secretly here but I am going to leave home in two or three months and I shall be perfectly free then to act as I please
You are not going to leave England Robert asked
Oh no I am only going to pay a longpromised visit to some friends in Essex
Robert started so violently as Clara Talboys said this that she looked suddenly at his face The agitation visible there betrayed a part of his secret
My brother George disappeared in Essex she said
He could not contradict her
I am sorry you have discovered so much he replied My position becomes every day more complicated every day more painful Goodbye
She gave him her hand mechanically when he held out his but it was cold as marble and lay listlessly in his own and fell like a log at her side when he released it
Pray lose no time in returning to the house he said earnestly I fear you will suffer from this mornings work
Suffer she exclaimed scornfully You talk to me of suffering when the only creature in this world who ever loved me has been taken from it in the bloom of youth What can there be for me henceforth but suffering What is the cold to me she said flinging back her shawl and baring her beautiful head to the bitter wind I would walk from here to London barefoot through the snow and never stop by the way if I could bring him back to life What would I not do to bring him back What would I not do
The words broke from her in a wail of passionate sorrow and clasping her hands before her face she wept for the first time that day The violence of her sobs shook her slender frame and she was obliged to lean against the trunk of a tree for support
Robert looked at her with a tender compassion in his face she was so like the friend whom he had loved and lost that it was impossible for him to think of her as a stranger impossible to remember that they had met that morning for the first time
Pray pray be calm he said hope even against hope We may both be deceived your brother may still live
Oh if it were so she murmured passionately if it could be so
Let us try and hope that it may be so
No she answered looking at him through her tears let us hope for nothing but revenge Goodby Mr Audley Stop your address
He gave her a card which she put into the pocket of her dress
I will send you Georges letters she said they may help you Goodby
She left him half bewildered by the passionate energy of her manner and the noble beauty of her face He watched her as she disappeared among the straight trunks of the firtrees and then walked slowly out of the plantation
Heaven help those who stand between me and the secret he thought for they will be sacrificed to the memory of George Talboys
CHAPTER XXIV
GEORGES LETTERS
Robert Audley did not return to Southampton but took a ticket for the first up town train that left Wareham and reached Waterloo Bridge an hour or two after dark The snow which had been hard and crisp in Dorsetshire was a black and greasy slush in the Waterloo Road thawed by the flaring lamps of the ginpalaces and the glaring gas in the butchers shops
Robert Audley shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the dingy streets through which the Hansom carried him the cabman choosing—with that delicious instinct which seems innate in the drivers of hackney vehicles—all those dark and hideous thoroughfares utterly unknown to the ordinary pedestrian
What a pleasant thing life is thought the barrister What an unspeakable boon—what an overpowering blessing Let any man make a calculation of his existence subtracting the hours in which he has been thoroughly happy—really and entirely at his ease without one arriere pensee to mar his enjoyment—without the most infinitesimal cloud to overshadow the brightness of his horizon Let him do this and surely he will laugh in utter bitterness of soul when he sets down the sum of his felicity and discovers the pitiful smallness of the amount He will have enjoyed himself for a week or ten days in thirty years perhaps In thirty years of dull December and blustering March and showery April and dark November weather there may have been seven or eight glorious August days through which the sun has blazed in cloudless radiance and the summer breezes have breathed perpetual balm How fondly we recollect these solitary days of pleasure and hope for their recurrence and try to plan the circumstances that made them bright and arrange and predestinate and diplomatize with fate for a renewal of the remembered joy As if any joy could ever be built up out of such and such constituent parts As if happiness were not essentially accidental—a bright and wandering bird utterly irregular in its migrations with us one summers day and forever gone from us on the next Look at marriages for instance mused Robert who was as meditative in the jolting vehicle for whose occupation he was to pay sixpence a mile as if he had been riding a mustang on the wild loneliness of the prairies Look at marriage Who is to say which shall be the one judicious selection out of nine hundred and ninetynine mistakes Who shall decide from the first aspect of the slimy creature which is to be the one eel out of the colossal bag of snakes That girl on the curbstone yonder waiting to cross the street when my chariot shall have passed may be the one woman out of every female creature in this vast universe who could make me a happy man Yet I pass her by—bespatter her with the mud from my wheels in my helpless ignorance in my blind submission to the awful hand of fatality If that girl Clara Talboys had been five minutes later I should have left Dorsetshire thinking her cold hard and unwomanly and should have gone to my grave with that mistake part and parcel of my mind I took her for a stately and heartless automaton I know her now to be a noble and beautiful woman What an incalculable difference this may make in my life When I left that house I went out into the winter day with the determination of abandoning all further thought of the secret of Georges death I see her and she forces me onward upon the loathsome path—the crooked byway of watchfulness and suspicion How can I say to this sister of my dead friend I believe that your brother has been murdered I believe that I know by whom but I will take no step to set my doubts at rest or to confirm my fears I cannot say this This woman knows half my secret she will soon possess herself of the rest and then—and then—
The cab stopped in the midst of Robert Audleys meditation and he had to pay the cabman and submit to all the dreary mechanism of life which is the same whether we are glad or sorry—whether we are to be married or hung elevated to the woolsack or disbarred by our brother benchers on some mysterious technical tangle of wrongdoing which is a social enigma to those outside the forum domesticum of the Middle Temple
We are apt to be angry with this cruel hardness in our life—this unflinching regularity in the smaller wheels and meaner mechanism of the human machine which knows no stoppage or cessation though the mainspring be forever hollow and the hands pointing to purposeless figures on a shattered dial
Who has not felt in the first madness of sorrow an unreasoning rage against the mute propriety of chairs and tables the stiff squareness of Turkey carpets the unbending obstinacy of the outward apparatus of existence We want to root up gigantic trees in a primeval forest and to tear their huge branches asunder in our convulsive grasp and the utmost that we can do for the relief of our passion is to knock over an easychair or smash a few shillings worth of Mr Copelands manufacture
Madhouses are large and only too numerous yet surely it is strange they are not larger when we think of how many helpless wretches must beat their brains against this hopeless persistency of the orderly outward world as compared with the storm and tempest the riot and confusion within—when we remember how many minds must tremble upon the narrow boundary between reason and unreason mad today and sane tomorrow mad yesterday and sane today
Robert Audley had directed the cabman to drop him at the corner of Chancery Lane and he ascended the brilliantlylighted staircase leading to the diningsaloon of The London and seated himself at one of the snug tables with a confused sense of emptiness and weariness rather than any agreeable sensation of healthy hunger He had come to the luxurious eatinghouse to dine because it was absolutely necessary to eat something somewhere and a great deal easier to get a very good dinner from Mr Sawyer than a very bad one from Mrs Maloney whose mind ran in one narrow channel of chops and steaks only variable by small creeks and outlets in the way of broiled sole or boiled mackrill The solicitous waiter tried in vain to rouse poor Robert to a proper sense of the solemnity of the dinner question He muttered something to the effect that the man might bring him anything he liked and the friendly waiter who knew Robert as a frequent guest at the little tables went back to his master with a doleful face to say that Mr Audley from Figtree Court was evidently out of spirits Robert ate his dinner and drank a pint of Moselle but he had poor appreciation of the excellence of the viands or the delicate fragrance of the wine The mental monologue still went on and the young philosopher of the modern school was arguing the favorite modern question of the nothingness of everything and the folly of taking too much trouble to walk upon a road that went nowhere or to compass a work that meant nothing
I accept the dominion of that pale girl with the statuesque features and the calm brown eyes he thought I recognize the power of a mind superior to my own and I yield to it and bow down to it Ive been acting for myself and thinking for myself for the last few months and Im tired of the unnatural business Ive been false to the leading principle of my life and Ive suffered for the folly I found two gray hairs in my head the week before last and an impertinent crow has planted a delicate impression of his foot under my right eye Yes Im getting old upon the right side and why—why should it be so
He pushed away his plate and lifted his eyebrows staring at the crumbs upon the glistening damask as he pondered the question
What the devil am I doing in this galere he asked But I am in it and I cant get out of it so I better submit myself to the browneyed girl and do what she tells me patiently and faithfully What a wonderful solution to lifes enigma there is in petticoat government Man might lie in the sunshine and eat lotuses and fancy it always afternoon if his wife would let him But she wont bless her impulsive heart and active mind She knows better than that Who ever heard of a woman taking life as it ought to be taken Instead of supporting it as an unavoidable nuisance only redeemable by its brevity she goes through it as if it were a pageant or a procession She dresses for it and simpers and grins and gesticulates for it She pushes her neighbors and struggles for a good place in the dismal march she elbows and writhes and tramples and prances to the one end of making the most of the misery She gets up early and sits up late and is loud and restless and noisy and unpitying She drags her husband on to the woolsack or pushes him into Parliament She drives him full butt at the dear lazy machinery of government and knocks and buffets him about the wheels and cranks and screws and pulleys until somebody for quiets sake makes him something that she wanted him to be made Thats why incompetent men sometimes sit in high places and interpose their poor muddled intellects between the things to be done and the people that can do them making universal confusion in the helpless innocence of wellplaced incapacity The square men in the round holes are pushed into them by their wives The Eastern potentate who declared that women were at the bottom of all mischief should have gone a little further and seen why it is so It is because women are never lazy They dont know what it is to be quiet They are Semiramides and Cleopatras and Joans of Arc Queen Elizabeths and Catharines the Second and they riot in battle and murder and clamor and desperation If they cant agitate the universe and play at ball with hemispheres theyll make mountains of warfare and vexation out of domestic molehills and social storms in household teacups Forbid them to hold forth upon the freedom of nations and the wrongs of mankind and theyll quarrel with Mrs Jones about the shape of a mantle or the character of a small maidservant To call them the weaker sex is to utter a hideous mockery They are the stronger sex the noisier the more persevering the most selfassertive sex They want freedom of opinion variety of occupation do they Let them have it Let them be lawyers doctors preachers teachers soldiers legislators—anything they like—but let them be quiet—if they can
Mr Audley pushed his hands through the thick luxuriance of his straight brown hair and uplifted the dark mass in his despair
I hate women he thought savagely Theyre bold brazen abominable creatures invented for the annoyance and destruction of their superiors Look at this business of poor Georges Its all womans work from one end to the other He marries a woman and his father casts him off penniless and professionless He hears of the womans death and he breaks his heart—his good honest manly heart worth a million of the treacherous lumps of selfinterest and mercenary calculation which beats in womens breasts He goes to a womans house and he is never seen alive again And now I find myself driven into a corner by another woman of whose existence I had never thought until this day And—and then mused Mr Audley rather irrelevantly theres Alicia too shes another nuisance Shed like me to marry her I know and shell make me do it I dare say before shes done with me But Id much rather not though she is a dear bouncing generous thing bless her poor little heart
Robert paid his bill and rewarded the waiter liberally The young barrister was very willing to distribute his comfortable little income among the people who served him for he carried his indifference to all things in the universe even to the matter of pounds shillings and pence Perhaps he was rather exceptional in this as you may frequently find that the philosopher who calls life an empty delusion is pretty sharp in the investment of his moneys and recognizes the tangible nature of India bonds Spanish certificates and Egyptian scrip—as contrasted with the painful uncertainty of an Ego or a nonEgo in metaphysics
The snug rooms in Figtree Court seemed dreary in their orderly quiet to Robert Audley upon this particular evening He had no inclination for his French novels though there was a packet of uncut romances comic and sentimental ordered a month before waiting his pleasure upon one of the tables He took his favorite meerschaum and dropped into his favorite chair with a sigh
Its comfortable but it seems so deuced lonely tonight If poor George were sitting opposite to me or—or even Georges sister—shes very like him—existence might be a little more endurable But when a fellows lived by himself for eight or ten years he begins to be bad company
He burst out laughing presently as he finished his first pipe
The idea of my thinking of Georges sister he thought what a preposterous idiot I am
The next days post brought him a letter in a firm but feminine hand which was strange to him He found the little packet lying on his breakfasttable beside the warm French roll wrapped in a napkin by Mrs Maloneys careful but rather dirty hands He contemplated the envelope for some minutes before opening it—not in any wonder as to his correspondent for the letter bore the postmark of Grange Heath and he knew that there was only one person who was likely to write to him from that obscure village but in that lazy dreaminess which was a part of his character
From Clara Talboys he murmured slowly as he looked critically at the clearlyshaped letters of his name and address Yes from Clara Talboys most decidedly I recognized a feminine resemblance to poor Georges hand neater than his and more decided than his but very like very like
He turned the letter over and examined the seal which bore his friends familiar crest
I wonder what she says to me he thought Its a long letter I dare say shes the kind of woman who would write a long letter—a letter that will urge me on drive me forward wrench me out of myself Ive no doubt But that cant be helped—so here goes
He tore open the envelope with a sigh of resignation It contained nothing but Georges two letters and a few words written on the flap I send the letters please preserve and return them—CT
The letter written from Liverpool told nothing of the writers life except his sudden determination of starting for a new world to redeem the fortunes that had been ruined in the old The letter written almost immediately after Georges marriage contained a full description of his wife—such a description as a man could only write within three weeks of a love match—a description in which every feature was minutely catalogued every grace of form or beauty of expression fondly dwelt upon every charm of manner lovingly depicted
Robert Audley read the letter three times before he laid it down
If George could have known for what a purpose this description would serve when he wrote it thought the young barrister surely his hand would have fallen paralyzed by horror and powerless to shape one syllable of these tender words
CHAPTER XXV
RETROGRADE INVESTIGATION
The dreary London January dragged its dull length slowly out The last slender records of Christmas time were swept away and Robert Audley still lingered in town—still spent his lonely evenings in his quiet sittingroom in Figtree Court—still wandered listlessly in the Temple Gardens on sunny mornings absently listening to the childrens babble idly watching their play He had many friends among the inhabitants of the quaint old buildings round him he had other friends far away in pleasant country places whose spare bedrooms were always at Bobs service whose cheerful firesides had snugly luxurious chairs specially allotted to him But he seemed to have lost all taste for companionship all sympathy with the pleasures and occupations of his class since the disappearance of George Talboys Elderly benchers indulged in facetious observations upon the young mans pale face and moody manner They suggested the probability of some unhappy attachment some feminine illusage as the secret cause of the change They told him to be of good cheer and invited him to supperparties at which lovely woman with all her faults God bless her was drunk by gentlemen who shed tears as they proposed the toast and were maudlin and unhappy in their cups toward the close of the entertainment Robert had no inclination for the winebibbing and the punchmaking The one idea of his life had become his master He was the bonden slave of one gloomy thought—one horrible presentiment A dark cloud was brooding above his uncles house and it was his hand which was to give the signal for the thunderclap and the tempest that was to ruin that noble life
If she would only take warning and run away he said to himself sometimes Heaven knows I have given her a fair chance Why doesnt she take it and run away
He heard sometimes from Sir Michael sometimes from Alicia The young ladys letter rarely contained more than a few curt lines informing him that her papa was well and that Lady Audley was in very high spirits amusing herself in her usual frivolous manner and with her usual disregard for other people
A letter from Mr Marchmont the Southampton schoolmaster informed Robert that little Georgey was going on very well but that he was behindhand in his education and had not yet passed the intellectual Rubicon of words of two syllables Captain Maldon had called to see his grandson but that privilege had been withheld from him in accordance with Mr Audleys instructions The old man had furthermore sent a parcel of pastry and sweetmeats to the little boy which had also been rejected on the ground of indigestible and bilious tendencies in the edibles
Toward the close of February Robert received a letter from his cousin Alicia which hurried him one step further forward toward his destiny by causing him to return to the house from which he had become in a manner exiled at the instigation of his uncles wife
Papa is very ill Alicia wrote not dangerously ill thank God but confined to his room by an attack of low fever which has succeeded a violent cold Come and see him Robert if you have any regard for your nearest relations He has spoken about you several times and I know he will be glad to have you with him Come at once but say nothing about this letter
From your affectionate cousin ALICIA
A sick and deadly terror chilled Robert Audleys heart as he read this letter—a vague yet hideous fear which he dared not shape into any definite form
Have I done right he thought in the first agony of this new horror—have I done right to tamper with justice and to keep the secret of my doubts in the hope that I was shielding those I love from sorrow and disgrace What shall I do if I find him ill very ill dying perhaps dying upon her breast What shall I do
One course lay clear before him and the first step of that course was a rapid journey to Audley Court He packed his portmanteau jumped into a cab and reached the railway station within an hour of his receipt of Alicias letter which had come by the afternoon post
The dim village lights flickered faintly through the growing dusk when Robert reached Audley He left his portmanteau with the stationmaster and walked at a leisurely pace through the quiet lanes that led away to the still loneliness of the Court The overarching trees stretched their leafless branches above his head bare and weird in the dusky light A low moaning wind swept across the flat meadow land and tossed those rugged branches hither and thither against the dark gray sky They looked like the ghostly arms of shrunken and withered giants beckoning Robert to his uncles house They looked like threatening phantoms in the chill winter twilight gesticulating to him to hasten upon his journey The long avenue so bright and pleasant when the perfumed limes scattered their light bloom upon the pathway and the dogrose leaves floated on the summer air was terribly bleak and desolate in the cheerless interregnum that divides the homely joys of Christmas from the pale blush of coming spring—a dead pause in the year in which Nature seems to lie in a tranced sleep awaiting the wondrous signal for the budding of the flower
A mournful presentiment crept into Robert Audleys heart as he drew nearer to his uncles house Every changing outline in the landscape was familiar to him every bend of the trees every caprice of the untrammeled branches every undulation in the bare hawthorn hedge broken by dwarf horsechestnuts stunted willows blackberry and hazel bushes
Sir Michael had been a second father to the young man a generous and noble friend a grave and earnest adviser and perhaps the strongest sentiment of Roberts heart was his love for the graybearded baronet But the grateful affection was so much a part of himself that it seldom found an outlet in words and a stranger would never have fathomed the depth of feeling which lay a deep and powerful current beneath the stagnant surface of the barristers character
What would become of this place if my uncle were to die he thought and he drew nearer to the ivied archway and the still waterpools coldly gray in the twilight Would other people live in the old house and sit under the low oak ceilings in the homely familiar rooms
That wonderful faculty of association so interwoven with the inmost fibers of even the hardest nature filled the young mans breast with a prophetic pain as he remembered that however long or late the day must come on which the oaken shutters would be closed for awhile and the sunshine shut out of the house he loved It was painful to him even to remember this as it must always be painful to think of the narrow lease the greatest upon this earth can ever hold of its grandeurs Is it so wonderful that some wayfarers drop asleep under the hedges scarcely caring to toil onward on a journey that leads to no abiding habitation Is it wonderful that there have been quietists in the world ever since Christs religion was first preached upon earth Is it strange that there is a patient endurance and tranquil resignation calm expectation of that which is to come on the further shore of the dark flowing river Is it not rather to be wondered that anybody should ever care to be great for greatness sake for any other reason than pure conscientiousness the simple fidelity of the servant who fears to lay his talents by in a napkin knowing that indifference is near akin to dishonesty If Robert Audley had lived in the time of Thomas aKempis he would very likely have built himself a narrow hermitage amid some forest loneliness and spent his life in tranquil imitation of the reputed author of The Imitation As it was Figtree Court was a pleasant hermitage in its way and for breviaries and Books of Hours I am ashamed to say the young barrister substituted Paul de Kock and Dumas fils But his sins were of so simply negative an order that it would have been very easy for him to have abandoned them for negative virtues
Only one solitary light was visible in the long irregular range of windows facing the archway as Robert passed under the gloomy shade of the rustling ivy restless in the chill moaning of the wind He recognized that lighted window as the large oriel in his uncles room When last he had looked at the old house it had been gay with visitors every window glittering like a low star in the dusk now dark and silent it faced the winters night like some dismal baronial habitation deep in a woodland solitude
The man who opened the door to the unlookedfor visitor brightened as he recognized his masters nephew
Sir Michael will be cheered up a bit sir by the sight of you he said as he ushered Robert Audley into the firelit library which seemed desolate by reason of the baronets easychair standing empty on the broad hearthrug Shall I bring you some dinner here sir before you go upstairs the servant asked My lady and Miss Audley have dined early during my masters illness but I can bring you anything you would please to take sir
Ill take nothing until I have seen my uncle Robert answered hurriedly that is to say if I can see him at once He is not too ill to receive me I suppose he added anxiously
Oh no sir—not too ill only a little low sir This way if you please
He conducted Robert up the short flight of shallow oaken stairs to the octagon chamber in which George Talboys had sat long five months before staring absently at my ladys portrait The picture was finished now and hung in the post of honor opposite the window amidst Claudes Poussins and Wouvermans whose less brilliant hues were killed by the vivid coloring of the modern artist The bright face looked out of that tangled glitter of golden hair in which the PreRaphaelites delight with a mocking smile as Robert paused for a moment to glance at the wellremembered picture Two or three moments afterward he had passed through my ladys boudoir and dressingroom and stood upon the threshold of Sir Michaels room The baronet lay in a quiet sleep his arm laying outside the bed and his strong hand clasped in his young wifes delicate fingers Alicia sat in a low chair beside the broad open hearth on which the huge logs burned fiercely in the frosty atmosphere The interior of this luxurious bedchamber might have made a striking picture for an artists pencil The massive furniture dark and somber yet broken up and relieved here and there by scraps of gilding and masses of glowing color the elegance of every detail in which wealth was subservient to purity of taste and last but greatest in importance the graceful figures of the two women and the noble form of the old man would have formed a worthy study for any painter
Lucy Audley with her disordered hair in a pale haze of yellow gold about her thoughtful face the flowing lines of her soft muslin dressinggown falling in straight folds to her feet and clasped at the waist by a narrow circlet of agate links might have served as a model for a mediaeval saint in one of the tiny chapels hidden away in the nooks and corners of a gray old cathedral unchanged by Reformation or Cromwell and what saintly martyr of the Middle Ages could have borne a holier aspect than the man whose gray beard lay upon the dark silken coverlet of the stately bed
Robert paused upon the threshold fearful of awaking his uncle The two ladies had heard his step cautious though he had been and lifted their heads to look at him My ladys face quietly watching the sick man had worn an anxious earnestness which made it only more beautiful but the same face recognizing Robert Audley faded from its delicate brightness and looked scared and wan in the lamplight
Mr Audley she cried in a faint tremulous voice
Hush whispered Alicia with a warning gesture you will wake papa How good of you to come Robert she added in the same whispered tones beckoning to her cousin to take an empty chair near the bed
The young man seated himself in the indicated seat at the bottom of the bed and opposite to my lady who sat close beside the pillows He looked long and earnestly at the face of the sleeper still longer still more earnestly at the face of Lady Audley which was slowly recovering its natural hues
He has not been very ill has he Robert asked in the same key as that in which Alicia had spoken
My lady answered the question
Oh no not dangerously ill she said without taking her eyes from her husbands face but still we have been anxious very very anxious
Robert never relaxed his scrutiny of that pale face
She shall look at me he thought I will make her meet my eyes and I will read her as I have read her before She shall know how useless her artifices are with me
He paused for a few minutes before he spoke again The regular breathing of the sleeper the ticking of a gold huntingwatch at the head of the bed and the crackling of the burning logs were the only sounds that broke the stillness
I have no doubt you have been anxious Lady Audley Robert said after a pause fixing my ladys eyes as they wandered furtively to his face There is no one to whom my uncles life can be of more value than to you Your happiness your prosperity your safety depend alike upon his existence
The whisper in which he uttered these words was too low to reach the other side of the room where Alicia sat
Lucy Audleys eyes met those of the speaker with some gleam of triumph in their light
I know that she said Those who strike me must strike through him
She pointed to the sleeper as she spoke still looking at Robert Audley She defied him with her blue eyes their brightness intensified by the triumph in their glance She defied him with her quiet smile—a smile of fatal beauty full of lurking significance and mysterious meaning—the smile which the artist had exaggerated in his portrait of Sir Michaels wife
Robert turned away from the lovely face and shaded his eyes with his hand putting a barrier between my lady and himself a screen which baffled her penetration and provoked her curiosity Was he still watching her or was he thinking and of what was he thinking
Robert had been seated at the bedside for upward of an hour before his uncle awoke The baronet was delighted at his nephews coming
It was very good of you to come to me Bob he said I have been thinking of you a good deal since I have been ill You and Lucy must be good friends you know Bob and you must learn to think of her as your aunt sir though she is young and beautiful and—and—you understand eh
Robert grasped his uncles hand but he looked down as he answered I do understand you sir he said quietly and I give you my word of honor that I am steeled against my ladys fascinations She knows that as well as I do
Lucy Audley made a little grimace with her pretty little lips Bah you silly Robert she exclaimed you take everything au serieux If I thought you were rather too young for a nephew it was only in my fear of other peoples foolish gossip not from any—
She hesitated for a moment and escaped any conclusion to her sentence by the timely intervention of Mr Dawson her late employer who entered the room upon his evening visit while she was speaking
He felt the patients pulse asked two or three questions pronounced the baronet to be steadily improving exchanged a few commonplace remarks with Alicia and Lady Audley and prepared to leave the room Robert rose and accompanied him to the door
I will light you to the staircase he said taking a candle from one of the tables and lighting it at the lamp
No no Mr Audley pray do not trouble yourself expostulated the surgeon I know my way very well indeed
Robert insisted and the two men left the room together As they entered the octagon antechamber the barrister paused and shut the door behind him
Will you see that the door is closed Mr Dawson he said pointing to that which opened upon the staircase I wish to have a few moments private conversation with you
With much pleasure replied the surgeon complying with Roberts request but if you are at all alarmed about your uncle Mr Audley I can set your mind at rest There is no occasion for the least uneasiness Had his illness been at all serious I should have telegraphed immediately for the family physician
I am sure that you would have done your duty sir answered Robert gravely But I am not going to speak of my uncle I wish to ask you two or three questions about another person
Indeed
The person who once lived in your family as Miss Lucy Graham the person who is now Lady Audley
Mr Dawson looked up with an expression of surprise upon his quiet face
Pardon me Mr Audley he answered you can scarcely expect me to answer any questions about your uncles wife without Sir Michaels express permission I can understand no motive which can prompt you to ask such questions—no worthy motive at least He looked severely at the young man as much as to say You have been falling in love with your uncles pretty wife sir and you want to make me a gobetween in some treacherous flirtation but it wont do sir it wont do
I always respected the lady as Miss Graham sir he said and I esteem her doubly as Lady Audley—not on account of her altered position but because she is the wife of one of the noblest men in Christendom
You cannot respect my uncle or my uncles honor more sincerely than I do answered Robert I have no unworthy motive for the questions I am about to ask and you must answer them
Must echoed Mr Dawson indignantly
Yes you are my uncles friend It was at your house he met the woman who is now his wife She called herself an orphan I believe and enlisted his pity as well as his admiration in her behalf She told him that she stood alone in the world did she not—without a friend or relative This was all I could ever learn of her antecedents
What reason have you to wish to know more asked the surgeon
A very terrible reason answered Robert Audley For some months past I have struggled with doubts and suspicions which have embittered my life They have grown stronger every day and they will not be set at rest by the commonplace sophistries and the shallow arguments with which men try to deceive themselves rather than believe that which of all things upon earth they most fear to believe I do not think that the woman who bears my uncles name is worthy to be his wife I may wrong her Heaven grant that it is so But if I do the fatal chain of circumstantial evidence never yet linked itself so closely about an innocent person I wish to set my doubts at rest or—or to confirm my fears There is but one manner in which I can do this I must trace the life of my uncles wife backward minutely and carefully from this night to a period of six years ago This is the twentyfourth of February fiftynine I want to know every record of her life between tonight and the February of the year fiftythree
And your motive is a worthy one
Yes I wish to clear her from a very dreadful suspicion
Which exists only in your mind
And in the mind of one other person
May I ask who that person is
No Mr Dawson answered Robert decisively I cannot reveal anything more than what I have already told you I am a very irresolute vacillating man in most things In this matter I am compelled to be decided I repeat once more that I must know the history of Lucy Grahams life If you refuse to help me to the small extent in your power I will find others who will help me Painful as it would become I will ask my uncle for the information which you would withhold rather than be baffled in the first step of my investigation
Mr Dawson was silent for some minutes
I cannot express how much you have astonished and alarmed me Mr Audley he said I can tell you so little about Lady Audleys antecedents that it would be mere obstinacy to withhold the small amount of information I possess I have always considered your uncles wife one of the most amiable of women I cannot bring myself to think her otherwise It would be an uprooting of one of the strongest convictions of my life were I compelled to think her otherwise You wish to follow her life backward from the present hour to the year fiftythree
I do
She was married to your uncle last June twelvemonth in the midsummer of fiftyseven She had lived in my house a little more than thirteen months She became a member of my household upon the fourteenth of May in the year fiftysix
And she came to you—
From a school at Brompton a school kept by a lady of the name of Vincent It was Mrs Vincents strong recommendation that induced me to receive Miss Graham into my family without any more special knowledge of her antecedents
Did you see this Mrs Vincent
I did not I advertised for a governess and Miss Graham answered my advertisement In her letter she referred me to Mrs Vincent the proprietress of a school in which she was then residing as junior teacher My time is always so fully occupied that I was glad to escape the necessity of a days loss in going from Audley to London to inquire about the young ladys qualifications I looked for Mrs Vincents name in the directory found it and concluded that she was a responsible person and wrote to her Her reply was perfectly satisfactory—Miss Lucy Graham was assiduous and conscientious as well as fully qualified for the situation I offered I accepted this reference and I had no cause to regret what may have been an indiscretion And now Mr Audley I have told you all that I have the power to tell
Will you be so kind as to give me the address of this Mrs Vincent asked Robert taking out his pocketbook
Certainly she was then living at No 9 Crescent Villas Brompton
Ah to be sure muttered Mr Audley a recollection of last September flashing suddenly back upon him as the surgeon spoke
Crescent Villas—yes I have heard the address before from Lady Audley herself This Mrs Vincent telegraphed to my uncles wife early in last September She was ill—dying I believe—and sent for my lady but had removed from her old house and was not to be found
Indeed I never heard Lady Audley mention the circumstance
Perhaps not It occurred while I was down here Thank you Mr Dawson for the information you have so kindly and honestly given me It takes me back two and ahalf years in the history of my ladys life but I have still a blank of three years to fill up before I can exonerate her from my terrible suspicion Good evening
Robert shook hands with the surgeon and returned to his uncles room He had been away about a quarter of an hour Sir Michael had fallen asleep once more and my ladys loving hands had lowered the heavy curtains and shaded the lamp by the bedside Alicia and her fathers wife were taking tea in Lady Audleys boudoir the room next to the antechamber in which Robert and Mr Dawson had been seated
Lucy Audley looked up from her occupation among the fragile china cups and watched Robert rather anxiously as he walked softly to his uncles room and back again to the boudoir She looked very pretty and innocent seated behind the graceful group of delicate opal china and glittering silver Surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea The most feminine and most domestic of all occupations imparts a magic harmony to her every movement a witchery to her every glance The floating mists from the boiling liquid in which she infuses the soothing herbs whose secrets are known to her alone envelope her in a cloud of scented vapor through which she seems a social fairy weaving potent spells with Gunpowder and Bohea At the teatable she reigns omnipotent unapproachable What do men know of the mysterious beverage Read how poor Hazlitt made his tea and shudder at the dreadful barbarism How clumsily the wretched creatures attempt to assist the witch president of the teatray how hopelessly they hold the kettle how continually they imperil the frail cups and saucers or the taper hands of the priestess To do away with the teatable is to rob woman of her legitimate empire To send a couple of hulking men about among your visitors distributing a mixture made in the housekeepers room is to reduce the most social and friendly of ceremonies to a formal giving out of rations Better the pretty influence of the tea cups and saucers gracefully wielded in a womans hand than all the inappropriate power snatched at the point of the pen from the unwilling sterner sex Imagine all the women of England elevated to the high level of masculine intellectuality superior to crinoline above pearl powder and Mrs Rachael Levison above taking the pains to be pretty above teatables and that cruelly scandalous and rather satirical gossip which even strong men delight in and what a drear utilitarian ugly life the sterner sex must lead
My lady was by no means strongminded The starry diamonds upon her white fingers flashed hither and thither among the teathings and she bent her pretty head over the marvelous Indian teacaddy of sandalwood and silver with as much earnestness as if life held no higher purpose than the infusion of Bohea
Youll take a cup of tea with us Mr Audley she asked pausing with the teapot in her hand to look up at Robert who was standing near the door
If you please
But you have not dined perhaps Shall I ring and tell them to bring you something a little more substantial than biscuits and transparent bread and butter
No thank you Lady Audley I took some lunch before I left town Ill trouble you for nothing but a cup of tea
He seated himself at the little table and looked across it at his Cousin Alicia who sat with a book in her lap and had the air of being very much absorbed by its pages The bright brunette complexion had lost its glowing crimson and the animation of the young ladys manner was suppressed—on account of her fathers illness no doubt Robert thought
Alicia my dear the barrister said after a very leisurely contemplation of his cousin youre not looking well
Miss Audley shrugged her shoulders but did not condescend to lift her eyes from her book
Perhaps not she answered contemptuously What does it matter Im growing a philosopher of your school Robert Audley What does it matter Who cares whether I am well or ill
What a spitfire she is thought the barrister He always knew his cousin was angry with him when she addressed him as Robert Audley
You neednt pitch into a fellow because he asks you a civil question Alicia he said reproachfully As to nobody caring about your health thats nonsense I care Miss Audley looked up with a bright smile Sir Harry Towers cares Miss Audley returned to her book with a frown
What are you reading there Alicia Robert asked after a pause during which he had sat thoughtfully stirring his tea
Changes and Chances
A novel
Yes
Who is it by
The author of Follies and Faults answered Alicia still pursuing her study of the romance upon her lap
Is it interesting
Miss Audley pursed up her mouth and shrugged her shoulders
Not particularly she said
Then I think you might have better manners than to read it while your first cousin is sitting opposite you observed Mr Audley with some gravity especially as he has only come to pay you a flying visit and will be off tomorrow morning
Tomorrow morning exclaimed my lady looking up suddenly
Though the look of joy upon Lady Audleys face was as brief as a flash of lightning on a summer sky it was not unperceived by Robert
Yes he said I shall be obliged to run up to London tomorrow on business but I shall return the next day if you will allow me Lady Audley and stay here till my uncle recovers
But you are not seriously alarmed about him are you asked my lady anxiously
You do not think him very ill
No answered Robert Thank Heaven I think there is not the slightest cause for apprehension
My lady sat silent for a few moments looking at the empty teacups with a prettily thoughtful face—a face grave with the innocent seriousness of a musing child
But you were closeted such a long time with Mr Dawson just now she said after this brief pause I was quite alarmed at the length of your conversation Were you talking of Sir Michael all the time
No not all the time
My lady looked down at the teacups once more
Why what could you find to say to Mr Dawson or he to say to you she asked after another pause You are almost strangers to each other
Suppose Mr Dawson wished to consult me about some law business
Was it that cried Lady Audley eagerly
It would be rather unprofessional to tell you if it were so my lady answered Robert gravely
My lady bit her lip and relapsed into silence Alicia threw down her book and watched her cousins preoccupied face He talked to her now and then for a few minutes but it was evidently an effort to him to arouse himself from his revery
Upon my word Robert Audley you are a very agreeable companion exclaimed Alicia at length her rather limited stock of patience quite exhausted by two or three of these abortive attempts at conversation Perhaps the next time you come to the Court you will be good enough to bring your mind with you By your present inanimate appearance I should imagine that you had left your intellect such as it is somewhere in the Temple You were never one of the liveliest of people but latterly you have really grown almost unendurable I suppose you are in love Mr Audley and are thinking of the honored object of your affections
He was thinking of Clara Talboys uplifted face sublime in its unutterable grief of her impassioned words still ringing in his ears as clearly as when they were first spoken Again he saw her looking at him with her bright brown eyes Again he heard that solemn question Shall you or I find my brothers murderer And he was in Essex in the little village from which he firmly believed George Talboys had never departed He was on the spot at which all record of his friends life ended as suddenly as a story ends when the reader shuts the book And could he withdraw now from the investigation in which he found himself involved Could he stop now For any consideration No a thousand times no Not with the image of that griefstricken face imprinted on his mind Not with the accents of that earnest appeal ringing on his ear
CHAPTER XXVI
SO FAR AND NO FARTHER
Robert left Audley the next morning by an early train and reached Shoreditch a little after nine oclock He did not return to his chambers but called a cab and drove straight to Crescent Villas West Brompton He knew that he should fail in finding the lady he went to seek at this address as his uncle had failed a few months before but he thought it possible to obtain some clew to the schoolmistress new residence in spite of Sir Michaels illsuccess
Mrs Vincent was in a dying state according to the telegraphic message Robert thought If I do find her I shall at least succeed in discovering whether that message was genuine
He found Crescent Villas after some difficulty The houses were large but they lay half imbedded among the chaos of brick and rising mortar around them New terraces new streets new squares led away into hopeless masses of stone and plaster on every side The roads were sticky with damp clay which clogged the wheels of the cab and buried the fetlocks of the horse The desolations—that awful aspect of incompleteness and discomfort which pervades a new and unfinished neighborhood—had set its dismal seal upon the surrounding streets which had arisen about and intrenched Crescent Villas and Robert wasted forty minutes by his watch and an hour and a quarter by the cabmans reckoning in driving up and down uninhabited streets and terraces trying to find the Villase whose chimneytops were frowning down upon him black and venerable amid groves of virgin plaster undimmed by time or smoke
But having at last succeeded in reaching his destination Mr Audley alighted from the cab directed the driver to wait for him at a certain corner and set out upon his voyage of discovery
If I were a distinguished QC I could not do this sort of thing he thought my time would be worth a guinea or so a minute and I should be retained in the great case of Hoggs vs Boggs going forward this very day before a special jury at Westminster Hall As it is I can afford to be patient
He inquired for Mrs Vincent at the number which Mr Dawson had given him The maid who opened the door had never heard that ladys name but after going to inquire of her mistress she returned to tell Robert that Mrs Vincent had lived there but that she had left two months before the present occupants had entered the house and missus has been here fifteen months the girl added emphatically
But you cannot tell where she went on leaving here Robert asked despondingly
No sir missus says she believes the lady failed and that she left sudden like and didnt want her address to be known in the neighborhood
Mr Audley felt himself at a standstill once more If Mrs Vincent had left the place in debt she had no doubt scrupulously concealed her whereabouts There was little hope then of learning her address from the tradespeople and yet on the other hand it was just possible that some of her sharpest creditors might have made it their business to discover the defaulters retreat
He looked about him for the nearest shops and found a bakers a stationers and a fruiterers a few paces from the Crescent Three emptylooking pretentious shops with plateglass windows and a hopeless air of gentility
He stopped at the bakers who called himself a pastrycook and confectioner and exhibited some specimens of petrified spongecake in glass bottles and some highlyglazed tarts covered with green gauze
She must have bought bread Robert thought as he deliberated before the bakers shop and she is likely to have bought it at the handiest place Ill try the baker
The baker was standing behind his counter disputing the items of a bill with a shabbygenteel young woman He did not trouble himself to attend to Robert Audley until he had settled the dispute but he looked up as he was receipting the bill and asked the barrister what he pleased to want
Can you tell me the address of a Mrs Vincent who lived at No 9 Crescent Villas a year and a half ago Mr Audley inquired mildly
No I cant answered the baker growing very red in the face and speaking in an unnecessarily loud voice and whats more I wish I could That lady owes me upward of eleven pound for bread and its rather more than I can afford to lose If anybody can tell me where she lives I shall be much obliged to em for so doing
Robert Audley shrugged his shoulders and wished the man goodmorning He felt that his discovery of the ladys whereabouts would involve more trouble than he had expected He might have looked for Mrs Vincents name in the PostOffice directory but he thought it scarcely likely that a lady who was on such uncomfortable terms with her creditors would afford them so easy a means of ascertaining her residence
If the baker cant find her how should I find her he thought despairingly If a resolute sanguine active and energetic creature such as the baker fail to achieve this business how can a lymphatic wretch like me hope to accomplish it Where the baker has been defeated what preposterous folly it would be for me to try to succeed
Mr Audley abandoned himself to these gloomy reflections as he walked slowly back toward the corner at which he had left the cab About halfway between the bakers shop and this corner he was arrested by hearing a womans step close at his side and a womans voice asking him to stop He turned and found himself face to face with the shabbilydressed woman whom he had left settling her account with the baker
Eh what he asked vaguely Can I do anything for you maam Does Mrs Vincent owe you money too
Yes sir the woman answered with a semigenteel manner which corresponded with the shabby gentility of her dress Mrs Vincent is in my debt but it isnt that sir I—I want to know please what your business may be with her—because—because—
You can give me her address if you choose maam Thats what you mean to say isnt it
The woman hesitated a little looking rather suspiciously at Robert
Youre not connected with—with the tally business are you sir she asked after considering Mr Audleys personal appearance for a few moments
The what maam asked the young barrister staring aghast at his questioner
Im sure I beg your pardon sir exclaimed the little woman seeing that she had made some awful mistake I thought you might have been you know Some of the gentlemen who collect for the tally shops do dress so very handsome and I know Mrs Vincent owes a good deal of money
Robert Audley laid his hand upon the speakers arm
My dear madam he said I want to know nothing of Mrs Vincents affairs So far from being concerned in what you call the tally business I have not the remotest idea what you mean by that expression You may mean a political conspiracy you may mean some new species of taxes Mrs Vincent does not owe me any money however badly she may stand with that awfullooking baker I never saw her in my life but I wish to see her today for the simple purpose of asking her a few very plain questions about a young lady who once resided in her house If you know where Mrs Vincent lives and will give me her address you will be doing me a great favor
He took out his cardcase and handed a card to the woman who examined the slip of pasteboard anxiously before she spoke again
Im sure you look and speak like a gentleman sir she said after a brief pause and I hope you will excuse me if Ive seemed mistrustful like but poor Mrs Vincent has had dreadful difficulties and Im the only person hereabouts that shes trusted with her addresses Im a dressmaker sir and Ive worked for her for upward of six years and though she doesnt pay me regular you know sir she gives me a little money on account now and then and I get on as well as I can I may tell you where she lives then sir You havent deceived me have you
On my honor no
Well then sir said the dressmaker dropping her voice as if she thought the pavement beneath her feet or the iron railings before the houses by her side might have ears to hear her its Acacia Cottage Peckham Grove I took a dress there yesterday for Mrs Vincent
Thank you said Robert writing the address in his pocketbook I am very much obliged to you and you may rely upon it Mrs Vincent shall not suffer any inconvenience through me
He lifted his hat bowed to the little dressmaker and turned back to the cab
I have beaten the baker at any rate he thought Now for the second stage traveling backward in my ladys life
The drive from Brompton to the Peckham Road was a very long one and between Crescent Villas and Acacia Cottage Robert Audley had ample leisure for reflection He thought of his uncle lying weak and ill in the oakroom at Audley Court He thought of the beautiful blue eyes watching Sir Michaels slumbers the soft white hands tending on his waking moments the low musical voice soothing his loneliness cheering and consoling his declining years What a pleasant picture it might have been had he been able to look upon it ignorantly seeing no more than others saw looking no further than a stranger could look But with the black cloud which he saw brooding over it what an arch mockery what a diabolical delusion it seemed
Peckham Grove—pleasant enough in the summertime—has rather a dismal aspect upon a dull February day when the trees are bare and leafless and the little gardens desolate Acacia Cottage bore small token of the fitness of its nomenclature and faced the road with its stuccoed walls sheltered only by a couple of attenuated poplars But it announced that it was Acacia Cottage by means of a small brass plate upon one of the gateposts which was sufficient indication for the sharpsighted cabman who dropped Mr Audley upon the pavement before the little gate
Acacia Cottage was much lower in the social scale than Crescent Villas and the small maidservant who came to the low wooden gate and parleyed with Mr Audley was evidently well used to the encounter of relentless creditors across the same feeble barricade
She murmured the familiar domestic fiction of the uncertainty regarding her mistresss whereabouts and told Robert that if he would please to state his name and business she would go and see if Mrs Vincent was at home
Mr Audley produced a card and wrote in pencil under his own name a connection of the late Miss Graham
He directed the small servant to carry his card to her mistress and quietly awaited the result
The servant returned in about five minutes with the key of the gate Her mistress was at home she told Robert as she admitted him and would be happy to see the gentleman
The square parlor into which Robert was ushered bore in every scrap of ornament in every article of furniture the unmistakable stamp of that species of poverty which is most comfortless because it is never stationary The mechanic who furnishes his tiny sittingroom with halfadozen cane chairs a Pembroke table a Dutch clock a tiny lookingglass a crockery shepherd and shepherdess and a set of gaudilyjapanned iron teatrays makes the most of his limited possessions and generally contrives to get some degree of comfort out of them but the lady who loses the handsome furniture of the house she is compelled to abandon and encamps in some smaller habitation with the shabby remainder—bought in by some merciful friend at the sale of her effects—carries with her an aspect of genteel desolation and tawdry misery not easily to be paralleled in wretchedness by any other phase which poverty can assume
The room which Robert Audley surveyed was furnished with the shabbier scraps snatched from the ruin which had overtaken the imprudent schoolmistress in Crescent Villas A cottage piano a chiffonier six sizes too large for the room and dismally gorgeous in gilded moldings that were chipped and broken a slimlegged cardtable placed in the post of honor formed the principal pieces of furniture A threadbare patch of Brussels carpet covered the center of the room and formed an oasis of roses and lilies upon a desert of shabby green drugget Knitted curtains shaded the windows in which hung wire baskets of horriblelooking plants of the cactus species that grew downward like some demented class of vegetation whose prickly and spiderlike members had a fancy for standing on their heads
The greenbaize covered cardtable was adorned with gaudilybound annuals or books of beauty placed at right angles but Robert Audley did not avail himself of these literary distractions He seated himself upon one of the rickety chairs and waited patiently for the advent of the schoolmistress He could hear the hum of halfadozen voices in a room near him and the jingling harmonies of a set of variations in Deh Conte upon a piano whose every wire was evidently in the last stage of attenuation
He had waited for about a quarter of an hour when the door was opened and a lady very much dressed and with the setting sunlight of faded beauty upon her face entered the room
Mr Audley I presume she said motioning to Robert to reseat himself and placing herself in an easychair opposite to him You will pardon me I hope for detaining you so long my duties—
It is I who should apologize for intruding upon you Robert answered politely but my motive for calling upon you is a very serious one and must plead my excuse You remember the lady whose name I wrote upon my card
Perfectly
May I ask how much you know of that ladys history since her departure from your house
Very little In point of fact scarcely anything at all Miss Graham I believe obtained a situation in the family of a surgeon resident in Essex Indeed it was I who recommended her to that gentleman I have never heard from her since she left me
But you have communicated with her Robert asked eagerly
No indeed
Mr Audley was silent for a few moments the shadow of gloomy thoughts gathering darkly on his face
May I ask if you sent a telegraphic dispatch to Miss Graham early in last September stating that you were dangerously ill and that you wished to see her
Mrs Vincent smiled at her visitors question
I had no occasion to send such a message she said I have never been seriously ill in my life
Robert Audley paused before he asked any further questions and scrawled a few penciled words in his notebook
If I ask you a few straightforward questions about Miss Lucy Graham madam he said Will you do me the favor to answer them without asking my motive in making such inquiries
Most certainly replied Mrs Vincent I know nothing to Miss Grahams disadvantage and have no justification for making a mystery of the little I do know
Then will you tell me at what date the young lady first came to you
Mrs Vincent smiled and shook her head She had a pretty smile—the frank smile of a woman who had been admired and who has too long felt the certainty of being able to please to be utterly subjugated by any worldly misfortune
Its not the least use to ask me Mr Audley she said Im the most careless creature in the world I never did and never could remember dates though I do all in my power to impress upon my girls how important it is for their future welfare that they should know when William the Conqueror began to reign and all that kind of thing But I havent the remotest idea when Miss Graham came to me although I know it was ages ago for it was the very summer I had my peachcolored silk But we must consult Tonks—Tonks is sure to be right
Robert Audley wondered who or what Tonks could be a diary perhaps or a memorandumbook—some obscure rival of Letsome
Mrs Vincent rung the bell which was answered by the maidservant who had admitted Robert
Ask Miss Tonks to come to me she said I want to see her particularly
In less than five minutes Miss Tonks made her appearance She was wintry and rather frostbitten in aspect and seemed to bring cold air in the scanty folds of her somber merino dress She was no age in particular and looked as if she had never been younger and would never grow older but would remain forever working backward and forward in her narrow groove like some selffeeding machine for the instruction of young ladies
Tonks my dear said Mrs Vincent without ceremony this gentleman is a relative of Miss Grahams Do you remember how long it is since she came to us at Crescent Villas
She came in August 1854 answered Miss Tonks I think it was the eighteenth of August but Im not quite sure that it wasnt the seventeenth I know it was on a Tuesday
Thank you Tonks you are a most invaluable darling exclaimed Mrs Vincent with her sweetest smile It was perhaps because of the invaluable nature of Miss Tonks services that she had received no remuneration whatever from her employer for the last three or four years Mrs Vincent might have hesitated to pay from very contempt for the pitiful nature of the stipend as compared with the merits of the teacher
Is there anything else that Tonks or I can tell you Mr Audley asked the schoolmistress Tonks has a far better memory than I have
Can you tell me where Miss Graham came from when she entered your household Robert inquired
Not very precisely answered Mrs Vincent I have a vague notion that Miss Graham said something about coming from the seaside but she didnt say where or if she did I have forgotten it Tonks did Miss Graham tell you where she came from
Oh no replied Miss Tonks shaking her grim little head significantly Miss Graham told me nothing she was too clever for that She knows how to keep her own secrets in spite of her innocent ways and her curly hair Miss Tonks added spitefully
You think she had secrets Robert asked rather eagerly
I know she had replied Miss Tonks with frosty decision all manner of secrets I wouldnt have engaged such a person as junior teacher in a respectable school without so much as one word of recommendation from any living creature
You had no reference then from Miss Graham asked Robert addressing Mrs Vincent
No the lady answered with some little embarrassment I waived that Miss Graham waived the question of salary I could not do less than waive the question of reference She quarreled with her papa she told me and she wanted to find a home away from all the people she had ever known She wished to keep herself quite separate from these people She had endured so much she said young as she was and she wanted to escape from her troubles How could I press her for a reference under these circumstances especially when I saw that she was a perfect lady You know that Lucy Graham was a perfect lady Tonks and it is very unkind for you to say such cruel things about my taking her without a reference
When people make favorites they are apt to be deceived in them Miss Tonks answered with icy sententiousness and with no very perceptible relevance to the point in discussion
I never made her a favorite you jealous Tonks Mrs Vincent answered reproachfully I never said she was as useful as you dear You know I never did
Oh no replied Miss Tonks with a chilling accent you never said she was useful She was only ornamental a person to be shown off to visitors and to play fantasias on the drawingroom piano
Then you can give me no clew to Miss Grahams previous history Robert asked looking from the schoolmistress to her teacher He saw very clearly that Miss Tonks bore an envious grudge against Lucy Graham—a grudge which even the lapse of time had not healed
If this woman knows anything to my ladys detriment she will tell it he thought She will tell it only too willingly
But Miss Tonks appeared to know nothing whatever except that Miss Graham had sometimes declared herself an illused creature deceived by the baseness of mankind and the victim of unmerited sufferings in the way of poverty and deprivation Beyond this Miss Tonks could tell nothing and although she made the most of what she did know Robert soon sounded the depth of her small stock of information
I have only one more question to ask he said at last It is this Did Miss Graham leave any books or knickknacks or any other kind of property whatever behind her when she left your establishment
Not to my knowledge Mrs Vincent replied
Yes cried Miss Tonks sharply She did leave something She left a box Its upstairs in my room Ive got an old bonnet in it Would you like to see the box she asked addressing Robert
If you will be so good as to allow me he answered I should very much like to see it
Ill fetch it down said Miss Tonks Its not very big
She ran out of the room before Mr Audley had time to utter any polite remonstrance
How pitiless these women are to each other he thought while the teacher was absent This one knows intuitively that there is some danger to the other lurking beneath my questions She sniffs the coming trouble to her fellow female creature and rejoices in it and would take any pains to help me What a world it is and how these women take life out of her hands Helen Maldon Lady Audley Clara Talboys and now Miss Tonks—all womankind from beginning to end
Miss Tonks reentered while the young barrister was meditating upon the infamy of her sex She carried a dilapidated papercovered bonnetbox which she submitted to Roberts inspection
Mr Audley knelt down to examine the scraps of railway labels and addresses which were pasted here and there upon the box It had been battered upon a great many different lines of railway and had evidently traveled considerably Many of the labels had been torn off but fragments of some of them remained and upon one yellow scrap of paper Robert read the letters TURI
The box has been to Italy he thought Those are the first four letters of the word Turin and the label is a foreign one
The only direction which had not been either defaced or torn away was the last which bore the name of Miss Graham passenger to London Looking very closely at this label Mr Audley discovered that it had been pasted over another
Will you be so good as to let me have a little water and a piece of sponge he said I want to get off this upper label Believe me that I am justified in what I am doing
Miss Tonks ran out of the room and returned immediately with a basin of water and a sponge
Shall I take off the label she asked
No thank you Robert answered coldly I can do it very well myself
He damped the upper label several times before he could loosen the edges of the paper but after two or three careful attempts the moistened surface peeled off without injury to the underneath address
Miss Tonks could not contrive to read this address across Roberts shoulder though she exhibited considerable dexterity in her endeavors to accomplish that object
Mr Audley repeated his operations upon the lower label which he removed from the box and placed very carefully between two blank leaves of his pocketbook
I need intrude upon you no longer ladies he said when he had done this I am extremely obliged to you for having afforded me all the information in your power I wish you goodmorning
Mrs Vincent smiled and bowed murmuring some complacent conventionality about the delight she had felt in Mr Audleys visit Miss Tonks more observant stared at the white change which had come over the young mans face since he had removed the upper label from the box
Robert walked slowly away from Acacia Cottage If that which I have found today is no evidence for a jury he thought it is surely enough to convince my uncle that he has married a designing and infamous woman
CHAPTER XXVII
BEGINNING AT THE OTHER END
Robert Audley walked slowly through the leafless grove under the bare and shadowless trees in the gray February atmosphere thinking as he went of the discovery he had just made
I have that in my pocketbook he pondered which forms the connecting link between the woman whose death George Talboys read of in the Times newspaper and the woman who rules in my uncles house The history of Lucy Graham ends abruptly on the threshold of Mrs Vincents school She entered that establishment in August 1854 The schoolmistress and her assistant can tell me this but they cannot tell me whence she came They cannot give me one clew to the secrets of her life from the day of her birth until the day she entered that house I can go no further in this backward investigation of my ladys antecedents What am I to do then if I mean to keep my promise to Clara Talboys
He walked on for a few paces revolving this question in his mind with a darker shadow than the shadows of the gathering winter twilight on his face and a heavy oppression of mingled sorrow and dread weighing down his heart
My duty is clear enough he thought—not the less clear because it leads me step by step carrying ruin and desolation with me to the home I love I must begin at the other end—I must begin at the other end and discover the history of Helen Talboys from the hour of Georges departure until the day of the funeral in the churchyard at Ventnor
Mr Audley hailed a passing hansom and drove back to his chambers
He reached Figtree Court in time to write a few lines to Miss Talboys and to post his letter at St MartinsleGrand off before six oclock
It will save me a day he thought as he drove to the General Post Office with this brief epistle
He had written to Clara Talboys to inquire the name of the little seaport town in which George had met Captain Maldon and his daughter for in spite of the intimacy between the two young men Robert Audley knew very few particulars of his friends brief married life
From the hour in which George Talboys had read the announcement of his wifes death in the columns of the Times he had avoided all mention of the tender history which had been so cruelly broken the familiar record which had been so darkly blotted out
There was so much that was painful in that brief story There was such bitter selfreproach involved in the recollection of that desertion which must have seemed so cruel to her who waited and watched at home Robert Audley comprehended this and he did not wonder at his friends silence The sorrowful story had been tacitly avoided by both and Robert was as ignorant of the unhappy history of this one year in his schoolfellows life as if they had never lived together in friendly companionship in those snug Temple chambers
The letter written to Miss Talboys by her brother George within a month of his marriage was dated Harrowgate It was at Harrowgate therefore Robert concluded the young couple spent their honeymoon
Robert Audley had requested Clara Talboys to telegraph an answer to his question in order to avoid the loss of a day in the accomplishment of the investigation he had promised to perform
The telegraphic answer reached Figtree Court before twelve oclock the next day
The name of the seaport town was Wildernsea Yorkshire
Within an hour of the receipt of this message Mr Audley arrived at the Kingscross station and took his ticket for Wildernsea by an express train that started at a quarter before two
The shrieking engine bore him on the dreary northward journey whirling him over desert wastes of flat meadowland and bare cornfields faintly tinted with fresh sprouting green This northern road was strange and unfamiliar to the young barrister and the wide expanse of the wintry landscape chilled him by its aspect of bare loneliness The knowledge of the purpose of his journey blighted every object upon which his absent glances fixed themselves for a moment only to wander wearily away only to turn inward upon that far darker picture always presenting itself to his anxious mind
It was dark when the train reached the Hull terminus but Mr Audleys journey was not ended Amidst a crowd of porters and scattered heaps of that incongruous and heterogeneous luggage with which travelers incumber themselves he was led bewildered and half asleep to another train which was to convey him along the branch line that swept past Wildernsea and skirted the border of the German Ocean
Half an hour after leaving Hull Robert felt the briny freshness of the sea upon the breeze that blew in at the open window of the carriage and an hour afterward the train stopped at a melancholy station built amid a sandy desert and inhabited by two or three gloomy officials one of whom rung a terrific peal upon a harshly clanging bell as the train approached
Mr Audley was the only passenger who alighted at the dismal station The train swept on to the gayer scenes before the barrister had time to collect his senses or to pick up the portmanteau which had been discovered with some difficulty amid a black cavern of baggage only illuminated by one lantern
I wonder whether settlers in the backwoods of America feel as solitary and strange as I feel tonight he thought as he stared hopelessly about him in the darkness
He called to one of the officials and pointed to his portmanteau
Will you carry that to the nearest hotel for me he asked—that is to say if I can get a good bed there
The man laughed as he shouldered the portmanteau
You can get thirty beds I dare say sir if you wanted em he said We aint over busy at Wildernsea at this time o year This way sir
The porter opened a wooden door in the station wall and Robert Audley found himself upon a wide bowlinggreen of smooth grass which surrounded a huge square building that loomed darkly on him through the winters night its black solidity only relieved by two lighted windows far apart from each other and glimmering redly like beacons on the darkness
This is the Victoria Hotel sir said the porter You wouldnt believe the crowds of company we have down here in the summer
In the face of the bare grassplat the tenantless wooden alcoves and the dark windows of the hotel it was indeed rather difficult to imagine that the place was ever gay with merry people taking pleasure in the bright summer weather but Robert Audley declared himself willing to believe anything the porter pleased to tell him and followed his guide meekly to a little door at the side of the big hotel which led into a comfortable bar where the humbler classes of summer visitors were accommodated with such refreshments as they pleased to pay for without running the gantlet of the prim whitewaistcoated waiters on guard at the principal entrance
But there were very few attendants retained at the hotel in the bleak February season and it was the landlord himself who ushered Robert into a dreary wilderness of polished mahogany tables and horsehair cushioned chairs which he called the coffeeroom
Mr Audley seated himself close to the wide steel fender and stretched his cramped legs upon the hearthrug while the landlord drove the poker into the vast pile of coal and sent a ruddy blaze roaring upward through the chimney
If you would prefer a private room sir— the man began
No thank you said Robert indifferently this room seems quite private enough just now If you will order me a mutton chop and a pint of sherry I shall be obliged
Certainly sir
And I shall be still more obliged if you will favor me with a few minutes conversation before you do so
With very great pleasure sir the landlord answered goodnaturedly We see so very little company at this season of the year that we are only too glad to oblige those gentlemen who do visit us Any information which I can afford you respecting the neighborhood of Wildernsea and its attractions added the landlord unconsciously quoting a small handbook of the wateringplace which he sold in the bar I shall be most happy to—
But I dont want to know anything about the neighborhood of Wildernsea interrupted Robert with a feeble protest against the landlords volubility I want to ask you a few questions about some people who once lived here
The landlord bowed and smiled with an air which implied his readiness to recite the biographies of all the inhabitants of the little seaport if required by Mr Audley to do so
How many years have you lived here Robert asked taking his memorandum book from his pocket Will it annoy you if I make notes of your replies to my questions
Not at all sir replied the landlord with a pompous enjoyment of the air of solemnity and importance which pervaded this business Any information which I can afford that is likely to be of ultimate value—
Yes thank you Robert murmured interrupting the flow of words You have lived here—
Six years sir
Since the year fiftythree
Since November in the year fiftytwo sir I was in business at Hull prior to that time This house was only completed in the October before I entered it
Do you remember a lieutenant in the navy on halfpay I believe at that time called Maldon
Captain Maldon sir
Yes commonly called Captain Maldon I see you do remember him
Yes sir Captain Maldon was one of our best customers He used to spend his evenings in this very room though the walls were damp at that time and we werent able to paper the place for nearly a twelvemonth afterward His daughter married a young officer that came here with his regiment at Christmas time in fiftytwo They were married here sir and they traveled on the Continent for six months and came back here again But the gentleman ran away to Australia and left the lady a week or two after her baby was born The business made quite a sensation in Wildernsea sir and Mrs—Mrs—I forgot the name—
Mrs Talboys suggested Robert
To be sure sir Mrs Talboys Mrs Talboys was very much pitied by the Wildernsea folks sir I was going to say for she was very pretty and had such nice winning ways that she was a favorite with everybody who knew her
Can you tell me how long Mr Maldon and his daughter remained at Wildernsea after Mr Talboys left them Robert asked
Well—no sir answered the landlord after a few moments deliberation I cant say exactly how long it was I know Mr Maldon used to sit here in this very parlor and tell people how badly his daughter had been treated and how hed been deceived by a young man hed put so much confidence in but I cant say how long it was before he left Wildernsea But Mrs Barkamb could tell you sir added the landlord briskly
Mrs Barkamb
Yes Mrs Barkamb is the person who owns No 17 North Cottages the house in which Mr Maldon and his daughter lived Shes a nice civil spoken motherly woman sir and Im sure shell tell you anything you may want to know
Thank you I will call upon Mrs Barkamb tomorrow Stay—one more question Should you recognize Mrs Talboys if you were to see her
Certainly sir As sure as I should recognize one of my own daughters
Robert Audley wrote Mrs Barkambs address in his pocketbook ate his solitary dinner drank a couple of glasses of sherry smoked a cigar and then retired to the apartment in which a fire had been lighted for his comfort
He soon fell asleep worn out with the fatigue of hurrying from place to place during the last two days but his slumber was not a heavy one and he heard the disconsolate moaning of the wind upon the sandy wastes and the long waves rolling in monotonously upon the flat shore Mingling with these dismal sounds the melancholy thoughts engendered by his joyless journey repeated themselves in nevervarying succession in the chaos of his slumbering brain and made themselves into visions of things that never had been and never could be upon this earth but which had some vague relation to real events remembered by the sleeper
In those troublesome dreams he saw Audley Court rooted up from amidst the green pastures and the shady hedgerows of Essex standing bare and unprotected upon that desolate northern shore threatened by the rapid rising of a boisterous sea whose waves seemed gathering upward to descend and crush the house he loved As the hurrying waves rolled nearer and nearer to the stately mansion the sleeper saw a pale starry face looking out of the silvery foam and knew that it was my lady transformed into a mermaid beckoning his uncle to destruction Beyond that rising sea great masses of cloud blacker than the blackest ink more dense than the darkest night lowered upon the dreamers eye but as he looked at the dismal horizon the stormclouds slowly parted and from a narrow rent in the darkness a ray of light streamed out upon the hideous waves which slowly very slowly receded leaving the old mansion safe and firmly rooted on the shore
Robert awoke with the memory of this dream in his mind and a sensation of physical relief as if some heavy weight which had oppressed him all the night had been lifted from his breast
He fell asleep again and did not awake until the broad winter sunlight shone upon the windowblind and the shrill voice of the chambermaid at his door announced that it was halfpast eight oclock At a quarterbefore ten he had left Victoria Hotel and was making his way along the lonely platform in front of a row of shadowless houses that faced the sea
This row of hard uncompromising squarebuilt habitations stretched away to the little harbor in which two or three merchant vessels and a couple of colliers were anchored Beyond the harbor there loomed gray and cold upon the wintry horizon a dismal barrack parted from the Wildernsea houses by a narrow creek spanned by an iron drawbridge The scarlet coat of the sentinel who walked backward and forward between two cannons placed at remote angles before the barrack wall was the only scrap of color that relieved the neutraltinted picture of the gray stone houses and the leaden sea
On one side of the harbor a long stone pier stretched out far away into the cruel loneliness of the sea as if built for the especial accommodation of some modern Timon too misanthropical to be satisfied even with the solitude of Wildernsea and anxious to get still further away from his fellowcreatures
It was on that pier George Talboys had first met his wife under the blazing glory of a midsummer sky and to the music of a braying band It was there that the young cornet had first yielded to that sweet delusion that fatal infatuation which had exercised so dark an influence upon his afterlife
Robert looked savagely at this solitary wateringplace—the shabby seaport
It is such a place as this he thought that works a strong mans ruin He comes here heart whole and happy with no better experience of women than is to be learned at a flowershow or in a ballroom with no more familiar knowledge of the creature than he has of the faraway satellites or the remoter planets with a vague notion that she is a whirling teetotum in pink or blue gauze or a graceful automaton for the display of milliners manufacture He comes to some place of this kind and the universe is suddenly narrowed into about half a dozen acres the mighty scheme of creation is crushed into a bandbox The faraway creatures whom he had seen floating about him beautiful and indistinct are brought under his very nose and before he has time to recover his bewilderment hey presto the witchcraft has begun the magic circle is drawn around him the spells are at work the whole formula of sorcery is in full play and the victim is as powerless to escape as the marblelegged prince in the Eastern story
Ruminating in this wise Robert Audley reached the house to which he had been directed as the residence of Mrs Barkamb He was admitted immediately by a prim elderly servant who ushered him into a sittingroom as prim and elderlylooking as herself Mrs Barkamb a comfortable matron of about sixty years of age was sitting in an armchair before a bright handful of fire in the shining grate An elderly terrier whose blackandtan coat was thickly sprinkled with gray reposed in Mrs Barkambs lap Every object in the quiet sittingroom had an elderly aspect of simple comfort and precision which is the evidence of outward repose
I should like to live here Robert thought and watch the gray sea slowly rolling over the gray sand under the still gray sky I should like to live here and tell the beads upon my rosary and repent and rest
He seated himself in the armchair opposite Mrs Barkamb at that ladys invitation and placed his hat upon the ground The elderly terrier descended from his mistress lap to bark at and otherwise take objection to this hat
You were wishing I suppose sir to take one—be quiet Dash—one of the cottages suggested Mrs Barkamb whose mind ran in one narrow groove and whose life during the last twenty years had been an unvarying round of houseletting
Robert Audley explained the purpose of his visit
I come to ask one simple question he said in conclusion I wish to discover the exact date of Mrs Talboys departure from Wildernsea The proprietor of the Victoria Hotel informed me that you were the most likely person to afford me that information
Mrs Barkamb deliberated for some moments
I can give you the date of Captain Maldons departure she said for he left No 17 considerably in my debt and I have the whole business in black and white but with regard to Mrs Talboys—
Mrs Barkamb paused for a few moments before resuming
You are aware that Mrs Talboys left rather abruptly she asked
I was not aware of that fact
Indeed Yes she left abruptly poor little woman She tried to support herself after her husbands desertion by giving music lessons she was a very brilliant pianist and succeeded pretty well I believe But I suppose her father took her money from her and spent it in public houses However that might be they had a very serious misunderstanding one night and the next morning Mrs Talboys left Wildernsea leaving her little boy who was out at nurse in the neighborhood
But you cannot tell me the date of her leaving
Im afraid not answered Mrs Barkamb and yet stay Captain Maldon wrote to me upon the day his daughter left He was in very great distress poor old gentleman and he always came to me in his troubles If I could find that letter it might be dated you know—mightnt it now
Mr Audley said that it was only probable the letter was dated
Mrs Barkamb retired to a table in the window on which stood an oldfashioned mahogany desk lined with green baize and suffering from a plethora of documents which oozed out of it in every direction Letters receipts bills inventories and taxpapers were mingled in hopeless confusion and among these Mrs Barkamb set to work to search for Captain Maldons letter
Mr Audley waited very patiently watching the gray clouds sailing across the gray sky the gray vessels gliding past upon the gray sea
After about ten minutes search and a great deal of rustling crackling folding and unfolding of the papers Mrs Barkamb uttered an exclamation of triumph
Ive got the letter she said and theres a note inside it from Mrs Talboys
Robert Audleys pale face flushed a vivid crimson as he stretched out his hand to receive the papers
The persons who stole Helen Maldons loveletters from Georges trunk in my chambers might have saved themselves the trouble he thought
The letter from the old lieutenant was not long but almost every other word was underscored
My generous friend the writer began—Mr Maldon had tried the ladys generosity pretty severely during his residence in her house rarely paying his rent until threatened with the intruding presence of the brokers man—I am in the depths of despair My daughter has left me You may imagine my feelings We had a few words last night upon the subject of money matters which subject has always been a disagreeable one between us and on rising this morning I found I was deserted The enclosed from Helen was waiting for me on the parlor table
Yours in distraction and despair
HENRY MALDON
NORTH COTTAGES August 16th 1854
The note from Mrs Talboys was still more brief It began abruptly thus
I am weary of my life here and wish if I can to find a new one I go out into the world dissevered from every link which binds me to the hateful past to seek another home and another fortune Forgive me if I have been fretful capricious changeable You should forgive me for you know why I have been so You know the secret which is the key to my life
HELEN TALBOYS
These lines were written in a hand that Robert Audley knew only too well
He sat for a long time pondering silently over the letter written by Helen Talboys
What was the meaning of those two last sentences—You should forgive me for you know why I have been so You know the secret which is the key to my life
He wearied his brain in endeavoring to find a clew to the signification of these two sentences He could remember nothing nor could he imagine anything that would throw a light upon their meaning The date of Helens departure according to Mr Maldons letter was the 16th of August 1854 Miss Tonks had declared that Lucy Graham entered the school at Crescent Villas upon the 17th or 18th of August in the same year Between the departure of Helen Talboys from the Yorkshire wateringplace and the arrival of Lucy Graham at the Brompton school not more than eightandforty hours could have elapsed This made a very small link in the chain of circumstantial evidence perhaps but it was a link nevertheless and it fitted neatly into its place
Did Mr Maldon hear from his daughter after she had left Wildernsea Robert asked
Well I believe he did hear from her Mrs Barkamb answered but I didnt see much of the old gentleman after that August I was obliged to sell him up in November poor fellow for he owed me fifteen months rent and it was only by selling his poor little bits of furniture that I could get him out of my place We parted very good friends in spite of my sending in the brokers and the old gentleman went to London with the child who was scarcely a twelvemonth old
Mrs Barkamb had nothing more to tell and Robert had no further questions to ask He requested permission to retain the two letters written by the lieutenant and his daughter and left the house with them in his pocketbook
He walked straight back to the hotel where he called for a timetable An express for London left Wildernsea at a quarter past one Robert sent his portmanteau to the station paid his bill and walked up and down the stone terrace fronting the sea waiting for the starting of the train
I have traced the histories of Lucy Graham and Helen Talboys to a vanishing point he thought my next business is to discover the history of the woman who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard
CHAPTER XXVIII
HIDDEN IN THE GRAVE
Upon his return from Wildernsea Robert Audley found a letter from his Cousin Alicia awaiting him at his chambers
Papa is much better the young lady wrote and is very anxious to have you at the Court For some inexplicable reason my stepmother has taken it into her head that your presence is extremely desirable and worries me with her frivolous questions about your movements So pray come without delay and set these people at rest Your affectionate cousin AA
So my lady is anxious to know my movements thought Robert Audley as he sat brooding and smoking by his lonely fireside She is anxious and she questions her stepdaughter in that pretty childlike manner which has such a bewitching air of innocent frivolity Poor little creature poor unhappy little goldenhaired sinner the battle between us seems terribly unfair Why doesnt she run away while there is still time I have given her fair warning I have shown her my cards and worked openly enough in this business Heaven knows Why doesnt she run away
He repeated this question again and again as he filled and emptied his meerschaum surrounding himself with the blue vapor from his pipe until he looked like some modern magician seated in his laboratory
Why doesnt she run away I would bring no needless shame upon that house of all other houses upon this wide earth I would only do my duty to my missing friend and to that brave and generous man who has pledged his faith to a worthless woman Heaven knows I have no wish to punish Heaven knows I was never born to be the avenger of guilt or the persecutor of the guilty I only wish to do my duty I will give her one more warning a full and fair one and then—
His thoughts wandered away to that gloomy prospect in which he saw no gleam of brightness to relieve the dull black obscurity that encompassed the future shutting in his pathway on every side and spreading a dense curtain around and about him which Hope was powerless to penetrate He was forever haunted by the vision of his uncles anguish forever tortured by the thought of that ruin and desolation which being brought about by his instrumentality would seem in a manner his handiwork But amid all and through all Clara Talboys with an imperious gesture beckoned him onward to her brothers unknown grave
Shall I go down to Southampton he thought and endeavor to discover the history of the woman who died at Ventnor Shall I work underground bribing the paltry assistants in that foul conspiracy until I find my way to the thrice guilty principal No not till I have tried other means of discovering the truth Shall I go to that miserable old man and charge him with his share in the shameful trick which I believe to have been played upon my poor friend No I will not torture that terrorstricken wretch as I tortured him a few weeks ago I will go straight to that archconspirator and will tear away the beautiful veil under which she hides her wickedness and will wring from her the secret of my friends fate and banish her forever from the house which her presence has polluted
He started early the next morning for Essex and reached Audley before eleven oclock
Early as it was my lady was out She had driven to Chelmsford upon a shopping expedition with her stepdaughter She had several calls to make in the neighborhood of the town and was not likely to return until dinnertime Sir Michaels health was very much improved and he would come down stairs in the afternoon Would Mr Audley go to his uncles room
No Robert had no wish to meet that generous kinsman What could he say to him How could he smooth the way to the trouble that was to come—how soften the cruel blow of the great grief that was preparing for that noble and trusting heart
If I could forgive her the wrong done to my friend Robert thought I should still abhor her for the misery her guilt must bring upon the man who has believed in her
He told his uncles servant that he would stroll into the village and return before dinner He walked slowly away from the Court wandering across the meadows between his uncles house and the village purposeless and indifferent with the great trouble and perplexity of his life stamped upon his face and reflected in his manner
I will go into the churchyard he thought and stare at the tombstones There is nothing I can do that will make me more gloomy than I am
He was in those very meadows through which he had hurried from Audley Court to the station upon the September day in which George Talboys had disappeared He looked at the pathway by which he had gone upon that day and remembered his unaccustomed hurry and the vague feeling of terror which had taken possession of him immediately upon losing sight of his friend
Why did that unaccountable terror seize upon me he thought Why was it that I saw some strange mystery in my friends disappearance Was it a monition or a monomania What if I am wrong after all What if this chain of evidence which I have constructed link by link is woven out of my own folly What if this edifice of horror and suspicion is a mere collection of crotchets—the nervous fancies of a hypochondriacal bachelor Mr Harcourt Talboys sees no meaning in the events out of which I have made myself a horrible mystery I lay the separate links of the chain before him and he cannot recognize their fitness He is unable to put them together Oh my God if it should be in myself all this time that the misery lies if— he smiled bitterly and shook his head I have the handwriting in my pocketbook which is the evidence of the conspiracy he thought It remains for me to discover the darker half of my ladys secret
He avoided the village still keeping to the meadows The church lay a little way back from the straggling High street and a rough wooden gate opened from the churchyard into a broad meadow that was bordered by a running stream and sloped down into a grassy valley dotted by groups of cattle
Robert slowly ascended the narrow hillside pathway leading up to the gate in the churchyard The quiet dullness of the lonely landscape harmonized with his own gloom The solitary figure of an old man hobbling toward a stile at the further end of the wide meadow was the only human creature visible upon the area over which the young barrister looked The smoke slowly ascending from the scattered houses in the long High street was the only evidence of human life The slow progress of the hands of the old clock in the church steeple was the only token by which a traveler could perceive that a sluggish course of rustic life had not come to a full stop in the village of Audley
Yes there was one other sign As Robert opened the gate of the churchyard and strolled listessly into the little inclosure he became aware of the solemn music of an organ audible through a halfopen window in the steeple
He stopped and listened to the slow harmonies of a dreamy melody that sounded like an extempore composition of an accomplished player
Who would have believed that Audley church could boast such an organ thought Robert When last I was here the national schoolmaster used to accompany his children by a primitive performance of common chords I didnt think the old organ had such music in it
He lingered at the gate not caring to break the lazy spell woven about him by the monotonous melancholy of the organists performance The tones of the instrument now swelling to their fullest power now sinking to a low whispering softness floated toward him upon the misty winter atmosphere and had a soothing influence that seemed to comfort him in his trouble
He closed the gate softly and crossed the little patch of gravel before the door of the church The door had been left ajar—by the organist perhaps Robert Audley pushed it open and walked into the square porch from which a flight of narrow stone steps wound upward to the organloft and the belfry Mr Audley took off his hat and opened the door between the porch and the body of the church He stepped softly into the holy edifice which had a damp moldy smell upon weekdays He walked down the narrow aisle to the altarrails and from that point of observation took a survey of the church The little gallery was exactly opposite to him but the scanty green curtains before the organ were closely drawn and he could not get a glimpse of the player
The music still rolled on The organist had wandered into a melody of Mendelssohns a strain whose dreamy sadness went straight to Roberts heart He loitered in the nooks and corners of the church examining the dilapidated memorials of the wellnigh forgotten dead and listening to the music
If my poor friend George Talboys had died in my arms and I had buried him in this quiet church in one corner of the vaults over which I tread today how much anguish of mind vacillation and torment I might have escaped thought Robert Audley as he read the faded inscriptions upon tablets of discolored marble I should have known his fate—I should have known his fate Ah how much there would have been in that It is this miserable uncertainty this horrible suspicion which has poisoned my very life
He looked at his watch
Halfpast one he muttered I shall have to wait four or five dreary hours before my lady comes home from her morning calls—her pretty visits of ceremony or friendliness Good Heaven what an actress this woman is What an arch trickster—what an allaccomplished deceiver But she shall play her pretty comedy no longer under my uncles roof I have diplomatized long enough She has refused to accept an indirect warning Tonight I will speak plainly
The music of the organ ceased and Robert heard the closing of the instrument
Ill have a look at this new organist he thought who can afford to bury his talents at Audley and play Mendelssohns finest fugues for a stipend of sixteen pounds a year He lingered in the porch waiting for the organist to descend the awkward little staircase In the weary trouble of his mind and with the prospect of getting through the five hours in the best way he could Mr Audley was glad to cultivate any diversion of thought however idle He therefore freely indulged his curiosity about the new organist
The first person who appeared upon the steep stone steps was a boy in corduroy trousers and a dark linen smockfrock who shambled down the stairs with a good deal of unnecessary clatter of his hobnailed shoes and who was red in the face from the exertion of blowing the bellows of the old organ Close behind this boy came a young lady very plainly dressed in a black silk gown and a large gray shawl who started and turned pale at sight of Mr Audley
This young lady was Clara Talboys
Of all people in the world she was the last whom Robert either expected or wished to see She had told him that she was going to pay a visit to some friends who lived in Essex but the county is a wide one and the village of Audley one of the most obscure and least frequented spots in the whole of its extent That the sister of his lost friend should be here—here where she could watch his every action and from those actions deduce the secret workings of his mind tracing his doubts home to their object made a complication of his difficulties that he could never have anticipated It brought him back to that consciousness of his own helplessness in which he had exclaimed
A hand that is stronger than my own is beckoning me onward on the dark road that leads to my lost friends unknown grave
Clara Talboys was the first to speak
You are surprised to see me here Mr Audley she said
Very much surprised
I told you that I was coming to Essex I left home day before yesterday I was leaving home when I received your telegraphic message The friend with whom I am staying is Mrs Martyn the wife of the new rector of Mount Stanning I came down this morning to see the village and church and as Mrs Martyn had to pay a visit to the school with the curate and his wife I stopped here and amused myself by trying the old organ I was not aware till I came here that there was a village called Audley The place takes its name from your family I suppose
I believe so Robert answered wondering at the ladys calmness in contradistinction to his own embarrassment I have a vague recollection of hearing the story of some ancestor who was called Audley of Audley in the reign of Edward the Fourth The tomb inside the rails near the altar belongs to one of the knights of Audley but I have never taken the trouble to remember his achievements Are you going to wait here for your friends Miss Talboys
Yes they are to return here for me after they have finished their rounds
And you go back to Mount Stanning with them this afternoon
Yes
Robert stood with his hat in his hand looking absently out at the tombstones and the low wall of the church yard Clara Talboys watched his pale face haggard under the deepening shadow that had rested upon it so long
You have been ill since I saw you last Mr Audley she said in a low voice that had the same melodious sadness as the notes of the old organ under her touch
No I have not been ill I have been only harassed wearied by a hundred doubts and perplexities
He was thinking as he spoke to her
How much does she guess How much does she suspect
He had told the story of Georges disappearance and of his own suspicions suppressing only the names of those concerned in the mystery but what if this girl should fathom this slender disguise and discover for herself that which he had chosen to withhold
Her grave eyes were fixed upon his face and he knew that she was trying to read the innermost secrets of his mind
What am I in her hands he thought What am I in the hands of this woman who has my lost friends face and the manner of Pallas Athene She reads my pitiful vacillating soul and plucks the thoughts out of my heart with the magic of her solemn brown eyes How unequal the fight must be between us and how can I ever hope to conquer against the strength of her beauty and her wisdom
Mr Audley was clearing his throat preparatory to bidding his beautiful companion goodmorning and making his escape from the thraldom of her presence into the lonely meadow outside the churchyard when Clare Talboys arrested him by speaking upon that very subject which he was most anxious to avoid
You promised to write to me Mr Audley she said if you made any discovery which carried you nearer to the mystery of my brothers disappearance You have not written to me and I imagine therefore that you have discovered nothing
Robert Audley was silent for some moments How could he answer this direct question
The chain of circumstantial evidence which unites the mystery of your brothers fate with the person whom I suspect he said after a pause is formed of very slight links I think that I have added another link to that chain since I saw you in Dorsetshire
And you refuse to tell me what it is that you have discovered
Only until I have discovered more
I thought from your message that you were going to Wildernsea
I have been there
Indeed It was there that you made some discovery then
It was answered Robert You must remember Miss Talboys that the sole ground upon which my suspicions rest is the identity of two individuals who have no apparent connection—the identity of a person who is supposed to be dead with one who is living The conspiracy of which I believe your brother to have been the victim hinges upon this If his wife Helen Talboys died when the papers recorded her death—if the woman who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard was indeed the woman whose name is inscribed on the headstone of the grave—I have no case I have no clew to the mystery of your brothers fate I am about to put this to the test I believe that I am now in a position to play a bold game and I believe that I shall soon arrive at the truth
He spoke in a low voice and with a solemn emphasis that betrayed the intensity of his feeling Miss Talboys stretched out her ungloved hand and laid it in his own The cold touch of that slender hand sent a shivering thrill through his frame
You will not suffer my brothers fate to remain a mystery Mr Audley she said quietly I know that you will do your duty to your friend
The rectors wife and her two companions entered the churchyard as Clara Talboys said this Robert Audley pressed the hand that rested in his own and raised it to his lips
I am a lazy goodfornothing fellow Miss Talboys he said but if I could restore your brother George to life and happiness I should care very little for any sacrifice of my own feeling fear that the most I can do is to fathom the secret of his fate and in doing that I must sacrifice those who are dearer to me than myself
He put on his hat and hurried through the gateway leading into the field as Mrs Martyn came up to the porch
Who is that handsome young man I caught teteatete with you Clara she asked laughing
He is a Mr Audley a friend of my poor brothers
Indeed He is some relation of Sir Michael Audley I suppose
Sir Michael Audley
Yes my dear the most important personage in the parish of Audley But well call at the Court in a day or two and you shall see the baronet and his pretty young wife
His young wife replied Clara Talboys looking earnestly at her friend Has Sir Michael Audley lately married then
Yes He was a widower for sixteen years and married a penniless young governess about a year and a half ago The story is quite romantic and Lady Audley is considered the belle of the county But come my dear Clara the pony is tired of waiting for us and weve a long drive before dinner
Clara Talboys took her seat in the little basketcarriage which was waiting at the principal gate of the churchyard in the care of the boy who had blown the organbellows Mrs Martyn shook the reins and the sturdy chestnut cob trotted off in the direction of Mount Stanning
Will you tell me more about this Lady Audley Fanny Miss Talboys said after a long pause I want to know all about her Have you heard her maiden name
Yes she was a Miss Graham
And she is very pretty
Yes very very pretty Rather a childish beauty though with large clear blue eyes and pale golden ringlets that fall in a feathery shower over her throat and shoulders
Clara Talboys was silent She did not ask any further questions about my lady
She was thinking of a passage in that letter which George had written to her during his honeymoon—a passage in which he said My childish little wife is watching me as I write this—Ah how I wish you could see her Clara Her eyes are as blue and as clear as the skies on a bright summers day and her hair falls about her face like the pale golden halo you see round the head of a Madonna in an Italian picture
CHAPTER XXIX
IN THE LIMEWALK
Robert Audley was loitering upon the broad grassplat in front of the Court as the carriage containing my lady and Alicia drove under the archway and drew up at the low turretdoor Mr Audley presented himself in time to hand the ladies out of the vehicle
My lady looked very pretty in a delicate blue bonnet and the sables which her nephew had bought for her at St Petersburg She seemed very well pleased to see Robert and smiled most bewitchingly as she gave him her exquisitely gloved little hand
So you have come back to us truant she said laughing And now that you have returned we shall keep you prisoner We wont let him run away again will we Alicia
Miss Audley gave her head a scornful toss that shook the heavy curls under her cavalier hat
I have nothing to do with the movements of so erratic an individual she said Since Robert Audley has taken it into his head to conduct himself like some ghosthaunted hero in a German story I have given up attempting to understand him
Mr Audley looked at his cousin with an expression of seriocomic perplexity Shes a nice girl he thought but shes a nuisance I dont know how it is but she seems more a nuisance than she used to be
He pulled his mustaches reflectively as he considered this question His mind wandered away for a few moments from the great trouble of his life to dwell upon this minor perplexity
Shes a dear girl he thought a generoushearted bouncing noble English lassie and yet— He lost himself in a quagmire of doubt and difficulty There was some hitch in his mind which he could not understand some change in himself beyond the change made in him by his anxiety about George Talboys which mystified and bewildered him
And pray where have you been wandering during the last day or two Mr Audley asked my lady as she lingered with her stepdaughter upon the threshold of the turretdoor waiting until Robert should be pleased to stand aside and allow them to pass The young man started as she asked this question and looked up at her suddenly Something in the aspect of her bright young beauty something in the childish innocence of her expression seemed to smite him to the heart and his face grew ghastly pale as he looked at her
I have been—in Yorkshire he said at the little watering place where my poor friend George Talboys lived at the time of his marriage
The white change in my ladys face was the only sign of her having heard these words She smiled a faint sickly smile and tried to pass her husbands nephew
I must dress for dinner she said I am going to a dinnerparty Mr Audley please let me go in
I must ask you to spare me half an hour Lady Audley Robert answered in a low voice I came down to Essex on purpose to speak to you
What about asked my lady
She had recovered herself from any shock which she might have sustained a few moments before and it was in her usual manner that she asked this question Her face expressed the mingled bewilderment and curiosity of a puzzled child rather than the serious surprise of a woman
What can you want to talk to me about Mr Audley she repeated
I will tell you when we are alone Robert said glancing at his cousin who stood a little way behind my lady watching this confidential little dialogue
He is in love with my stepmothers waxdoll beauty thought Alicia and it is for her sake he has become such a disconsolate object Hes just the sort of person to fall in love with his aunt
Miss Audley walked away to the grassplat turning her back upon Robert and my lady
The absurd creature turned as white as a sheet when he saw her she thought So he can be in love after all That slow lump of torpidity he calls his heart can beat I suppose once in a quarter of a century but it seems that nothing but a blueeyed waxdoll can set it going I should have given him up long ago if Id known that his idea of beauty was to be found in a toyshop
Poor Alicia crossed the grassplat and disappeared upon the opposite side of the quadrangle where there was a Gothic gate that communicated with the stables I am sorry to say that Sir Michael Audleys daughter went to seek consolation from her dog Caesar and her chestnut mare Atalanta whose loose box the young lady was in the habit of visiting every day
Will you come into the limewalk Lady Audley said Robert as his cousin left the garden I wish to talk to you without fear of interruption or observation I think we could choose no safer place than that Will you come there with me
If you please answered my lady Mr Audley could see that she was trembling and that she glanced from side to side as if looking for some outlet by which she might escape him
You are shivering Lady Audley he said
Yes I am very cold I would rather speak to you some other day please Let it be tomorrow if you will I have to dress for dinner and I want to see Sir Michael I have not seen him since ten oclock this morning Please let it be tomorrow
There was a painful piteousness in her tone Heaven knows how painful to Roberts heart Heaven knows what horrible images arose in his mind as he looked down at that fair young face and thought of the task that lay before him
I must speak to you Lady Audley he said If I am cruel it is you who have made me cruel You might have escaped this ordeal You might have avoided me I gave you fair warning But you have chosen to defy me and it is your own folly which is to blame if I no longer spare you Come with me I tell you again I must speak to you
There was a cold determination in his tone which silenced my ladys objections She followed him submissively to the little iron gate which communicated with the long garden behind the house—the garden in which a little rustic wooden bridge led across the quiet fishpond into the limewalk
The early winter twilight was closing in and the intricate tracery of the leafless branches that overarched the lonely pathway looked black against the cold gray of the evening sky The limewalk seemed like some cloister in this uncertain light
Why do you bring me to this horrible place to frighten me out of my poor wits cried my lady peevishly You ought to know how nervous I am
You are nervous my lady
Yes dreadfully nervous I am worth a fortune to poor Mr Dawson He is always sending me camphor and sal volatile and red lavender and all kinds of abominable mixtures but he cant cure me
Do you remember what Macbeth tells his physician my lady asked Robert gravely Mr Dawson may be very much more clever than the Scottish leech but I doubt if even he can minister to the mind that is diseased
Who said that my mind was diseased exclaimed Lady Audley
I say so my lady answered Robert You tell me that you are nervous and that all the medicines your doctor can prescribe are only so much physic that might as well be thrown to the dogs Let me be the physician to strike to the root of your malady Lady Audley Heaven knows that I wish to be merciful—that I would spare you as far as it is in my power to spare you in doing justice to others—but justice must be done Shall I tell you why you are nervous in this house my lady
If you can she answered with a little laugh
Because for you this house is haunted
Haunted
Yes haunted by the ghost of George Talboys
Robert Audley heard my ladys quickened breathing he fancied he could almost hear the loud beating of her heart as she walked by his side shivering now and then and with her sable cloak wrapped tightly around her
What do you mean she cried suddenly after a pause of some moments Why do you torment me about this George Talboys who happens to have taken it into his head to keep out of your way for a few months Are you going mad Mr Audley and do you select me as the victim of your monomania What is George Talboys to me that you should worry me about him
He was a stranger to you my lady was he not
Of course answered Lady Audley What should he be but a stranger
Shall I tell you the story of my friends disappearance as I read that story my lady asked Robert
No cried Lady Audley I wish to know nothing of your friend If he is dead I am sorry for him If he lives I have no wish either to see him or to hear of him Let me go in to see my husband if you please Mr Audley unless you wish to detain me in this gloomy place until I catch my death of cold
I wish to detain you until you have heard what I have to say Lady Audley answered Robert resolutely I will detain you no longer than is necessary and when you have heard me you shall take your own course of action
Very well then pray lose no time in saying what you have to say replied my lady carelessly I promise you to attend very patiently
When my friend George Talboys returned to England Robert began gravely the thought which was uppermost in his mind was the thought of his wife
Whom he had deserted said my lady quickly At least she added more deliberately I remember your telling us something to that effect when you first told us your friends story
Robert Audley did not notice this observation
The thought that was uppermost in his mind was the thought of his wife he repeated His fairest hope in the future was the hope of making her happy and lavishing upon her the pittance which he had won by the force of his own strong arm in the goldfields of Australia I saw him within a few hours of his reaching England and I was a witness to the joyful pride with which he looked forward to his reunion with his wife I was also a witness to the blow which struck him to the very heart—which changed him from the man he had been to a creature as unlike that former self as one human being can be unlike another The blow which made that cruel change was the announcement of his wifes death in the Times newspaper I now believe that that announcement was a black and bitter lie
Indeed said my lady and what reason could any one have for announcing the death of Mrs Talboys if Mrs Talboys had been alive
The lady herself might have had a reason Robert answered quietly
What reason
How if she had taken advantage of Georges absence to win a richer husband How if she had married again and wished to throw my poor friend off the scent by this false announcement
Lady Audley shrugged her shoulders
Your suppositions are rather ridiculous Mr Audley she said it is to be hoped that you have some reasonable grounds for them
I have examined a file of each of the newspapers published in Chelmsford and Colchester continued Robert without replying to my ladys last observation and I find in one of the Colchester papers dated July the 2d 1857 a brief paragraph among numerous miscellaneous scraps of information copied from other newspapers to the effect that a Mr George Talboys an English gentleman had arrived at Sydney from the goldfields carrying with him nuggets and golddust to the amount of twenty thousand pounds and that he had realized his property and sailed for Liverpool in the fastsailing clipper Argus This is a very small fact of course Lady Audley but it is enough to prove that any person residing in Essex in the July of the year fiftyseven was likely to become aware of George Talboys return from Australia Do you follow me
Not very clearly said my lady What have the Essex papers to do with the death of Mrs Talboys
We will come to that byandby Lady Audley I say that I believe the announcement in the Times to have been a false announcement and a part of the conspiracy which was carried out by Helen Talboys and Lieutenant Maldon against my poor friend
A conspiracy
Yes a conspiracy concocted by an artful woman who had speculated upon the chances of her husbands death and had secured a splendid position at the risk of committing a crime a bold woman my lady who thought to play her comedy out to the end without fear of detection a wicked woman who did not care what misery she might inflict upon the honest heart of the man she betrayed but a foolish woman who looked at life as a game of chance in which the best player was likely to hold the winning cards forgetting that there is a Providence above the pitiful speculators and that wicked secrets are never permitted to remain long hidden If this woman of whom I speak had never been guilty of any blacker sin than the publication of that lying announcement in the Times newspaper I should still hold her as the most detestable and despicable of her sex—the most pitiless and calculating of human creatures That cruel lie was a base and cowardly blow in the dark it was the treacherous daggerthrust of an infamous assassin
But how do you know that the announcement was a false one asked my lady You told us that you had been to Ventnor with Mr Talboys to see his wifes grave Who was it who died at Ventnor if it was not Mrs Talboys
Ah Lady Audley said Robert that is a question which only two or three people can answer and one or other of those persons shall answer it to me before long I tell you my lady that I am determined to unravel the mystery of George Talboys death Do you think I am to be put off by feminine prevarication—by womanly trickery No Link by link I have put together the chain of evidence which wants but a link here and there to be complete in its terrible strength Do you think I will suffer myself to be baffled Do you think I shall fail to discover those missing links No Lady Audley I shall not fail for I know where to look for them There is a fairhaired woman at Southampton—a woman called Plowson who has some share in the secrets of the father of my friends wife I have an idea that she can help me to discover the history of the woman who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard and I will spare no trouble in making that discovery unless—
Unless what asked my lady eagerly
Unless the woman I wish to save from degradation and punishment accepts the mercy I offer her and takes warning while there is still time
My lady shrugged her graceful shoulders and flashed bright defiance out of her blue eyes
She would be a very foolish woman if she suffered herself to be influenced by any such absurdity she said You are hypochondriacal Mr Audley and you must take camphor or red lavender or sal volatile What can be more ridiculous than this idea which you have taken into your head You lose your friend George Talboys in rather a mysterious manner—that is to say that gentleman chooses to leave England without giving you due notice What of that You confess that he became an altered man after his wifes death He grew eccentric and misanthropical he affected an utter indifference as to what became of him What more likely then than that he grew tired of the monotony of civilized life and ran away to those savage goldfields to find a distraction for his grief It is rather a romantic story but by no means an uncommon one But you are not satisfied with this simple interpretation of your friends disappearance and you build up some absurd theory of a conspiracy which has no existence except in your own overheated brain Helen Talboys is dead The Times newspaper declares she is dead Her own father tells you that she is dead The headstone of the grave in Ventnor churchyard bears record of her death By what right cried my lady her voice rising to that shrill and piercing tone peculiar to her when affected by any intense agitation—by what right Mr Audley do you come to me and torment me about George Talboys—by what right do you dare to say that his wife is still alive
By the right of circumstantial evidence Lady Audley answered Robert—by the right of that circumstantial evidence which will sometimes fix the guilt of a mans murder upon that person who on the first hearing of the case seems of all other men the most unlikely to be guilty
What circumstantial evidence
The evidence of time and place The evidence of handwriting When Helen Talboys left her fathers at Wildernsea she left a letter behind her—a letter in which she declared that she was weary of her old life and that she wished to seek a new home and a new fortune That letter is in my possession
Indeed
Shall I tell you whose handwriting resembles that of Helen Talboys so closely that the most dexterous expert could perceive no distinction between the two
A resemblance between the handwriting of two women is no very uncommon circumstance nowadays replied my lady carelessly I could show you the caligraphies of halfadozen female correspondents and defy you to discover any great difference in them
But what if the handwriting is a very uncommon one presenting marked peculiarities by which it may be recognized among a hundred
Why in that case the coincidence is rather curious answered my lady but it is nothing more than a coincidence You cannot deny the fact of Helen Talboys death on the ground that her handwriting resembles that of some surviving person
But if a series of such coincidences lead up to the same point said Robert Helen Talboys left her fathers house according to the declaration in her own handwriting because she was weary of her old life and wished to begin a new one Do you know what I infer from this
My lady shrugged her shoulders
I have not the least idea she said and as you have detained me in this gloomy place nearly halfanhour I must beg that you will release me and let me go and dress for dinner
No Lady Audley answered Robert with a cold sternness that was so strange to him as to transform him into another creature—a pitiless embodiment of justice a cruel instrument of retribution—no Lady Audley he repeated I have told you that womanly prevarication will not help you I tell you now that defiance will not serve you I have dealt fairly with you and have given you fair warning I gave you indirect notice of your danger two months ago
What do you mean asked my lady suddenly
You did not choose to take that warning Lady Audley pursued Robert and the time has come in which I must speak very plainly to you Do you think the gifts which you have played against fortune are to hold you exempt from retribution No my lady your youth and beauty your grace and refinement only make the horrible secret of your life more horrible I tell you that the evidence against you wants only one link to be strong enough for your condemnation and that link shall be added Helen Talboys never returned to her fathers house When she deserted that poor old father she went away from his humble shelter with the declared intention of washing her hands of that old life What do people generally do when they wish to begin a new existence—to start for a second time in the race of life free from the incumbrances that had fettered their first journey They change their names Lady Audley Helen Talboys deserted her infant son—she went away from Wildernsea with the predetermination of sinking her identity She disappeared as Helen Talboys upon the 16th of August 1854 and upon the 17th of that month she reappeared as Lucy Graham the friendless girl who undertook a profitless duty in consideration of a home in which she was asked no questions
You are mad Mr Audley cried my lady You are mad and my husband shall protect me from your insolence What if this Helen Talboys ran away from her home upon one day and I entered my employers house upon the next what does that prove
By itself very little replied Robert Audley but with the help of other evidence—
What evidence
The evidence of two labels pasted one over the other upon a box left by you in possession of Mrs Vincent the upper label bearing the name of Miss Graham the lower that of Mrs George Talboys
My lady was silent Robert Audley could not see her face in the dusk but he could see that her two small hands were clasped convulsively over her heart and he knew that the shot had gone home to its mark
God help her poor wretched creature he thought She knows now that she is lost I wonder if the judges of the land feel as I do now when they put on the black cap and pass sentence of death upon some poor shivering wretch who has never done them any wrong Do they feel a heroic fervor of virtuous indignation or do they suffer this dull anguish which gnaws my vitals as I talk to this helpless woman
He walked by my ladys side silently for some minutes They had been pacing up and down the dim avenue and they were now drawing near the leafless shrubbery at one end of the limewalk—the shrubbery in which the ruined well sheltered its unheeded decay among the tangled masses of briery underwood
A winding pathway neglected and halfchoked with weeds led toward this well Robert left the limewalk and struck into this pathway There was more light in the shrubbery than in the avenue and Mr Audley wished to see my ladys face
He did not speak until they reached the patch of rank grass beside the well The massive brickwork had fallen away here and there and loose fragments of masonry lay buried amidst weeds and briars The heavy posts which had supported the wooden roller still remained but the iron spindle had been dragged from its socket and lay a few paces from the well rusty discolored and forgotten
Robert Audley leaned against one of the mossgrown posts and looked down at my ladys face very pale in the chill winter twilight The moon had newly risen a feebly luminous crescent in the gray heavens and a faint ghostly light mingled with the misty shadows of the declining day My ladys face seemed like that face which Robert Audley had seen in his dreams looking out of the white foamflakes on the green sea waves and luring his uncle to destruction
Those two labels are in my possession Lady Audley he resumed I took them from the box left by you at Crescent Villas I took them in the presence of Mrs Vincent and Miss Tonks Have you any proofs to offer against this evidence You say to me I am Lucy Graham and I have nothing whatever to do with Helen Talboys In that case you will produce witnesses who will declare your antecedents Where had you been living prior to your appearance at Crescent Villas You must have friends relations connections who can come forward to prove as much as this for you If you were the most desolate creature upon this earth you would be able to point to someone who could identify you with the past
Yes cried my lady if I were placed in a criminal dock I could no doubt bring forward witnesses to refute your absurd accusation But I am not in a criminal dock Mr Audley and I do not choose to do anything but laugh at your ridiculous folly I tell you that you are mad If you please to say that Helen Talboys is not dead and that I am Helen Talboys you may do so If you choose to go wandering about in the places in which I have lived and to the places in which this Mrs Talboys has lived you must follow the bent of your own inclination but I would warn you that such fancies have sometimes conducted people as apparently sane as yourself to the lifelong imprisonment of a private lunaticasylum
Robert Audley started and recoiled a few paces among the weeds and brushwood as my lady said this
She would be capable of any new crime to shield her from the consequences of the old one he thought She would be capable of using her influence with my uncle to place me in a madhouse
I do not say that Robert Audley was a coward but I will admit that a shiver of horror something akin to fear chilled him to the heart as he remembered the horrible things that have been done by women since that day upon which Eve was created to be Adams companion and helpmeet in the garden of Eden What if this womans hellish power of dissimulation should be stronger than the truth and crush him She had not spared George Talboys when he stood in her way and menaced her with a certain peril would she spare him who threatened her with a far greater danger Are women merciful or loving or kind in proportion to their beauty and grace Was there not a certain Monsieur Mazers de Latude who had the bad fortune to offend the allaccomplished Madam de Pompadour who expiated his youthful indiscretion by a lifelong imprisonment who twice escaped from prison to be twice cast back into captivity who trusting in the tardy generosity of his beautiful foe betrayed himself to an implacable fiend Robert Audley looked at the pale face of the woman standing by his side that fair and beautiful face illumined by starryblue eyes that had a strange and surely a dangerous light in them and remembering a hundred stories of womanly perfidy shuddered as he thought how unequal the struggle might be between himself and his uncles wife
I have shown her my cards he thought but she has kept hers hidden from me The mask that she wears is not to be plucked away My uncle would rather think me mad than believe her guilty
The pale face of Clara Talboys—that grave and earnest face so different in its character to my ladys fragile beauty—arose before him
What a coward I am to think of myself or my own danger he thought The more I see of this woman the more reason I have to dread her influence upon others the more reason to wish her far away from this house
He looked about him in the dusky obscurity The lonely garden was as quiet as some solitary graveyard walled in and hidden away from the world of the living
It was somewhere in this garden that she met George Talboys upon the day of his disappearance he thought I wonder where it was they met I wonder where it was that he looked into her cruel face and taxed her with her falsehood
My lady with her little hand resting lightly upon the opposite post to that against which Robert leaned toyed with her pretty foot among the long weeds but kept a furtive watch upon her enemys face
It is to be a duel to the death then my lady said Robert Audley solemnly You refuse to accept my warning You refuse to run away and repent of your wickedness in some foreign place far from the generous gentleman you have deceived and fooled by your false witcheries You choose to remain here and defy me
I do answered Lady Audley lifting her head and looking full at the young barrister It is no fault of mine if my husbands nephew goes mad and chooses me for the victim of his monomania
So be it then my lady answered Robert My friend George Talboys was last seen entering these gardens by the little iron gate by which we came in tonight He was last heard inquiring for you He was seen to enter these gardens but he was never seen to leave them I believe that he met his death within the boundary of these grounds and that his body lies hidden below some quiet water or in some forgotten corner of this place I will have such a search made as shall level that house to the earth and root up every tree in these gardens rather than I will fail in finding the grave of my murdered friend
Lucy Audley uttered a long low wailing cry and threw up her arms above her head with a wild gesture of despair but she made no answer to the ghastly charge of her accuser Her arms slowly dropped and she stood staring at Robert Audley her white face gleaming through the dusk her blue eyes glittering and dilated
You shall never live to do this she said I will kill you first Why have you tormented me so Why could you not let me alone What harm had I ever done you that you should make yourself my persecutor and dog my steps and watch my looks and play the spy upon me Do you want to drive me mad Do you know what it is to wrestle with a madwoman No cried my lady with a laugh you do not or you would never—
She stopped abruptly and drew herself suddenly to her fullest hight It was the same action which Robert had seen in the old halfdrunken lieutenant and it had that same dignity—the sublimity of extreme misery
Go away Mr Audley she said You are mad I tell you you are mad
I am going my lady answered Robert quietly I would have condoned your crimes out of pity to your wretcheness You have refused to accept my mercy I wished to have pity upon the living I shall henceforth only remember my duty to the dead
He walked away from the lonely well under the shadow of the limes My lady followed him slowly down that long gloomy avenue and across the rustic bridge to the iron gate As he passed through the gate Alicia came out of a little halfglass door that opened from an oakpaneled breakfastroom at one angle of the house and met her cousin upon the threshold of the gateway
I have been looking for you everywhere Robert she said Papa has come down to the library and will be glad to see you
The young man started at the sound of his cousins fresh young voice Good Heaven he thought can these two women be of the same clay Can this frank generoushearted girl who cannot conceal any impulse of her innocent nature be of the same flesh and blood as that wretched creature whose shadow falls upon the path beside me
He looked from his cousin to Lady Audley who stood near the gateway waiting for him to stand aside and let her pass him
I dont know what has come to your cousin my dear Alicia said my lady He is so absentminded and eccentric as to be quite beyond my comprehension
Indeed exclaimed Miss Audley and yet I should imagine from the length of your teteatete that you had made some effort to understand him
Oh yes said Robert quietly my lady and I understand each other very well but as it is growing late I will wish you goodevening ladies I shall sleep tonight at Mount Stanning as I have some business to attend to up there and I will come down and see my uncle tomorrow
What Robert cried Alicia you surely wont go away without seeing papa
Yes my dear answered the young man I am a little disturbed by some disagreeable business in which I am very much concerned and I would rather not see my uncle Goodnight Alicia I will come or write tomorrow
He pressed his cousins hand bowed to Lady Audley and walked away under the black shadows of the archway and out into the quiet avenue beyond the Court
My lady and Alicia stood watching him until he was out of sight
What in goodness name is the matter with my Cousin Robert exclaimed Miss Audley impatiently as the barrister disappeared What does he mean by these absurd goingson Some disagreeable business that disturbs him indeed I suppose the unhappy creature has had a brief forced upon him by some evilstarred attorney and is sinking into a state of imbecility from a dim consciousness of his own incompetence
Have you ever studied your cousins character Alicia asked my lady very seriously after a pause
Studied his character No Lady Audley Why should I study his character said Alicia There is very little study required to convince anybody that he is a lazy selfish Sybarite who cares for nothing in the world except his own ease and comfort
But have you never thought him eccentric
Eccentric repeated Alicia pursing up her red lips and shrugging up her shoulders Well yes—I believe that is the excuse generally made for such people I suppose Bob is eccentric
I have never heard you speak of his father and mother said my lady thoughtfully Do you remember them
I never saw his mother She was a Miss Dalrymple a very dashing girl who ran away with my uncle and lost a very handsome fortune in consequence She died at Nice when poor Bob was five years old
Did you ever hear anything particular about her
How do you mean particular asked Alicia
Did you ever hear that she was eccentric—what people call odd
Oh no said Alicia laughing My aunt was a very reasonable woman I believe though she did marry for love But you must remember that she died before I was born and I have not therefore felt very much curiosity about her
But you recollect your uncle I suppose
My Uncle Robert said Alicia Oh yes I remember him very well indeed
Was he eccentric—I mean to say peculiar in his habits like your cousin
Yes I believe Robert inherits all his absurdities from his father My uncle expressed the same indifference for his fellowcreatures as my cousin but as he was a good husband an affectionate father and a kind master nobody ever challenged his opinions
But he was eccentric
Yes I suppose he was generally thought a little eccentric
Ah said my lady gravely I thought as much Do you know Alicia that madness is more often transmitted from father to daughter and from mother to daughter than from mother to son Your cousin Robert Audley is a very handsome young man and I believe a very goodhearted young man but he must be watched Alicia for he is mad
Mad cried Miss Audley indignantly you are dreaming my lady or—or—you are trying to frighten me added the young lady with considerable alarm
I only wish to put you on your guard Alicia answered my lady Mr Audley may be as you say merely eccentric but he has talked to me this evening in a manner that has filled me with absolute terror and I believe that he is going mad I shall speak very seriously to Sir Michael this very night
Speak to papa exclaimed Alicia you surely wont distress papa by suggesting such a possibility
I shall only put him on his guard my dear Alicia
But hell never believe you said Miss Audley he will laugh at such an idea
No Alicia he will believe anything that I tell him answered my lady with a quiet smile
CHAPTER XXX
PREPARING THE GROUND
Lady Audley went from the garden to the library a pleasant oakpaneled homely apartment in which Sir Michael liked to sit reading or writing or arranging the business of his estate with his steward a stalwart countryman half agriculturalist half lawyer who rented a small farm a few miles from the Court
The baronet was seated in a capacious easychair near the hearth The bright blaze of the fire rose and fell flashing now upon the polished carvings of the blackoak bookcase now upon the gold and scarlet bindings of the books sometimes glimmering upon the Athenian helmet of a marble Pallas sometimes lighting up the forehead of Sir Robert Peel
The lamp upon the readingtable had not yet been lighted and Sir Michael sat in the firelight waiting for the coming of his young wife
It is impossible for me ever to tell the purity of his generous love—it is impossible to describe that affection which was as tender as the love of a young mother for her first born as brave and chivalrous as the heroic passion of a Bayard for his liege mistress
The door opened while he was thinking of this fondlyloved wife and looking up the baronet saw the slender form standing in the doorway
Why my darling he exclaimed as my lady closed the door behind her and came toward his chair I have been thinking of you and waiting for you for an hour Where have you been and what have you been doing
My lady standing in the shadow rather than the light paused a few moments before replying to this question
I have been to Chelmsford she said shopping and—
She hesitated—twisting her bonnet strings in her thin white fingers with an air of pretty embarrassment
And what my dear asked the baronet—what have you been doing since you came from Chelmsford I heard a carriage stop at the door an hour ago It was yours was it not
Yes I came home an hour ago answered my lady with the same air of embarrassment
And what have you been doing since you came home
Sir Michael Audley asked this question with a slightly reproachful accent His young wifes presence made the sunshine of his life and though he could not bear to chain her to his side it grieved him to think that she could willingly remain unnecessarily absent from him frittering away her time in some childish talk or frivolous occupation
What have you been doing since you came home my dear he repeated What has kept you so long away from me
I have been—talking—to—Mr Robert Audley
She still twisted her bonnetstring round and round her fingers
She still spoke with the same air of embarrassment
Robert exclaimed the baronet is Robert here
He was here a little while ago
And is here still I suppose
No he has gone away
Gone away cried Sir Michael What do you mean my darling
I mean that your nephew came to the Court this afternoon Alicia and I found him idling about the gardens He stayed here till about a quarter of an hour ago talking to me and then he hurried off without a word of explanation except indeed some ridiculous excuse about business at Mount Stanning
Business at Mount Stanning Why what business can he possibly have in that outoftheway place He has gone to sleep at Mount Stanning then I suppose
Yes I think he said something to that effect
Upon my word exclaimed the baronet I think that boy is half mad
My ladys face was so much in shadow that Sir Michael Audley was unaware of the bright change that came over its sickly pallor as he made this very commonplace observation A triumphant smile illuminated Lucy Audleys countenance a smile that plainly said It is coming—it is coming I can twist him which way I like I can put black before him and if I say it is white he will believe me
But Sir Michael Audley in declaring that his nephews wits were disordered merely uttered that commonplace ejaculation which is wellknown to have very little meaning The baronet had it is true no very great estimate of Roberts faculty for the business of this everyday life He was in the habit of looking upon his nephew as a goodnatured nonentity—a man whose heart had been amply stocked by liberal Nature with all the best things the generous goddess had to bestow but whose brain had been somewhat overlooked in the distribution of intellectual gifts Sir Michael Audley made that mistake which is very commonly made by easygoing welltodoobservers who have no occasion to look below the surface He mistook laziness for incapacity He thought because his nephew was idle he must necessarily be stupid He concluded that if Robert did not distinguish himself it was because he could not
He forgot the mute inglorious Miltons who die voiceless and inarticulate for want of that dogged perseverance that blind courage which the poet must possess before he can find a publisher he forgot the Cromwells who see the noble vessels of the state floundering upon a sea of confusion and going down in a tempest of noisy bewilderment and who yet are powerless to get at the helm forbidden even to send out a lifeboat to the sinking ship Surely it is a mistake to judge of what a man can do by that which he has done
The worlds Valhalla is a close borough and perhaps the greatest men may be those who perish silently far away from the sacred portal Perhaps the purest and brightest spirits are those who shrink from the turmoil of the racecourse—the tumult and confusion of the struggle The game of life is something like the game of ecarte and it may be that the very best cards are sometimes left in the pack
My lady threw off her bonnet and seated herself upon a velvetcovered footstool at Sir Michaels feet There was nothing studied or affected in this girlish action It was so natural to Lucy Audley to be childish that no one would have wished to see her otherwise It would have seemed as foolish to expect dignified reserve or womanly gravity from this amberhaired siren as to wish for rich basses amid the clear treble of a skylarks song
She sat with her pale face turned away from the firelight and with her hands locked together upon the arm of her husbands easychair They were very restless these slender white hands My lady twisted the jeweled fingers in and out of each other as she talked to her husband
I wanted to come to you you know dear said she—I wanted to come to you directly I got home but Mr Audley insisted upon my stopping to talk to him
But what about my love asked the baronet What could Robert have to say to you
My lady did not answer this question Her fair head dropped upon her husbands knee her rippling yellow curls fell over her face
Sir Michael lifted that beautiful head with his strong hands and raised my ladys face The firelight shining on that pale face lit up the large soft blue eyes and showed them drowned in tears
Lucy Lucy cried the baronet what is the meaning of this My love my love what has happened to distress you in this manner
Lady Audley tried to speak but the words died inarticulately upon her trembling lips A choking sensation in her throat seemed to strangle those false and plausible words her only armor against her enemies She could not speak The agony she had endured silently in the dismal limewalk had grown too strong for her and she broke into a tempest of hysterical sobbing It was no simulated grief that shook her slender frame and tore at her like some ravenous beast that would have rent her piecemeal with its horrible strength It was a storm of real anguish and terror of remorse and misery It was the one wild outcry in which the womans feebler nature got the better of the sirens art
It was not thus that she had meant to fight her terrible duel with Robert Audley Those were not the weapons which she had intended to use but perhaps no artifice which she could have devised would have served her so well as this one outburst of natural grief It shook her husband to the very soul It bewildered and terrified him It reduced the strong intellect of the man to helpless confusion and perplexity It struck at the one weak point in a good mans nature It appealed straight to Sir Michael Audleys affection for his wife
Ah Heaven help a strong mans tender weakness for the woman he loves Heaven pity him when the guilty creature has deceived him and comes with her tears and lamentations to throw herself at his feet in selfabandonment and remorse torturing him with the sight of her agony rending his heart with her sobs lacerating his breast with her groans—multiplying her sufferings into a great anguish for him to bear multiplying them by twentyfold multiplying them in a ratio of a brave mans capacity for endurance Heaven forgive him if maddened by that cruel agony the balance wavers for a moment and he is ready to forgive anything ready to take this wretched one to the shelter of his breast and to pardon that which the stern voice of manly honor urges must not be pardoned Pity him pity him The wifes worst remorse when she stands without the threshold of the home she may never enter more is not equal to the agony of the husband who closes the portal on that familiar and entreating face The anguish of the mother who may never look again upon her children is less than the torment of the father who has to say to those little ones My darlings you are henceforth motherless
Sir Michael Audley rose from his chair trembling with indignation and ready to do immediate battle with the person who had caused his wifes grief
Lucy he said Lucy I insist upon your telling me what and who has distressed you I insist upon it Whoever has annoyed you shall answer to me for your grief Come my love tell me directly what it is
He seated himself and bent over the drooping figure at his feet calming his own agitation in his desire to soothe his wifes distress
Tell me what it is my dear he whispered tenderly
The sharp paroxysm had passed away and my lady looked up A glittering light shone through the tears in her eyes and the lines about her pretty rosy mouth those hard and cruel lines which Robert Audley had observed in the preRaphaelite portrait were plainly visible in the firelight
I am very silly she said but really he has made me quite hysterical
Who—who has made you hysterical
Your nephew—Mr Robert Audley
Robert cried the baronet Lucy what do you mean
I told you that Mr Audley insisted upon my going into the limewalk dear said my lady He wanted to talk to me he said and I went and he said such horrible things that—
What horrible things Lucy
Lady Audley shuddered and clung with convulsive fingers to the strong hand that had rested caressingly upon her shoulder
What did he say Lucy
Oh my dear love how can I tell you cried my lady I know that I shall distress you—or you will laugh at me and then—
Laugh at you no Lucy
Lady Audley was silent for a moment She sat looking straight before her into the fire with her fingers still locked about her husbands hand
My dear she said slowly hesitating now and then between her words as if she almost shrunk from uttering them have you ever—I am so afraid of vexing you—have you ever thought Mr Audley a little—a little—
A little what my darling
A little out of his mind faltered Lady Audley
Out of his mind cried Sir Michael My dear girl what are you thinking of
You said just now dear that you thought he was half mad
Did I my love said the baronet laughing I dont remember saying it and it was a mere façon de parler that meant nothing whatever Robert may be a little eccentric—a little stupid perhaps—he maynt be overburdened with wits but I dont think he has brains enough for madness I believe its generally your great intellects that get out of order
But madness is sometimes hereditary said my lady Mr Audley may have inherited—
He has inherited no madness from his fathers family interrupted Sir Michael The Audleys have never peopled private lunatic asylums or feed mad doctors
Nor from his mothers family
Not to my knowledge
People generally keep these things a secret said my lady gravely There may have been madness in your sisterinlaws family
I dont think so my dear replied Sir Michael But Lucy tell me what in Heavens name has put this idea into your head
I have been trying to account for your nephews conduct I can account for it in no other manner If you had heard the things he said to me tonight Sir Michael you too might have thought him mad
But what did he say Lucy
I can scarcely tell you You can see how much he has stupefied and bewildered me I believe he has lived too long alone in those solitary Temple chambers Perhaps he reads too much or smokes too much You know that some physicians declare madness to be a mere illness of the brain—an illness to which any one is subject and which may be produced by given causes and cured by given means
Lady Audleys eyes were still fixed upon the burning coals in the wide grate She spoke as if she had been discussing a subject that she had often heard discussed before She spoke as if her mind had almost wandered away from the thought of her husbands nephew to the wider question of madness in the abstract
Why should he not be mad resumed my lady People are insane for years and years before their insanity is found out They know that they are mad but they know how to keep their secret and perhaps they may sometimes keep it till they die Sometimes a paroxysm seizes them and in an evil hour they betray themselves They commit a crime perhaps The horrible temptation of opportunity assails them the knife is in their hand and the unconscious victim by their side They may conquer the restless demon and go away and die innocent of any violent deed but they may yield to the horrible temptation—the frightful passionate hungry craving for violence and horror They sometimes yield and are lost
Lady Audleys voice rose as she argued this dreadful question The hysterical excitement from which she had only just recovered had left its effects upon her but she controlled herself and her tone grew calmer as she resumed
Robert Audley is mad she said decisively What is one of the strangest diagnostics of madness—what is the first appalling sign of mental aberration The mind becomes stationary the brain stagnates the even current of reflection is interrupted the thinking power of the brain resolves itself into a monotone As the waters of a tideless pool putrefy by reason of their stagnation the mind becomes turbid and corrupt through lack of action and the perpetual reflection upon one subject resolves itself into monomania Robert Audley is a monomaniac The disappearance of his friend George Talboys grieved and bewildered him He dwelt upon this one idea until he lost the power of thinking of anything else The one idea looked at perpetually became distorted to his mental vision Repeat the commonest word in the English language twenty times and before the twentieth repetition you will have begun to wonder whether the word which you repeat is really the word you mean to utter Robert Audley has thought of his friends disappearance until the one idea has done its fatal and unhealthy work He looks at a common event with a vision that is diseased and he distorts it into a gloomy horror engendered of his own monomania If you do not want to make me as mad as he is you must never let me see him again He declared tonight that George Talboys was murdered in this place and that he will root up every tree in the garden and pull down every brick in the house in search for—
My lady paused The words died away upon her lips She had exhausted herself by the strange energy with which she had spoken She had been transformed from a frivolous childish beauty into a woman strong to argue her own cause and plead her own defense
Pull down this house cried the baronet George Talboys murdered at Audley Court Did Robert say this Lucy
He said something of that kind—something that frightened me very much
Then he must be mad said Sir Michael gravely Im bewildered by what you tell me Did he really say this Lucy or did you misunderstand him
I—I—dont think I did faltered my lady You saw how frightened I was when I first came in I should not have been so much agitated if he hadnt said something horrible
Lady Audley had availed herself of the very strongest arguments by which she could help her cause
To be sure my darling to be sure answered the baronet What could have put such a horrible fancy into the unhappy boys head This Mr Talboys—a perfect stranger to all of us—murdered at Audley Court Ill go to Mount Stanning tonight and see Robert I have known him ever since he was a baby and I cannot be deceived in him If there is really anything wrong he will not be able to conceal it from me
My lady shrugged her shoulders
That is rather an open question she said It is generally a stranger who is the first to observe any psychological peculiarity
The big words sounded strange from my ladys rosy lips but her newlyadopted wisdom had a certain quaint prettiness about it which charmed and bewildered her husband
But you must not go to Mount Stanning my dear darling she said tenderly Remember that you are under strict orders to stay in doors until the weather is milder and the sun shines upon this cruel icebound country
Sir Michael Audley sank back in his capacious chair with a sigh of resignation
Thats true Lucy he said we must obey Mr Dawson I suppose Robert will come to see me tomorrow
Yes dear I think he said he would
Then we must wait till tomorrow my darling I cant believe that there really is anything wrong with the poor boy—I cant believe it Lucy
Then how do you account for this extraordinary delusion about this Mr Talboys asked my lady
Sir Michael shook his head
I dont know Lucy—I dont know he answered It is always so difficult to believe that any one of the calamities that continually befall our fellowmen will ever happen to us I cant believe that my nephews mind is impaired—I cant believe it I—Ill get him to stop here Lucy and Ill watch him closely I tell you my love if there is anything wrong I am sure to find it out I cant be mistaken in a young man who has always been the same to me as my own son But my darling why were you so frightened by Roberts wild talk It could not affect you
My lady sighed piteously
You must think me very strongminded Sir Michael she said with rather an injured air if you imagine I can hear of these sort of things indifferently I know I shall never be able to see Mr Audley again
And you shall not my dear—you shall not
You said just now you would have him here murmured Lady Audley
But I will not my darling girl if his presence annoys you Good Heaven Lucy can you imagine for a moment that I have any higher wish than to promote your happiness I will consult some London physician about Robert and let him discover if there is really anything the matter with my poor brothers only son You shall not be annoyed Lucy
You must think me very unkind dear said my lady and I know I ought not to be annoyed by the poor fellow but he really seems to have taken some absurd notion into his head about me
About you Lucy cried Sir Michael
Yes dear He seems to connect me in some vague manner—which I cannot quite understand—with the disappearance of this Mr Talboys
Impossible Lucy You must have misunderstood him
I dont think so
Then he must be mad said the baronet—he must be mad I will wait till he goes back to town and then send some one to his chambers to talk to him Good Heaven what a mysterious business this is
I fear I have distressed you darling murmured Lady Audley
Yes my dear I am very much distressed by what you have told me but you were quite right to talk to me frankly about this dreadful business I must think it over dearest and try and decide what is best to be done
My lady rose from the low ottoman on which she had been seated The fire had burned down and there was only a faint glow of red light in the room Lucy Audley bent over her husbands chair and put her lips to his broad forehead
How good you have always been to me dear she whispered softly You would never let any one influence you against me would you dear
Influence me against you repeated the baronet No my love
Because you know dear pursued my lady there are wicked people as well as mad people in the world and there may be some persons to whose interest it would be to injure me
They had better not try it then my dear answered Sir Michael they would find themselves in rather a dangerous position if they did
Lady Audley laughed aloud with a gay triumphant silvery peal of laughter that vibrated through the quiet room
My own dear darling she said I know you love me And now I must run away dear for its past seven oclock I was engaged to dine at Mrs Montfords but I must send a groom with a message of apology for Mr Audley has made me quite unfit for company I shall stay at home and nurse you dear Youll go to bed very early wont you and take great care of yourself
Yes dear
My lady tripped out of the room to give her orders about the message that was to be carried to the house at which she was to have dined She paused for a moment as she closed the library door—she paused and laid her hand upon her breast to check the rapid throbbing of her heart
I have been afraid of you Mr Robert Audley she thought but perhaps the time may come in which you will have cause to be afraid of me
CHAPTER XXXI
PHOEBES PETITION
The division between Lady Audley and her stepdaughter had not become any narrower in the two months which had elapsed since the pleasant Christmas holiday time had been kept at Audley Court There was no open warfare between the two women there was only an armed neutrality broken every now and then by brief feminine skirmishes and transient wordy tempests I am sorry to say that Alicia would very much have preferred a hearty pitched battle to this silent and undemonstrative disunion but it was not very easy to quarrel with my lady She had soft answers for the turning away of wrath She could smile bewitchingly at her stepdaughters open petulance and laugh merrily at the young ladys illtemper Perhaps had she been less amiable had she been more like Alicia in disposition the two ladies might have expended their enmity in one tremendous quarrel and might ever afterward have been affectionate and friendly But Lucy Audley would not make war She carried forward the sum of her dislike and put it out at a steady rate of interest until the breach between her stepdaughter and herself widening a little every day became a great gulf utterly impassable by olivebranchbearing doves from either side of the abyss There can be no reconciliation where there is no open warfare There must be a battle a brave boisterous battle with pennants waving and cannon roaring before there can be peaceful treaties and enthusiastic shaking of hands Perhaps the union between France and England owes its greatest force to the recollection of Cressy and Waterloo Navarino and Trafalgar We have hated each other and licked each other and had it out as the common phrase goes and we can afford now to fall into each others arms and vow eternal friendship and everlasting brotherhood Let us hope that when Northern Yankeedom has decimated and been decimated blustering Jonathan may fling himself upon his Southern brothers breast forgiving and forgiven
Alicia Audley and her fathers pretty wife had plenty of room for the comfortable indulgence of their dislike in the spacious old mansion My lady had her own apartments as we know—luxurious chambers in which all conceivable elegancies had been gathered for the comfort of their occupant Alicia had her own rooms in another part of the large house She had her favorite mare her Newfoundland dog and her drawing materials and she made herself tolerably happy She was not very happy this frank generoushearted girl for it was scarcely possible that she could be altogether at ease in the constrained atmosphere of the Court Her father was changed that dear father over whom she had once reigned supreme with the boundless authority of a spoiled child had accepted another ruler and submitted to a new dynasty Little by little my ladys petty power made itself felt in that narrow household and Alicia saw her father gradually lured across the gulf that divided Lady Audley from her stepdaughter until he stood at last quite upon the other side of the abyss and looked coldly upon his only child across that widening chasm
Alicia felt that he was lost to her My ladys beaming smiles my ladys winning words my ladys radiant glances and bewitching graces had done their work of enchantment and Sir Michael had grown to look upon his daughter as a somewhat wilful and capricious young person who had behaved with determined unkindness to the wife he loved
Poor Alicia saw all this and bore her burden as well as she could It seemed very hard to be a handsome grayeyed heiress with dogs and horses and servants at her command and yet to be so much alone in the world as to know of not one friendly ear into which she might pour her sorrows
If Bob was good for anything I could have told him how unhappy I am thought Miss Audley but I may just as well tell Caesar my troubles for any consolation I should get from Cousin Robert
Sir Michael Audley obeyed his pretty nurse and went to bed a little after nine oclock upon this bleak March evening Perhaps the baronets bedroom was about the pleasantest retreat that an invalid could have chosen in such cold and cheerless weather The darkgreen velvet curtains were drawn before the windows and about the ponderous bed The wood fire burned redly upon the broad hearth The reading lamp was lighted upon a delicious little table close to Sir Michaels pillow and a heap of magazines and newspapers had been arranged by my ladys own fair hands for the pleasure of the invalid
Lady Audley sat by the bedside for about ten minutes talking to her husband talking very seriously about this strange and awful question—Robert Audleys lunacy but at the end of that time she rose and bade her husband goodnight
She lowered the green silk shade before the reading lamp adjusting it carefully for the repose of the baronets eyes
I shall leave you dear she said If you can sleep so much the better If you wish to read the books and papers are close to you I will leave the doors between the rooms open and I shall hear your voice if you call me
Lady Audley went through her dressingroom into the boudoir where she had sat with her husband since dinner
Every evidence of womanly refinement was visible in the elegant chamber My ladys piano was open covered with scattered sheets of music and exquisitelybound collections of scenas and fantasias which no master need have disdained to study My ladys easel stood near the window bearing witness to my ladys artistic talent in the shape of a watercolored sketch of the Court and gardens My ladys fairylike embroideries of lace and muslin rainbowhued silks and delicatelytinted wools littered the luxurious apartment while the lookingglasses cunningly placed at angles and opposite corners by an artistic upholsterer multiplied my ladys image and in that image reflected the most beautiful object in the enchanted chamber
Amid all this lamplight gilding color wealth and beauty Lucy Audley sat down on a low seat by the fire to think
If Mr Holman Hunt could have peeped into the pretty boudoir I think the picture would have been photographed upon his brain to be reproduced byandby upon a bishops halflength for the glorification of the preRaphaelite brotherhood My lady in that halfrecumbent attitude with her elbow resting on one knee and her perfect chin supported by her hand the rich folds of drapery falling away in long undulating lines from the exquisite outline of her figure and the luminous rosecolored firelight enveloping her in a soft haze only broken by the golden glitter of her yellow hair—beautiful in herself but made bewilderingly beautiful by the gorgeous surroundings which adorn the shrine of her loveliness Drinkingcups of gold and ivory chiseled by Benvenuto Cellini cabinets of buhl and porcelain bearing the cipher of Austrian MarieAntoinette amid devices of rosebuds and truelovers knots birds and butterflies cupidons and shepherdesses goddesses courtiers cottagers and milkmaids statuettes of Parian marble and biscuit china gilded baskets of hothouse flowers fantastical caskets of Indian filigreework fragile teacups of turquoise china adorned by medallion miniatures of Louis the Great and Louis the Wellbeloved Louise de la Valliere Athenais de Montespan and Marie Jeanne Gomard de Vaubernier cabinet pictures and gilded mirrors shimmering satin and diaphanous lace all that gold can buy or art devise had been gathered together for the beautification of this quiet chamber in which my lady sat listening to the mourning of the shrill March wind and the flapping of the ivy leaves against the casements and looking into the red chasms in the burning coals
I should be preaching a very stale sermon and harping upon a very familiar moral if I were to seize this opportunity of declaiming against art and beauty because my lady was more wretched in this elegant apartment than many a halfstarved seamstress in her dreary garret She was wretched by reason of a wound which lay too deep for the possibility of any solace from such plasters as wealth and luxury but her wretchedness was of an abnormal nature and I can see no occasion for seizing upon the fact of her misery as an argument in favor of poverty and discomfort as opposed to opulence The Benvenuto Cellini carvings and the Sevres porcelain could not give her happiness because she had passed out of their region She was no longer innocent and the pleasure we take in art and loveliness being an innocent pleasure had passed beyond her reach Six or seven years before she would have been happy in the possession of this little Aladdins palace but she had wandered out of the circle of careless pleasure seeking creatures she had strayed far away into a desolate labyrinth of guilt and treachery terror and crime and all the treasures that had been collected for her could have given her no pleasure but one the pleasure of flinging them into a heap beneath her feet and trampling upon them and destroying them in her cruel despair
There were some things that would have inspired her with an awful joy a horrible rejoicing If Robert Audley her pitiless enemy her unrelenting pursuer had lain dead in the adjoining chamber she would have exulted over his bier
What pleasures could have remained for Lucretia Borgia and Catharine de Medici when the dreadful boundary line between innocence and guilt was passed and the lost creatures stood upon the lonely outer side Only horrible vengeful joys and treacherous delights were left for these miserable women With what disdainful bitterness they must have watched the frivolous vanities the petty deceptions the paltry sins of ordinary offenders Perhaps they took a horrible pride in the enormity of their wickedness in this Divinity of Hell which made them greatest among sinful creatures
My lady brooding by the fire in her lonely chamber with her large clear blue eyes fixed upon the yawning gulfs of lurid crimson in the burning coals may have thought of many things very far away from the terribly silent struggle in which she was engaged She may have thought of longago years of childish innocence childish follies and selfishness of frivolous feminine sins that had weighed very lightly upon her conscience Perhaps in that retrospective revery she recalled that early time in which she had first looked in the glass and discovered that she was beautiful that fatal early time in which she had first begun to look upon her loveliness as a right divine a boundless possession which was to be a setoff against all girlish shortcomings a counterbalance of every youthful sin Did she remember the day in which that fairy dower of beauty had first taught her to be selfish and cruel indifferent to the joys and sorrows of others coldhearted and capricious greedy of admiration exacting and tyrannical with that petty womans tyranny which is the worst of despotism Did she trace every sin of her life back to its true source and did she discover that poisoned fountain in her own exaggerated estimate of the value of a pretty face Surely if her thoughts wandered so far along the backward current of her life she must have repented in bitterness and despair of that first day in which the masterpassions of her life had become her rulers and the three demons of Vanity Selfishness and Ambition had joined hands and said This woman is our slave let us see what she will become under our guidance
How small those first youthful errors seemed as my lady looked back upon them in that long revery by the lonely hearth What small vanities what petty cruelties A triumph over a schoolfellow a flirtation with the lover of a friend an assertion of the right divine invested in blue eyes and shimmering goldentinted hair But how terribly that narrow pathway had widened out into the broad highroad of sin and how swift the footsteps had become upon the now familiar way
My lady twisted her fingers in her loose amber curls and made as if she would have torn them from her head But even in that moment of mute despair the unyielding dominion of beauty asserted itself and she released the poor tangled glitter of ringlets leaving them to make a halo round her head in the dim firelight
I was not wicked when I was young she thought as she stared gloomingly at the fire I was only thoughtless I never did any harm—at least wilfully Have I ever been really wicked I wonder she mused My worst wickednesses have bean the result of wild impulses and not of deeplylaid plots I am not like the women I have read of who have lain night after night in the horrible darkness and stillness planning out treacherous deeds and arranging every circumstance of an appointed crime I wonder whether they suffered—those women—whether they ever suffered as—
Her thoughts wandered away into a weary maze of confusion Suddenly she drew herself up with a proud defiant gesture and her eyes glittered with a light that was not entirely reflected from the fire
You are mad Mr Robert Audley she said you are mad and your fancies are a madmans fancies I know what madness is I know its signs and tokens and I say that you are mad
She put her hand to her head as if thinking of something which confused and bewildered her and which she found it difficult to contemplate with calmness
Dare I defy him she muttered Dare I dare I Will he stop now that he has once gone so far Will he stop for fear of me Will he stop for fear of me when the thought of what his uncle must suffer has not stopped him Will anything stop him—but death
She pronounced the last words in an awful whisper and with her head bent forward her eyes dilated and her lips still parted as they had been parted in her utterance of that final word death she sat blankly staring at the fire
I cant plot horrible things she muttered presently my brain isnt strong enough or Im not wicked enough or brave enough If I met Robert Audley in those lonely gardens as I—
The current of her thoughts was interrupted by a cautious knocking at her door She rose suddenly startled by any sound in the stillness of her room She rose and threw herself into a low chair near the fire She flung her beautiful head back upon the soft cushions and took a book from the table near her Insignificant as this action was it spoke very plainly It spoke very plainly of everrecurring fears—of fatal necessities for concealment—of a mind that in its silent agonies was ever alive to the importance of outward effect It told more plainly than anything else could have told how complete an actress my lady had been made by the awful necessity of her life
The modest rap at the door was repeated
Come in cried Lady Audley in her liveliest tone
The door was opened with that respectful noiselessness peculiar to a wellbred servant and a young woman plainly dressed and carrying some of the cold March winds in the folds of her garments crossed the threshold of the apartment and lingered near the door waiting permission to approach the inner regions of my ladys retreat
It was Phoebe Marks the palefaced wife of the Mount Stanning innkeeper
I beg pardon my lady for intruding without leave she said but I thought I might venture to come straight up without waiting for permission
Yes yes Phoebe to be sure Take off your bonnet you wretched coldlooking creature and come sit down here
Lady Audley pointed to the low ottoman upon which she had herself been seated a few minutes before The ladys maid had often sat upon it listening to her mistress prattle in the old days when she had been my ladys chief companion and confidante
Sit down here Phoebe Lady Audley repeated sit down here and talk to me Im very glad you came here tonight I was horribly lonely in this dreary place
My lady shivered and looked round at the bright collection of bricabrac as if the Sevres and bronze the buhl and ormolu had been the moldering adornments of some ruined castle The dreary wretchedness of her thoughts had communicated itself to every object about her and all outer things took their color from that weary inner life which held its slow course of secret anguish in her breast She had spoken the entire truth in saying that she was glad of her ladys maids visit Her frivolous nature clung to this weak shelter in the hour of her fear and suffering There were sympathies between her and this girl who was like herself inwardly as well as outwardly—like herself selfish and cold and cruel eager for her own advancement and greedy of opulence and elegance angry with the lot that had been cast her and weary of dull dependence My lady hated Alicia for her frank passionate generous daring nature she hated her stepdaughter and clung to this palefaced palehaired girl whom she thought neither better nor worse than herself
Phoebe Marks obeyed her late mistress commands and took off her bonnet before seating herself on the ottoman at Lady Audleys feet Her smooth bands of light hair were unruffled by the March winds her trimlymade drab dress and linen collar were as neatly arranged as they could have been had she only that moment completed her toilet
Sir Michael is better I hope my lady she said
Yes Phoebe much better He is asleep You may close that door added Lady Audley with a motion of her head toward the door of communication between the rooms which had been left open
Mrs Marks obeyed submissively and then returned to her seat
I am very very unhappy Phoebe my lady said fretfully wretchedly miserable
About the—secret asked Mrs Marks in a half whisper
My lady did not notice that question She resumed in the same complaining tone She was glad to be able to complain even to this ladys maid She had brooded over her fears and had suffered in secret so long that it was an inexpressible relief to her to bemoan her fate aloud
I am cruelly persecuted and harassed Phoebe Marks she said I am pursued and tormented by a man whom I never injured whom I have never wished to injure I am never suffered to rest by this relentless tormentor and—
She paused staring at the fire again as she had done in her loneliness Lost again in the dark intricacies of thoughts which wandered hither and thither in a dreadful chaos of terrified bewilderments she could not come to any fixed conclusion
Phoebe Marks watched my ladys face looking upward at her late mistress with pale anxious eyes that only relaxed their watchfulness when Lady Audleys glance met that of her companion
I think I know whom you mean my lady said the innkeepers wife after a pause I think I know who it is who is so cruel to you
Oh of course answered my lady bitterly my secrets are everybodys secrets You know all about it no doubt
The person is a gentleman—is he not my lady
Yes
A gentleman who came to the Castle Inn two months ago when I warned you—
Yes yes answered my lady impatiently
I thought so The same gentleman is at our place tonight my lady
Lady Audley started up from her chair—started up as if she would have done something desperate in her despairing fury but she sank back again with a weary querulous sigh What warfare could such a feeble creature wage against her fate What could she do but wind like a hunted hare till she found her way back to the startingpoint of the cruel chase to be there trampled down by her pursuers
At the Castle Inn she cried I might have known as much He has gone there to wring my secrets from your husband Fool she exclaimed suddenly turning upon Phoebe Marks in a transport of anger do you want to destroy me that you have left those two men together
Mrs Marks clasped her hands piteously
I didnt come away of my own free will my lady she said no one could have been more unwilling to leave the house than I was this night I was sent here
Who sent you here
Luke my lady You cant tell how hard he can be upon me if I go against him
Why did he send you
The innkeepers wife dropped her eyelids under Lady Audleys angry glances and hesitated confusedly before she answered this question
Indeed my lady she stammered I didnt want to come I told Luke that it was too bad for us to worry you first asking this favor and then asking that and never leaving you alone for a month together but—but—he bore me down with his loud blustering talk and he made me come
Yes yes cried Lady Audley impatiently I know that I want to know why you have come
Why you know my lady answered Phoebe half reluctantly Luke is very extravagant and all I can say to him I cant get him to be careful or steady Hes not sober and when hes drinking with a lot of rough countrymen and drinking perhaps even more than they do it isnt likely that his head can be very clear for accounts If it hadnt been for me we should have been ruined before this and hard as Ive tried I havent been able to keep the ruin off You remember giving me the money for the brewers bill my lady
Yes I remember very well answered Lady Audley with a bitter laugh for I wanted that money to pay my own bills
I know you did my lady and it was very very hard for me to have to come and ask you for it after all that wed received from you before But that isnt the worst when Luke sent me down here to beg the favor of that help he never told me that the Christmas rent was still owing but it was my lady and its owing now and—and theres a bailiff in the house tonight and were to be sold up tomorrow unless—
Unless I pay your rent I suppose cried Lucy Audley I might have guessed what was coming
Indeed indeed my lady I wouldnt have asked it sobbed Phoebe Marks but he made me come
Yes answered my lady bitterly he made you come and he will make you come whenever he pleases and whenever he wants money for the gratification of his low vices and you and he are my pensioners as long as I live or as long as I have any money to give for I suppose when my purse is empty and my credit ruined you and your husband will turn upon me and sell me to the highest bidder Do you know Phoebe Marks that my jewelcase has been half emptied to meet your claims Do you know that my pinmoney which I thought such a princely allowance when my marriage settlement was made and when I was a poor governess at Mr Dawsons Heaven help me my pinmoney has been overdrawn half a year to satisfy your demands What can I do to appease you Shall I sell my Marie Antoinette cabinet or my pompadour china Leroys and Bensons ormolu clocks or my Gobelin tapestried chairs and ottomans How shall I satisfy you next
Oh my lady my lady cried Phoebe piteously dont be so cruel to me you know you know that it isnt I who want to impose upon you
I know nothing exclaimed Lady Audley except that I am the most miserable of women Let me think she cried silencing Phoebes consolatory murmurs with an imperious gesture Hold your tongue girl and let me think of this business if I can
She put her hands to her forehead clasping her slender fingers across her brow as if she would have controlled the action of her brain by their convulsive pressure
Robert Audley is with your husband she said slowly speaking to herself rather than to her companion These two men are together and there are bailiffs in the house and your brutal husband is no doubt brutally drunk by this time and brutally obstinate and ferocious in his drunkenness If I refuse to pay this money his ferocity will be multiplied by a hundredfold Theres little use in discussing that matter The money must be paid
But if you do pay it said Phoebe earnestly I hope you will impress upon Luke that it is the last money you will ever give him while he stops in that house
Why asked Lady Audley letting her hands fall on her lap and looking inquiringly at Mrs Marks
Because I want Luke to leave the Castle
But why do you want him to leave
Oh for ever so many reasons my lady answered Phoebe Hes not fit to be the landlord of a publichouse I didnt know that when I married him or I would have gone against the business and tried to persuade him to take to the farming line Not that I suppose hed have given up his own fancy either for hes obstinate enough as you know my lady Hes not fit for his present business Hes scarcely ever sober after dark and when hes drunk he gets almost wild and doesnt seem to know what he does Weve had two or three narrow escapes with him already
Narrow escapes repeated Lady Audley What do you mean
Why weve run the risk of being burnt in our beds through his carelessness
Burnt in your beds through his carelessness Why how was that asked my lady rather listlessly She was too selfish and too deeply absorbed in her own troubles to take much interest in any danger which had befallen her sometime ladysmaid
You know what a queer old place the Castle is my lady all tumbledown woodwork and rotten rafters and such like The Chelmsford Insurance Company wont insure it for they say if the place did happen to catch fire of a windy night it would blaze away like so much tinder and nothing in the world could save it Well Luke knows this and the landlord has warned him of it times and often for he lives close against us and he keeps a pretty sharp eye upon all my husbands goings on but when Lukes tipsy he doesnt know what hes about and only a week ago he left a candle burning in one of the outhouses and the flame caught one of the rafters of the sloping roof and if it hadnt been for me finding it out when I went round the house the last thing we should have all been burnt to death perhaps And thats the third time the same kind of thing has happened in the six months weve had the place and you cant wonder that Im frightened can you my lady
My lady had not wondered she had not thought about the business at all She had scarcely listened to these commonplace details why should she care for this lowborn waitingwomans perils and troubles Had she not her own terrors her own soulabsorbing perplexities to usurp every thought of which her brain was capable
She did not make any remark upon that which poor Phoebe just told her she scarcely comprehended what had been said until some moments after the girl had finished speaking when the words assumed their full meaning as some words do after they have been heard without being heeded
Burnt in your beds said the young lady at last It would have been a good thing for me if that precious creature your husband had been burnt in his bed before tonight
A vivid picture had flashed upon her as she spoke The picture of that frail wooden tenement the Castle Inn reduced to a roofless chaos of lath and plaster vomiting flames from its black mouth and spitting blazing sparks upward toward the cold night sky
She gave a weary sigh as she dismissed this image from her restless brain She would be no better off even if this enemy should be for ever silenced She had another and far more dangerous foe—a foe who was not to be bribed or bought off though she had been as rich as an empress
Ill give you the money to send this bailiff away my lady said after a pause I must give you the last sovereign in my purse but what of that you know as well as I do that I dare not refuse you
Lady Audley rose and took the lighted lamp from her writingtable The money is in my dressingroom she said I will go and fetch it
Oh my lady exclaimed Phoebe suddenly I forgot something I was in such a way about this business that I quite forgot it
Quite forgot what
A letter that was given me to bring to you my lady just before I left home
What letter
A letter from Mr Audley He heard my husband mention that I was coming down here and he asked me to carry this letter
Lady Audley set the lamp down upon the table nearest to her and held out her hand to receive the letter Phoebe Marks could scarcely fail to observe that the little jeweled hand shook like a leaf
Give it me—give it me she cried let me see what more he has to say
Lady Audley almost snatched the letter from Phoebes hand in her wild impatience She tore open the envelope and flung it from her she could scarcely unfold the sheet of notepaper in her eager excitement
The letter was very brief It contained only these words
Should Mrs George Talboys really have survived the date of her supposed death as recorded in the public prints and upon the tombstone in Ventnor churchyard and should she exist in the person of the lady suspected and accused by the writer of this there can be no great difficulty in finding some one able and willing to identify her Mrs Barkamb the owner of North Cottages Wildernsea would no doubt consent to throw some light upon this matter either to dispel a delusion or to confirm a suspicion
ROBERT AUDLEY
March 3 1859
The Castle Inn Mount Stanning
CHAPTER XXXII
THE RED LIGHT IN THE SKY
My lady crushed the letter fiercely in her hand and flung it from her into the flames
If he stood before me now and I could kill him she muttered in a strange inward whisper I would do it—I would do it She snatched up the lamp and rushed into the adjoining room She shut the door behind her She could not endure any witness of her horrible despair—she could endure nothing neither herself nor her surroundings
The door between my ladys dressingroom and the bedchamber in which Sir Michael lay had been left open The baronet slept peacefully his noble face plainly visible in the subdued lamplight His breathing was low and regular his lips curved into a half smile—a smile of tender happiness which he often wore when he looked at his beautiful wife the smile of an allindulgent father who looks admiringly at his favorite child
Some touch of womanly feeling some sentiment of compassion softened Lady Audleys glance as it fell upon that noble reposing figure For a moment the horrible egotism of her own misery yielded to her pitying tenderness for another It was perhaps only a semiselfish tenderness after all in which pity for herself was as powerful as pity for her husband but for once in a way her thoughts ran out of the narrow groove of her own terrors and her own troubles to dwell with prophetic grief upon the coming sorrows of another
If they make him believe how wretched he will be she thought But intermingled with that thought there was another—there was the thought of her lovely face her bewitching manner her arch smile her low musical laugh which was like a peal of silvery bells ringing across a broad expanse of flat meadowland and a rippling river in the misty summer evening She thought of all these things with a transient thrill of triumph which was stronger even than her terror
If Sir Michael Audley lived to be a hundred years old whatever he might learn to believe of her however he might grow to despise her would he ever be able to disassociate her from these attributes No a thousand times no To the last hour of his life his memory would present her to him invested with the loveliness that had first won his enthusiastic admiration his devoted affection Her worst enemies could not rob her of that fairy dower which had been so fatal in its influence upon her frivolous mind
She paced up and down the dressingroom in the silvery lamplight pondering upon the strange letter which she had received from Robert Audley She walked backward and forward in that monotonous wandering for some time before she was able to steady her thoughts—before she was able to bring the scattered forces of her narrow intellect to bear upon the one allimportant subject of the threat contained in the barristers letter
He will do it she said between her set teeth—he will do it unless I get him into a lunaticasylum first or unless—
She did not finish the thought in words She did not even think out the sentence but some new and unnatural impulse in her heart seemed to beat each syllable against her breast
The thought was this He will do it unless some strange calamity befalls him and silences him for ever The red blood flashed up into my ladys face with as sudden and transient a blaze as the flickering flame of a fire and died as suddenly away leaving her more pale than winter snow Her hands which had before been locked convulsively together fell apart and dropped heavily at her sides She stopped in her rapid pacing to and fro—stopped as Lots wife may have stopped after that fatal backward glance at the perishing city—with every pulse slackening with every drop of blood congealing in her veins in the terrible process that was to transform her from a woman into a statue
Lady Audley stood still for about five minutes in that strangely statuesque attitude her head erect her eyes staring straight before her—staring far beyond the narrow boundary of her chamber wall into dark distances of peril and horror
But byandby she started from that rigid attitude almost as abruptly as she had fallen into it She roused herself from that semilethargy She walked rapidly to her dressingtable and seating herself before it pushed away the litter of goldenstoppered bottles and delicate china essenceboxes and looked at her reflection in the large oval glass She was very pale but there was no other trace of agitation visible in her girlish face The lines of her exquisitely molded lips were so beautiful that it was only a very close observer who could have perceived a certain rigidity that was unusual to them She saw this herself and tried to smile away that statuelike immobility but tonight the rosy lips refused to obey her they were firmly locked and were no longer the slaves of her will and pleasure All the latent forces of her character concentrated themselves in this one feature She might command her eyes but she could not control the muscles of her mouth She rose from before her dressingtable and took a dark velvet cloak and bonnet from the recesses of her wardrobe and dressed herself for walking The little ormolu clock on the chimneypiece struck the quarter after eleven while Lady Audley was employed in this manner five minutes afterward she reentered the room in which she had left Phoebe Marks
The innkeepers wife was sitting before the low fender very much in the same attitude as that in which her late mistress had brooded over that lonely hearth earlier in the evening Phoebe had replenished the fire and had reassumed her bonnet and shawl She was anxious to get home to that brutal husband who was only too apt to fall into some mischief in her absence She looked up as Lady Audley entered the room and uttered an exclamation of surprise at seeing her late mistress in a walkingcostume
My lady she cried you are not going out tonight
Yes I am Phoebe Lady Audley answered very quietly I am going to Mount Stanning with you to see this bailiff and to pay and dismiss him myself
But my lady you forget what the time is you cant go out at such an hour
Lady Audley did not answer She stood with her finger resting lightly upon the handle of the bell meditating quietly
The stables are always locked and the men in bed by ten oclock she murmured when we are at home It will make a terrible hubbub to get a carriage ready but yet I dare say one of the servants could manage the matter quietly for me
But why should you go tonight my lady cried Phoebe Marks Tomorrow will do quite as well A week hence will do as well Our landlord would take the man away if he had your promise to settle the debt
Lady Audley took no notice of this interruption She went hastily into the dressingroom and flung off her bonnet and cloak and then returned to the boudoir in her simple dinnercostume with her curls brushed carelessly away from her face
Now Phoebe Marks listen to me she said grasping her confidantes wrist and speaking in a low earnest voice but with a certain imperious air that challenged contradiction and commanded obedience Listen to me Phoebe she repeated I am going to the Castle Inn tonight whether it is early or late is of very little consequence to me I have set my mind upon going and I shall go You have asked me why and I have told you I am going in order that I may pay this debt myself and that I may see for myself that the money I give is applied to the purpose for which I give it There is nothing out of the common course of life in my doing this I am going to do what other women in my position very often do I am going to assist a favorite servant
But its getting on for twelve oclock my lady pleaded Phoebe
Lady Audley frowned impatiently at this interruption
If my going to your house to pay this man should be known she continued still retaining her hold of Phoebes wrist I am ready to answer for my conduct but I would rather that the business should be kept quiet I think that I can leave this house without being seen by any living creature if you will do as I tell you
I will do anything you wish my lady answered Phoebe submissively
Then you will wish me goodnight presently when my maid comes into the room and you will suffer her to show you out of the house You will cross the courtyard and wait for me in the avenue upon the other side of the archway It may be half an hour before I am able to join you for I must not leave my room till the servants have all gone to bed but you may wait for me patiently for come what may I will join you
Lady Audleys face was no longer pale An unnatural luster gleamed in her great blue eyes She spoke with an unnatural rapidity She had altogether the appearance and manner of a person who has yielded to the dominant influence of some overpowering excitement Phoebe Marks stared at her late mistress in mute bewilderment She began to fear that my lady was going mad
The bell which Lady Audley rang was answered by the smart ladysmaid who wore rosecolored ribbons and black silk gowns and other adornments which were unknown to the humble people who sat below the salt in the good old days when servants wore linseywoolsey
I did not know that it was so late Martin said my lady in that gentle tone which always won for her the willing service of her inferiors I have been talking with Mrs Marks and have let the time slip by me I shant want anything tonight so you may go to bed when you please
Thank you my lady answered the girl who looked very sleepy and had some difficulty in repressing a yawn even in her mistress presence for the Audley household usually kept very early hours Id better show Mrs Marks out my lady hadnt I asked the maid before I go to bed
Oh yes to be sure you can let Phoebe out All the other servants have gone to bed then I suppose
Yes my lady
Lady Audley laughed as she glanced at the timepiece
We have been terrible dissipated up here Phoebe she said Goodnight You may tell your husband that his rent shall be paid
Thank you very much my lady and goodnight murmured Phoebe as she backed out of the room followed by the ladys maid
Lady Audley listened at the door waiting till the muffled sounds of their footsteps died away in the octagon chamber and on the carpeted staircase
Martin sleeps at the top of the house she said half a mile away from this room In ten minutes I may safely make my escape
She went back into her dressingroom and put on her cloak and bonnet for the second time The unnatural color still burnt like a flame in her cheeks the unnatural light still glittered in her eyes The excitement which she was under held her in so strong a spell that neither her mind nor her body seemed to have any consciousness of fatigue However verbose I may be in my description of her feelings I can never describe a tithe of her thoughts or her sufferings She suffered agonies that would fill closely printed volumes bulky with a thousand pages in that one horrible night She underwent volumes of anguish and doubt and perplexity sometimes repeating the same chapters of her torments over and over again sometimes hurrying through a thousand pages of her misery without one pause without one moment of breathing time She stood by the low fender in her boudoir watching the minutehand of the clock and waiting till it should be time for her to leave the house in safety
I will wait ten minutes she said not a moment beyond before I enter on my new peril
She listened to the wild roaring of the March wind which seemed to have risen with the stillness and darkness of the night
The hand slowly made its inevitable way to the figures which told that the ten minutes were past It was exactly a quarter to twelve when my lady took her lamp in her hand and stole softly from the room Her footfall was as light as that of some graceful wild animal and there was no fear of that airy step awakening any echo upon the carpeted stone corridors and staircase She did not pause until she reached the vestibule upon the ground floor Several doors opened out of the vestibule which was octagon like my ladys antechamber One of these doors led into the library and it was this door which Lady Audley opened softly and cautiously
To have attempted to leave the house secretly by any of the principal outlets would have been simple madness for the housekeeper herself superintended the barricading of the great doors back and front The secrets of the bolts and bars and chains and bells which secured these doors and provided for the safety of Sir Michael Audleys plateroom the door of which was lined with sheetiron were known only to the servants who had to deal with them But although all these precautions were taken with the principal entrances to the citadel a wooden shutter and a slender iron bar light enough to be lifted by a child were considered sufficient safeguard for the halfglass door which opened out of the breakfastroom into the graveled pathway and smooth turf in the courtyard
It was by this outlet that Lady Audley meant to make her escape She could easily remove the bar and unfasten the shutter and she might safely venture to leave the window ajar while she was absent There was little fear of Sir Michaels awaking for some time as he was a heavy sleeper in the early part of the night and had slept more heavily than usual since his illness
Lady Audley crossed the library and opened the door of the breakfastroom which communicated with it This latter apartment was one of the later additions to the Court It was a simple cheerful chamber with brightly papered walls and pretty maple furniture and was more occupied by Alicia than any one else The paraphernalia of that young ladys favorite pursuits were scattered about the room—drawingmaterials unfinished scraps of work tangled skeins of silk and all the other tokens of a careless damsels presence while Miss Audleys picture—a pretty crayon sketch of a rosyfaced hoyden in a ridinghabit and hat—hung over the quaint Wedgewood ornaments on the chimneypiece My lady looked upon these familiar objects with scornful hatred flaming in her blue eyes
How glad she will be if any disgrace befalls me she thought how she will rejoice if I am driven out of this house
Lady Audley set the lamp upon a table near the fireplace and went to the window She removed the ironbar and the light wooden shutter and then opened the glassdoor The March night was black and moonless and a gust of wind blew in upon her as she opened this door and filled the room with its chilly breath extinguishing the lamp upon the table
No matter my lady muttered I could not have left it burning I shall know how to find my way through the house when I come back I have left all the doors ajar
She stepped quickly out upon the smooth gravel and closed the glassdoor behind her She was afraid lest that treacherous wind should blowto the door opening into the library and thus betray her
She was in the quadrangle now with that chill wind sweeping against her and swirling her silken garments round her with a shrill rustling noise like the whistling of a sharp breeze against the sails of a yacht She crossed the quadrangle and looked back—looked back for a moment at the firelight gleaming between the rosytinted curtains in her boudoir and the dim gleam of the lamp through the mullioned windows in the room where Sir Michael Audley lay asleep
I feel as if I were running away she thought I feel as if I were running away secretly in the dead of the night to lose myself and be forgotten Perhaps it would be wiser in me to run away to take this mans warning and escape out of his power forever If I were to run away and disappear as—as George Talboys disappeared But where could I go what would become of me I have no money my jewels are not worth a couple of hundred pounds now that I have got rid of the best part of them What could I do I must go back to the old life the old hard cruel wretched life—the life of poverty and humiliation and vexation and discontent I should have to go back and wear myself out in that long struggle and die—as my mother died perhaps
My lady stood still for a moment on the smooth lawn between the quadrangle and the archway with her head drooping upon her breast and her hands locked together debating this question in the unnatural activity of her mind Her attitude reflected the state of that mind—it expressed irresolution and perplexity But presently a sudden change came over her she lifted her head—lifted it with an action of defiance and determination
No Mr Robert Audley she said aloud in a low clear voice I will not go back—I will not go back If the struggle between us is to be a duel to the death you shall not find me drop my weapon
She walked with a firm and rapid step under the archway As she passed under that massive arch it seemed as if she disappeared into some black gulf that had waited open to receive her The stupid clock struck twelve and the whole archway seemed to vibrate under its heavy strokes as Lady Audley emerged upon the other side and joined Phoebe Marks who had waited for her late mistress very near the gateway of the Court
Now Phoebe she said it is three miles from here to Mount Stanning isnt it
Yes my lady
Then we can walk the distance in an hour and a half
Lady Audley had not stopped to say this she was walking quickly along the avenue with her humble companion by her side Fragile and delicate as she was in appearance she was a very good walker She had been in the habit of taking long country rambles with Mr Dawsons children in her old days of dependence and she thought very little of a distance of three miles
Your beautiful husband will sit up for you I suppose Phoebe she said as they struck across an open field that was used as a short cut from Audley Court to the highroad
Oh yes my lady hes sure to sit up Hell be drinking with the man I dare say
The man What man
The man thats in possession my lady
Ah to be sure said Lady Audley indifferently
It was strange that Phoebes domestic troubles should seem so very far away from her thoughts at the time she was taking such an extraordinary step toward setting things right at the Castle Inn
The two women crossed the field and turned into the high road The way to Mount Stanning was all up hill and the long road looked black and dreary in the dark night but my lady walked on with a desperate courage which was no common constituent in her selfish sensuous nature but a strange faculty born out of her great despair She did not speak again to her companion until they were close upon the glimmering lights at the top of the hill One of these village lights glaring redly through a crimson curtain marked out the particular window behind which it was likely that Luke Marks sat nodding drowsily over his liquor and waiting for the coming of his wife
He has not gone to bed Phoebe said my lady eagerly But there is no other light burning at the inn I suppose Mr Audley is in bed and asleep
Yes my lady I suppose so
You are sure he was going to stay at the Castle to night
Oh yes my lady I helped the girl to get his room ready before I came away
The wind boisterous everywhere was even shriller and more pitiless in the neighborhood of that bleak hilltop upon which the Castle Inn reared its rickety walls The cruel blasts raved wildly round that frail erection They disported themselves with the shattered pigeonhouse the broken weathercock the loose tiles and unshapely chimneys they rattled at the windowpanes and whistled in the crevices they mocked the feeble building from foundation to roof and battered and banged and tormented it in their fierce gambols until it trembled and rocked with the force of their rough play
Mr Luke Marks had not troubled himself to secure the door of his dwellinghouse before sitting down to booze with the man who held provisional possession of his goods and chattels The landlord of the Castle Inn was a lazy sensual brute who had no thought higher than a selfish concern for his own enjoyments and a virulent hatred for anybody who stood in the way of his gratification
Phoebe pushed open the door with her hand and went into the house followed by my lady The gas was flaring in the bar and smoking the low plastered ceiling The door of the barparlor was half open and Lady Audley heard the brutal laughter of Mr Marks as she crossed the threshold of the inn
Ill tell him youre here my lady whispered Phoebe to her late mistress I know hell be tipsy You—you wont be offended my lady if he should say anything rude You know it wasnt my wish that you should come
Yes yes answered Lady Audley impatiently I know that What should I care for his rudeness Let him say what he likes
Phoebe Marks pushed open the parlor door leaving my lady in the bar close behind her
Luke sat with his clumsy legs stretched out upon the hearth He held a glass of ginandwater in one hand and the poker in the other He had just thrust the poker into a heap of black coals and was scattering them to make a blaze when his wife appeared upon the threshold of the room
He snatched the poker from between the bars and made a half drunken half threatening motion with it as he saw her
So youve condescended to come home at last maam he said I thought you was never coming no more
He spoke in a thick and drunken voice and was by no means too intelligible He was steeped to the very lips in alcohol His eyes were dim and watery his hands were unsteady his voice was choked and muffled with drink A brute even when most sober a brute even on his best behavior he was ten times more brutal in his drunkenness when the few restraints which held his ignorant every day brutality in check were flung aside in the indolent recklessness of intoxication
I—Ive been longer than I intended to be Luke Phoebe answered in her most conciliatory manner but Ive seen my lady and shes been very kind and—and shell settle this business for us
Shes been very kind has she muttered Mr Marks with a drunken laugh thank her for nothing I know the vally of her kindness Shed be oncommon kind I dessay if she warnt obligated to be it
The man in possession who had fallen into a maudlin and semiunconscious state of intoxication upon about a third of the liquor that Mr Marks had consumed only stared in feeble wonderment at his host and hostess He sat near the table Indeed he had hooked himself on to it with his elbows as a safeguard against sliding under it and he was making imbecile attempts to light his pipe at the flame of a guttering tallow candle near him
My lady has promised to settle the business for us Luke Phoebe repeated without noticing Lukes remarks She knew her husbands dogged nature well enough by this time to know that it was worse than useless to try to stop him from doing or saying anything which his own stubborn will led him to do or say My lady will settle it she said and shes come down here to see about it tonight she added
The poker dropped from the landlords hand and fell clattering among the cinders on the hearth
My Lady Audley come here tonight he said
Yes Luke
My lady appeared upon the threshold of the door as Phoebe spoke
Yes Luke Marks she said I have come to pay this man and to send him about his business
Lady Audley said these words in a strange semimechanical manner very much as if she had learned the sentence by rote and were repeating it without knowing what she said
Mr Marks gave a discontented growl and set his empty glass down upon the table with an impatient gesture
You might have given the money to Phoebe he said as well as have brought it yourself We dont want no fine ladies up here pryin and pokin their precious noses into everythink
Luke Luke remonstrated Phoebe when my lady has been so kind
Oh damn her kindness cried Mr Marks it aint her kindness as we want gal its her money She wont get no snivelin gratitood from me Whatever she does for us she does because she is obliged and if she wasnt obliged she wouldnt do it—
Heaven knows how much more Luke Marks might have said had not my lady turned upon him suddenly and awed him into silence by the unearthly glitter of her beauty Her hair had been blown away from her face and being of a light feathery quality had spread itself into a tangled mass that surrounded her forehead like a yellow flame There was another flame in her eyes—a greenish light such as might flash from the changinghued orbs of an angry mermaid
Stop she cried I didnt come up here in the dead of night to listen to your insolence How much is this debt
Nine pound
Lady Audley produced her purse—a toy of ivory silver and turquoise—she took from it a note and four sovereigns She laid these upon the table
Let that man give me a receipt for the money she said before I go
It was some time before the man could be roused into sufficient consciousness for the performance of this simple duty and it was only by dipping a pen into the ink and pushing it between his clumsy fingers that he was at last made to comprehend that his autograph was wanted at the bottom of the receipt which had been made out by Phoebe Marks Lady Audley took the document as soon as the ink was dry and turned to leave the parlor Phoebe followed her
You mustnt go home alone my lady she said Youll let me go with you
Yes yes you shall go home with me
The two women were standing near the door of the inn as my lady said this Phoebe stared wonderingly at her patroness She had expected that Lady Audley would be in a hurry to return home after settling this business which she had capriciously taken upon herself but it was not so my lady stood leaning against the inn door and staring into vacancy and again Mrs Marks began to fear that trouble had driven her late mistress mad
A little Dutch clock in the bar struck two while Lady Audley lingered in this irresolute absent manner She started at the sound and began to tremble violently
I think I am going to faint Phoebe she said where can I get some cold water
The pump is in the washhouse my lady Ill run and get you a glass of cold water
No no no cried my lady clutching Phoebes arm as she was about to run away upon this errand Ill get it myself I must dip my head in a basin of water if I want to save myself from fainting In which room does Mr Audley sleep
There was something so irrelevant in this question that Phoebe Marks stared aghast at her mistress before she answered it
It was number three that I got ready my lady—the front room—the room next to ours she replied after that pause of astonishment
Give me a candle said my lady Ill go into your room and get some water for my head stay where you are and see that that brute of a husband of yours does not follow me
She snatched the candle which Phoebe had lighted from the girls hand and ran up the rickety winding staircase which led to the narrow corridor upon the upper floor Five bedrooms opened out of this lowceilinged closesmelling corridor the numbers of these rooms were indicated by squat black figures painted upon the panels of the doors Lady Audley had driven up to Mount Stanning to inspect the house when she bought the business for her servants bridegroom and she knew her way about the dilapidated old place she knew where to find Phoebes bedroom but she stopped before the door of that other chamber which had been prepared for Mr Robert Audley
She stopped and looked at the number on the door The key was in the lock and her hand dropped upon it as if unconsciously But presently she suddenly began to tremble again as she had trembled a few minutes before at the striking of the clock She stood for a few moments trembling thus with her hand still upon the key then a horrible expression came over her face and she turned the key in the lock She turned it twice double locking the door
There was no sound from within the occupant of the chamber made no sign of having heard that ominous creaking of the rusty key in the rusty lock
Lady Audley hurried into the next room She set the candle on the dressingtable flung off her bonnet and slung it loosely across her arm then she went to the washstand and filled the basin with water She plunged her golden hair into this water and then stood for a few moments in the center of the room looking about her with a white earnest face and an eager gaze that seemed to take in every object in the poorly furnished chamber Phoebes bedroom was certainly very shabbily furnished she had been compelled to select all the most decent things for those best bedrooms which were set apart for any chance traveler who might stop for a nights lodging at the Castle Inn but Phoebe Marks had done her best to atone for the lack of substantial furniture in her apartment by a superabundance of drapery Crisp curtains of cheap chintz hung from the tentbedstead festooned drapery of the same material shrouded the narrow window shutting out the light of day and affording a pleasant harbor for tribes of flies and predatory bands of spiders Even the lookingglass a miserably cheap construction which distorted every face whose owner had the hardihood to look into it stood upon a draperied altar of starched muslin and pink glazed calico and was adorned with frills of lace and knitted work
My lady smiled as she looked at the festoons and furbelows which met her eyes upon every side She had reason perhaps to smile remembering the costly elegance of her own apartments but there was something in that sardonic smile that seemed to have a deeper meaning than any natural contempt for Phoebes attempts at decoration She went to the dressingtable and smoothed her wet hair before the lookingglass and then put on her bonnet She was obliged to place the flaming tallow candle very close to the lace furbelows about the glass so close that the starched muslin seemed to draw the flame toward it by some power of attraction in its fragile tissue
Phoebe waited anxiously by the inn door for my ladys coming She watched the minute hand of the little Dutch clock wondering at the slowness of its progress It was only ten minutes past two when Lady Audley came downstairs with her bonnet on and her hair still wet but without the candle
Phoebe was immediately anxious about this missing candle
The light my lady she said you have left it upstairs
The wind blew it out as I was leaving your room Lady Audley answered quietly I left it there
In my room my lady
Yes
And it was quite out
Yes I tell you why do you worry me about your candle It is past two oclock Come
She took the girls arm and half led half dragged her from the house The convulsive pressure of her slight hand held her firmly as an iron vise could have held her The fierce March wind banged to the door of the house and left the two women standing outside it The long black road lay bleak and desolate before them dimly visible between straight lines of leafless hedges
A walk of three miles length upon a lonely country road between the hours of two and four on a cold winters morning is scarcely a pleasant task for a delicate woman—a woman whose inclinations lean toward ease and luxury But my lady hurried along the hard dry highway dragging her companion with her as if she had been impelled by some horrible demoniac force which knew no abatement With the black night above them—with the fierce wind howling around them sweeping across a broad expanse of hidden country blowing as if it had arisen simultaneously from every point of the compass and making those wanderers the focus of its ferocity—the two women walked through the darkness down the hill upon which Mount Stanning stood along a mile and a half of flat road and then up another hill on the western side of which Audley Court lay in that sheltered valley which seemed to shut in the old house from all the clamor and hubbub of the everyday world
My lady stopped upon the summit of this hill to draw breath and to clasp her hands upon her heart in the vain hope that she might still its cruel beating They were now within threequarters of a mile of the Court and they had been walking for nearly an hour since they had left the Castle Inn
Lady Audley stopped to rest with her face still turned toward the place of her destination Phoebe Marks stopping also and very glad of a moments pause in that hurried journey looked back into the far darkness beneath which lay that dreary shelter that had given her so much uneasiness And she did so she uttered a shrill cry of horror and clutched wildly at her companions cloak
The night sky was no longer all dark The thick blackness was broken by one patch of lurid light
My lady my lady cried Phoebe pointing to this lurid patch do you see
Yes child I see answered Lady Audley trying to shake the clinging hands from her garments Whats the matter
Its a fire—a fire my lady
Yes I am afraid it is a fire At Brentwood most likely Let me go Phoebe its nothing to us
Yes yes my lady its nearer than Brentwood—much nearer its at Mount Stanning
Lady Audley did not answer She was trembling again with the cold perhaps for the wind had torn her heavy cloak from her shoulders and had left her slender figure exposed to the blast
Its at Mount Stanning my lady cried Phoebe Marks Its the Castle thats on fire—I know it is I know it is I thought of fire tonight and I was fidgety and uneasy for I knew this would happen some day I wouldnt mind if it was only the wretched place but therell be life lost therell be life lost sobbed the girl distractedly Theres Luke too tipsy to help himself unless others help him theres Mr Audley asleep—
Phoebe Marks stopped suddenly at the mention of Roberts name and fell upon her knees clasping her uplifted hands and appealing wildly to Lady Audley
Oh my God she cried Say its not true my lady say its not true Its too horrible its too horrible its too horrible
Whats too horrible
The thought thats in my mind the terrible thought thats in my mind
What do you mean girl cried my lady fiercely
Oh God forgive me if Im wrong the kneeling woman gasped in detached sentences and God grant I may be Why did you go up to the Castle my lady Why were you so set on going against all I could say—you who are so bitter against Mr Audley and against Luke and who knew they were both under that roof Oh tell me that I do you a cruel wrong my lady tell me so—tell me for as there is a Heaven above me I think that you went to that place tonight on purpose to set fire to it Tell me that Im wrong my lady tell me that Im doing you a wicked wrong
I will tell you nothing except that you are a mad woman answered Lady Audley in a cold hard voice Get up fool idiot coward Is your husband such a precious bargain that you should be groveling there lamenting and groaning for him What is Robert Audley to you that you behave like a maniac because you think he is in danger How do you know the fire is at Mount Stanning You see a red patch in the sky and you cry out directly that your own paltry hovel is in flames as if there were no place in the world that could burn except that The fire may be at Brentwood or further away—at Romford or still further away on the eastern side of London perhaps Get up mad woman and go back and look after your goods and chattels and your husband and your lodger Get up and go I dont want you
Oh my lady my lady forgive me sobbed Phoebe theres nothing you can say to me thats hard enough for having done you such a wrong even in my thoughts I dont mind your cruel words—I dont mind anything if Im wrong
Go back and see for yourself answered Lady Audley sternly I tell you again I dont want you
She walked away in the darkness leaving Phoebe Marks still kneeling upon the hard road where she had cast herself in that agony of supplication Sir Michaels wife walked toward the house in which her husband slept with the red blaze lighting up the skies behind her and with nothing but the blackness of the night before
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE BEARER OF THE TIDINGS
It was very late the next morning when Lady Audley emerged from her dressingroom exquisitely dressed in a morning costume of delicate muslin delicate laces and embroideries but with a very pale face and with halfcircles of purple shadow under her eyes She accounted for this pale face and these hollow eyes by declaring that she had sat up reading until a very late hour on the previous night
Sir Michael and his young wife breakfasted in the library at a comfortable round table wheeled close to the blazing fire and Alicia was compelled to share this meal with her stepmother however she might avoid that lady in the long interval between breakfast and dinner
The March morning was bleak and dull and a drizzling rain fell incessantly obscuring the landscape and blotting out the distance There were very few letters by the morning post the daily newspapers did not arrive until noon and such aids to conversation being missing there was very little talk at the breakfast table
Alicia looked out at the drizzling rain drifting against the broad windowpanes
No riding today she said and no chance of any callers to enliven us unless that ridiculous Bob comes crawling through the wet from Mount Stanning
Have you ever heard anybody whom you knew to be dead alluded to in a light easy going manner by another person who did not know of his death—alluded to as doing that or this as performing some trivial everyday operation—when you know that he has vanished away from the face of this earth and separated himself forever from all living creatures and their commonplace pursuits in the awful solemnity of death Such a chance allusion insignificant though it may be is apt to send a strange thrill of pain through the mind The ignorant remark jars discordantly upon the hypersensitive brain the King of Terrors is desecrated by that unwitting disrespect Heaven knows what hidden reason my lady may have had for experiencing some such revulsion of feeling on the sudden mention of Mr Audleys name but her pale face blanched to a sickly white as Alicia Audley spoke of her cousin
Yes he will come down here in the wet perhaps the young lady continued with his hat sleek and shining as if it had been brushed with a pat of fresh butter and with white vapors steaming out of his clothes and making him look like an awkward genie just let out of his bottle He will come down here and print impressions of his muddy boots all over the carpet and hell sit on your Gobelin tapestry my lady in his wet overcoat and hell abuse you if you remonstrate and will ask why people have chairs that are not to be sat upon and why you dont live in Figtree Court and—
Sir Michael Audley watched his daughter with a thoughtful countenance as she talked of her cousin She very often talked of him ridiculing him and inveighing against him in no very measured terms But perhaps the baronet thought of a certain Signora Beatrice who very cruelly entreated a gentleman called Benedick but who was it may be heartily in love with him at the same time
What do you think Major Melville told me when he called here yesterday Alicia Sir Michael asked presently
I havent the remotest idea replied Alicia rather disdainfully Perhaps he told you that we should have another war before long by Ged sir or perhaps he told you that we should have a new ministry by Ged sir for that those fellows are getting themselves into a mess sir or that those other fellows were reforming this and cutting down that and altering the other in the army until by Ged sir we shall have no army at all byandby—nothing but a pack of boys sir crammed up to the eyes with a lot of senseless schoolmasters rubbish and dressed in shelljackets and calico helmets Yes sir theyre fighting in Oudh in calico helmets at this very day sir
Youre an impertinent minx miss answered the baronet Major Melville told me nothing of the kind but he told me that a very devoted admirer of you a certain Sir Harry Towers has forsaken his place in Hertfordshire and his hunting stable and has gone on the continent for a twelvemonths tour
Miss Audley flushed up suddenly at the mention of her old adorer but recovered herself very quickly
He has gone on the continent has he she said indifferently He told me that he meant to do so—if—if he didnt have everything his own way Poor fellow hes a dear goodhearted stupid creature and twenty times better than that peripatetic patent refrigerator Mr Robert Audley
I wish Alicia you were not so fond of ridiculing Bob Sir Michael said gravely Bob is a good fellow and Im as fond of him as if hed been my own son and—and—Ive been very uncomfortable about him lately He has changed very much within the last few days and he has taken all sorts of absurd ideas into his head and my lady has alarmed me about him She thinks—
Lady Audley interrupted her husband with a grave shake of her head
It is better not to say too much about it as yet awhile she said Alicia knows what I think
Yes replied Miss Audley my lady thinks that Bob is going mad but I know better than that Hes not at all the sort of person to go mad How should such a sluggish ditchpond of an intellect as his ever work itself into a tempest He may move about for the rest of his life perhaps in a tranquil state of semiidiotcy imperfectly comprehending who he is and where hes going and what hes doing—but hell never go mad
Sir Michael did not reply to this He had been very much disturbed by his conversation with my lady on the previous evening and had silently debated the painful question in his mind ever since
His wife—the woman he best loved and most believed in—had told him with all appearance of regret and agitation her conviction of his nephews insanity He tried in vain to arrive at the conclusion he wished most ardently to attain he tried in vain to think that my lady was misled by her own fancies and had no foundation for what she said But then again it suddenly flashed upon him that to think this was to arrive at a worse conclusion it was to transfer the horrible suspicion from his nephew to his wife She appeared to be possessed with an actual conviction of Roberts insanity To imagine her wrong was to imagine some weakness in her own mind The longer he thought of the subject the more it harassed and perplexed him It was most certain that the young man had always been eccentric He was sensible he was tolerably clever he was honorable and gentlemanlike in feeling though perhaps a little careless in the performance of certain minor social duties but there were some slight differences not easily to be defined that separated him from other men of his age and position Then again it was equally true that he had very much changed within the period that had succeeded the disappearance of George Talboys He had grown moody and thoughtful melancholy and absentminded He had held himself aloof from society had sat for hours without speaking had talked at other points by fits and starts and had excited himself unusually in the discussion of subjects which apparently lay far out of the region of his own life and interests Then there was even another region which seemed to strengthen my ladys case against this unhappy young man He had been brought up in the frequent society of his cousin Alicia—his pretty genial cousin—to whom interest and one would have thought affection naturally pointed as his most fitting bride More than this the girl had shown him in the innocent guilelessness of a transparent nature that on her side at least affection was not wanting and yet in spite of all this he had held himself aloof and had allowed others to propose for her hand and to be rejected by her and had still made no sign
Now love is so very subtle an essence such an indefinable metaphysical marvel that its due force though very cruelly felt by the sufferer himself is never clearly understood by those who look on at its torments and wonder why he takes the common fever so badly Sir Michael argued that because Alicia was a pretty girl and an amiable girl it was therefore extraordinary and unnatural in Robert Audley not to have duly fallen in love with her This baronet who close upon his sixtieth birthday had for the first time encountered that one woman who out of all the women in the world had power to quicken the pulses of his heart wondered why Robert failed to take the fever from the first breath of contagion that blew toward him He forgot that there are men who go their ways unscathed amidst legions of lovely and generous women to succumb at last before some harshfeatured virago who knows the secret of that only philter which can intoxicate and bewitch him He had forgot that there are certain Jacks who go through life without meeting the Jill appointed for them by Nemesis and die old bachelors perhaps with poor Jill pining an old maid upon the other side of the partywall He forgot that love which is a madness and a scourge and a fever and a delusion and a snare is also a mystery and very imperfectly understood by everyone except the individual sufferer who writhes under its tortures Jones who is wildly enamored of Miss Brown and who lies awake at night until he loathes his comfortable pillow and tumbles his sheets into two twisted rags of linen in his agonies as if he were a prisoner and wanted to wind them into impromptu ropes this same Jones who thinks Russell Square a magic place because his divinity inhabits it who thinks the trees in that inclosure and the sky above it greener and bluer than other trees or sky and who feels a pang yes an actual pang of mingled hope and joy and expectation and terror when he emerges from Guilford street descending from the hights of Islington into those sacred precincts this very Jones is hard and callous toward the torments of Smith who adores Miss Robinson and cannot imagine what the infatuated fellow can see in the girl So it was with Sir Michael Audley He looked at his nephew as a sample of a very large class of young men and his daughter as a sample of an equally extensive class of feminine goods and could not see why the two samples should not make a very respectable match He ignored all those infinitesimal differences in nature which make the wholesome food of one man the deadly poison of another How difficult it is to believe sometimes that a man doesnt like such and such a favorite dish If at a dinnerparty a meek looking guest refuses early salmon and cucumbers or green peas in February we set him down as a poor relation whose instincts warn him off those expensive plates If an alderman were to declare that he didnt like green fat he would be looked upon as a social martyr a Marcus Curtius of the dinnertable who immolated himself for the benefit of his kind His fellowaldermen would believe in anything rather than an heretical distaste for the city ambrosia of the soup tureen But there are people who dislike salmon and whitebait and spring ducklings and all manner of oldestablished delicacies and there are other people who affect eccentric and despicable dishes generally stigmatized as nasty
Alas my pretty Alicia your cousin did not love you He admired your rosy English face and had a tender affection for you which might perhaps have expanded byandby into something warm enough for matrimony that everyday jogtrot species of union which demands no very passionate devotion but for a sudden check which it had received in Dorsetshire Yes Robert Audleys growing affection for his cousin a plant of very slow growth I am fain to confess had been suddenly dwarfed and stunted upon that bitter February day on which he had stood beneath the pinetrees talking to Clara Talboys Since that day the young man had experienced an unpleasant sensation in thinking of poor Alicia He looked at her as being in some vague manner an incumbrance upon the freedom of his thoughts he had a haunting fear that he was in some tacit way pledged to her that she had a species of claim upon him which forbade to him the right of thinking of another woman I believe it was the image of Miss Audley presented to him in this light that goaded the young barrister into those outbursts of splenetic rage against the female sex which he was liable to at certain times He was strictly honorable so honorable that he would rather have immolated himself upon the altar of truth and Alicia than have done her the remotest wrong though by so doing he might have secured his own comfort and happiness
If the poor little girl loves me he thought and if she thinks that I love her and has been led to think so by any word or act of mine Im in duty bound to let her think so to the end of time and to fulfill any tacit promise which I may have unconsciously made I thought once—I meant once to—to make her an offer byandby when this horrible mystery about George Talboys should have been cleared up and everything peacefully settled—but now—
His thoughts would ordinarily wander away at this point of his reflections carrying him where he never had intended to go carrying him back under the pinetrees in Dorsetshire and setting him once more face to face with the sister of his missing friend and it was generally a very laborious journey by which he traveled back to the point from which he strayed It was so difficult for him to tear himself away from the stunted turf and the pinetrees
Poor little girl he would think on coming back to Alicia How good it is of her to love me and how grateful ought I to be for her tenderness How many fellows would think such a generous loving heart the highest boon that earth could give them Theres Sir Harry Towers stricken with despair at his rejection He would give me half his estate all his estate twice his estate if he had it to be in the shoes which I am anxious to shake off my ungrateful feet Why dont I love her Why is it that although I know her to be pretty and pure and good and truthful I dont love her Her image never haunts me except reproachfully I never see her in my dreams I never wake up suddenly in the dead of the night with her eyes shining upon me and her warm breath upon my cheek or with the fingers of her soft hand clinging to mine No Im not in love with her I cant fall in love with her
He raged and rebelled against his ingratitude He tried to argue himself into a passionate attachment for his cousin but he failed ignominiously and the more he tried to think of Alicia the more he thought of Clara Talboys I am speaking now of his feelings in the period that elapsed between his return from Dorsetshire and his visit to Grange Heath
Sir Michael sat by the library fire after breakfast upon this wretched rainy morning writing letters and reading the newspapers Alicia shut herself in her own apartment to read the third volume of a novel Lady Audley locked the door of the octagon antechamber and roamed up and down the suit of rooms from the bedroom to the boudoir all through that weary morning
She had locked the door to guard against the chance of any one coming in suddenly and observing her before she was aware—before she had had sufficient warning to enable her to face their scrutiny Her pale face seemed to grow paler as the morning advanced A tiny medicinechest was open upon the dressingtable and little stoppered bottles of red lavender salvolatile chloroform chlorodyne and ether were scattered about Once my lady paused before this medicinechest and took out the remaining bottles halfabsently perhaps until she came to one which was filled with a thick dark liquid and labeled opium—poison
She trifled a long time with this last bottle holding it up to the light and even removing the stopper and smelling the sickly liquid But she put it from her suddenly with a shudder If I could she muttered if I could only do it And yet why should I now
She clinched her small hands as she uttered the last words and walked to the window of the dressingroom which looked straight toward that ivied archway under which any one must come who came from Mount Stanning to the Court
There were smaller gates in the gardens which led into the meadows behind the Court but there was no other way of coming from Mount Stanning or Brentwood than by the principal entrance
The solitary hand of the clock over the archway was midway between one and two when my lady looked at it
How slow the time is she said wearily how slow how slow Shall I grow old like this I wonder with every minute of my life seeming like an hour
She stood for a few minutes watching the archway but no one passed under it while she looked and she turned impatiently away from the window to resume her weary wandering about the rooms
Whatever fire that had been which had reflected itself vividly in the black sky no tidings of it had as yet come to Audley Court The day was miserably wet and windy altogether the very last day upon which even the most confirmed idler and gossip would care to venture out It was not a marketday and there were therefore very few passengers upon the road between Brentwood and Chelmsford so that as yet no news of the fire which had occurred in the dead of the wintry night had reached the village of Audley or traveled from the village to the Court
The girl with the rosecolored ribbons came to the door of the anteroom to summon her mistress to luncheon but Lady Audley only opened the door a little way and intimated her intention of taking no luncheon
My head aches terribly Martin she said I shall go and lie down till dinnertime You may come at five to dress me
Lady Audley said this with the predetermination of dressing at four and thus dispensing with the services of her attendant Among all privileged spies a ladysmaid has the highest privileges it is she who bathes Lady Theresas eyes with eaudecologne after her ladyships quarrel with the colonel it is she who administers salvolatile to Miss Fanny when Count Beaudesert of the Blues has jilted her She has a hundred methods for the finding out of her mistress secrets She knows by the manner in which her victim jerks her head from under the hairbrush or chafes at the gentlest administration of the comb what hidden tortures are racking her breast—what secret perplexities are bewildering her brain That wellbred attendant knows how to interpret the most obscure diagnosis of all mental diseases that can afflict her mistress she knows when the ivory complexion is bought and paid for—when the pearly teeth are foreign substances fashioned by the dentist—when the glossy plaits are the relics of the dead rather than the property of the living and she knows other and more sacred secrets than these she knows when the sweet smile is more false than Madame Levisons enamel and far less enduring—when the words that issue from between gates of borrowed pearl are more disguised and painted than the lips which help to shape them—when the lovely fairy of the ballroom reenters the dressingroom after the nights long revelry and throws aside her voluminous burnous and her faded bouquet and drops her mask and like another Cinderella loses the glassslipper by whose glitter she has been distinguished and falls back into her rags and dirt the ladys maid is by to see the transformation The valet who took wages from the prophet of Korazin must have seen his master sometimes unveiled and must have laughed in his sleeve at the folly of the monsters worshipers
Lady Audley had made no confidante of her new maid and on this day of all others she wished to be alone
She did lie down she cast herself wearily upon the luxurious sofa in the dressingroom and buried her face in the down pillows and tried to sleep Sleep—she had almost forgotten what it was that tender restorer of tired nature it seemed so long now since she had slept It was only about eightandforty hours perhaps but it appeared an intolerable time Her fatigue of the night before and her unnatural excitement had worn her out at last She did fall asleep she fell into a heavy slumber that was almost like stupor She had taken a few drops out of the opium bottle in a glass of water before lying down
The clock over the mantelpiece chimed the quarter before four as she woke suddenly and started up with the cold perspiration breaking out in icy drops upon her forehead She had dreamt that every member of the household was clamoring at the door eager to tell her of a dreadful fire that had happened in the night
There was no sound but the flapping of the ivyleaves against the glass the occasional falling of a cinder and the steady ticking of the clock
Perhaps I shall be always dreaming these sort of dreams my lady thought until the terror of them kills me
The rain had ceased and the cold spring sunshine was glittering upon the windows Lady Audley dressed herself rapidly but carefully I do not say that even in her supremest hour of misery she still retained her pride in her beauty It was not so she looked upon that beauty as a weapon and she felt that she had now double need to be well armed She dressed herself in her most gorgeous silk a voluminous robe of silvery shimmering blue that made her look as if she had been arrayed in moonbeams She shook out her hair into feathery showers of glittering gold and with a cloak of white cashmere about her shoulders went downstairs into the vestibule
She opened the door of the library and looked in Sir Michael Audley was asleep in his easychair As my lady softly closed this door Alicia descended the stairs from her own room The turret door was open and the sun was shining upon the wet grassplat in the quadrangle The firm gravelwalks were already very nearly dry for the rain had ceased for upward of two hours
Will you take a walk with me in the quadrangle Lady Audley asked as her stepdaughter approached The armed neutrality between the two women admitted of any chance civility such as this
Yes if you please my lady Alicia answered rather listlessly I have been yawning over a stupid novel all the morning and shall be very glad of a little fresh air
Heaven help the novelist whose fiction Miss Audley had been perusing if he had no better critics than that young lady She had read page after page without knowing what she had been reading and had flung aside the volume half a dozen times to go to the window and watch for that visitor whom she had so confidently expected
Lady Audley led the way through the low doorway and on to the smooth gravel drive by which carriages approached the house She was still very pale but the brightness of her dress and of her feathery golden ringlets distracted an observers eyes from her pallid face All mental distress is with some show of reason associated in our minds with loose disordered garments and dishabilled hair and an appearance in every way the reverse of my ladys Why had she come out into the chill sunshine of that March afternoon to wander up and down that monotonous pathway with the stepdaughter she hated She came because she was under the dominion of a horrible restlessness which would not suffer her to remain within the house waiting for certain tidings which she knew must too surely come At first she had wished to ward them off—at first she had wished that strange convulsions of nature might arise to hinder their coming—that abnormal winter lightnings might wither and destroy the messenger who carried them—that the ground might tremble and yawn beneath his hastening feet and that impassable gulfs might separate the spot from which the tidings were to come and the place to which they were to be carried She wished that the earth might stand still and the paralyzed elements cease from their natural functions that the progress of time might stop that the Day of Judgment might come and that she might thus be brought before an unearthly tribunal and so escape the intervening shame and misery of any earthly judgment In the wild chaos of her brain every one of these thoughts had held its place and in her short slumber on the sofa in her dressingroom she had dreamed all these things and a hundred other things all bearing upon the same subject She had dreamed that a brook a tiny streamlet when she first saw it flowed across the road between Mount Stanning and Audley and gradually swelled into a river and from a river became an ocean till the village on the hill receded far away out of sight and only a great waste of waters rolled where it once had been She dreamt that she saw the messenger now one person now another but never any probable person hindered by a hundred hinderances now startling and terrible now ridiculous and trivial but never either natural or probable and going down into the quiet house with the memory of these dreams strong upon her she had been bewildered by the stillness which had betokened that the tidings had not yet come
And now her mind underwent a complete change She no longer wished to delay the dreaded intelligence She wished the agony whatever it was to be over and done with the pain suffered and the release attained It seemed to her as if the intolerable day would never come to an end as if her mad wishes had been granted and the progress of time had actually stopped
What a long day it has been exclaimed Alicia as if taking up the burden of my ladys thoughts nothing but drizzle and mist and wind And now that its too late for anybody to go out it must needs be fine the young lady added with an evident sense of injury
Lady Audley did not answer She was looking at the stupid onehanded clock and waiting for the news which must come sooner or later which could not surely fail to come very speedily
They have been afraid to come and tell him she thought they have been afraid to break the news to Sir Michael Who will come to tell it at last I wonder The rector of Mount Stanning perhaps or the doctor some important person at least
If she could have gone out into the leafless avenues or onto the high road beyond them if she could have gone so far as that hill upon which she had so lately parted with Phoebe she would have gladly done so She would rather have suffered anything than that slow suspense that corroding anxiety that metaphysical dryrot in which heart and mind seemed to decay under an insufferable torture She tried to talk and by a painful effort contrived now and then to utter some commonplace remark Under any ordinary circumstances her companion would have noticed her embarrassment but Miss Audley happening to be very much absorbed by her own vexations was quite as well inclined to be silent as my lady herself The monotonous walk up and down the graveled pathway suited Alicias humor I think that she even took a malicious pleasure in the idea that she was very likely catching cold and that her Cousin Robert was answerable for her danger If she could have brought upon herself inflammation of the lungs or ruptured bloodvessels by that exposure to the chill March atmosphere I think she would have felt a gloomy satisfaction in her sufferings
Perhaps Robert might care for me if I had inflammation of the lungs she thought He couldnt insult me by calling me a bouncer then Bouncers dont have inflammation of the lungs
I believe she drew a picture of herself in the last stage of consumption propped up by pillows in a great easychair looking out of a window in the afternoon sunshine with medicine bottles a bunch of grapes and a Bible upon a table by her side and with Robert all contrition and tenderness summoned to receive her farewell blessing She preached a whole chapter to him in that parting benediction talking a great deal longer than was in keeping with her prostrate state and very much enjoying her dismal castle in the air Employed in this sentimental manner Miss Audley took very little notice of her stepmother and the one hand of the blundering clock had slipped to six by the time Robert had been blessed and dismissed
Good gracious me she cried suddenly—six oclock and Im not dressed
The halfhour bell rung in a cupola upon the roof while Alicia was speaking
I must go in my lady she said Wont you come
Presently answered Lady Audley Im dressed you see
Alicia ran off but Sir Michaels wife still lingered in the quadrangle still waited for those tidings which were so long coming
It was nearly dark The blue mists of evening had slowly risen from the ground The flat meadows were filled with a gray vapor and a stranger might have fancied Audley Court a castle on the margin of a sea Under the archway the shadows of fastcoming night lurked darkly like traitors waiting for an opportunity to glide stealthily into the quadrangle Through the archway a patch of cold blue sky glimmered faintly streaked by one line of lurid crimson and lighted by the dim glitter of one wintrylooking star Not a creature was stirring in the quadrangle but the restless woman who paced up and down the straight pathways listening for a footstep whose coming was to strike terror to her soul She heard it at last—a footstep in the avenue upon the other side of the archway But was it the footstep Her sense of hearing made unnaturally acute by excitement told her that it was a mans footstep—told even more that it was the tread of a gentleman no slouching lumbering pedestrian in hobnailed boots but a gentleman who walked firmly and well
Every sound fell like a lump of ice upon my ladys heart She could not wait she could not contain herself she lost all selfcontrol all power of endurance all capability of selfrestraint and she rushed toward the archway
She paused beneath its shadow for the stranger was close upon her She saw him oh God she saw him in that dim evening light Her brain reeled her heart stopped beating She uttered no cry of surprise no exclamation of terror but staggered backward and clung for support to the ivied buttress of the archway With her slender figure crouched into the angle formed by the buttress and the wall which it supported she stood staring at the newcomer
As he approached her more closely her knees sunk under her and she dropped to the ground not fainting or in any manner unconscious but sinking into a crouching attitude and still crushed into the angle of the wall as if she would have made a tomb for herself in the shadow of that sheltering brickwork
My lady
The speaker was Robert Audley He whose bedroom door she had doublelocked seventeen hours before at the Castle Inn
What is the matter with you he said in a strange constrained manner Get up and let me take you indoors
He assisted her to rise and she obeyed him very submissively He took her arm in his strong hand and led her across the quadrangle and into the lamplit hall She shivered more violently than he had ever seen any woman shiver before but she made no attempt at resistance to his will
CHAPTER XXXIV
MY LADY TELLS THE TRUTH
Is there any room in which I can talk to you alone Robert Audley asked as he looked dubiously round the hall
My lady only bowed her head in answer She pushed open the door of the library which had been left ajar Sir Michael had gone to his dressingroom to prepare for dinner after a day of lazy enjoyment perfectly legitimate for an invalid The apartment was quite empty only lighted by the blaze of the fire as it had been upon the previous evening
Lady Audley entered the room followed by Robert who closed the door behind him The wretched shivering woman went to the fireplace and knelt down before the blaze as if any natural warmth could have power to check that unnatural chill The young man followed her and stood beside her upon the hearth with his arm resting upon the chimneypiece
Lady Audley he said in a voice whose icy sternness held out no hope of any tenderness or compassion I spoke to you lastnight very plainly but you refused to listen to me Tonight I must speak to you still more plainly and you must no longer refuse to listen to me
My lady crouching before the fire with her face hidden in her hands uttered a low sobbing sound which was almost a moan but made no other answer
There was a fire last night at Mount Stanning Lady Audley the pitiless voice proceeded the Castle Inn the house in which I slept was burned to the ground Do you know how I escaped perishing in that destruction
No
I escaped by a most providential circumstance which seems a very simple one I did not sleep in the room which had been prepared for me The place seemed wretchedly damp and chilly the chimney smoked abominably when an attempt was made at lighting a fire and I persuaded the servant to make me up a bed on the sofa in the small groundfloor sittingroom which I had occupied during the evening
He paused for a moment watching the crouching figure The only change in my ladys attitude was that her head had fallen a little lower
Shall I tell you by whose agency the destruction of the Castle Inn was brought about my lady
There was no answer
Shall I tell you
Still the same obstinate silence
My Lady Audley cried Robert suddenly you are the incendiary It was you whose murderous hand kindled those flames It was you who thought by that thricehorrible deed to rid yourself of me your enemy and denouncer What was it to you that other lives might be sacrificed If by a second massacre of Saint Bartholomew you could have ridded yourself of me you would have sacrificed an army of victims The day is past for tenderness and mercy For you I can no longer know pity or compunction So far as by sparing your shame I can spare others who must suffer by your shame I will be merciful but no further If there were any secret tribunal before which you might be made to answer for your crimes I would have little scruple in being your accuser but I would spare that generous and highborn gentleman upon whose noble name your infamy would be reflected
His voice softened as he made this allusion and for a moment he broke down but he recovered himself by an effort and continued
No life was lost in the fire of last night I slept lightly my lady for my mind was troubled as it has been for a long time by the misery which I knew was lowering upon this house It was I who discovered the breaking out of the fire in time to give the alarm and to save the servant girl and the poor drunken wretch who was very much burnt in spite of efforts and who now lies in a precarious state at his mothers cottage It was from him and from his wife that I learned who had visited the Castle Inn in the dead of the night The woman was almost distracted when she saw me and from her I discovered the particulars of last night Heaven knows what other secrets of yours she may hold my lady or how easily they might be extorted from her if I wanted her aid which I do not My path lies very straight before me I have sworn to bring the murderer of George Talboys to justice and I will keep my oath I say that it was by your agency my friend met with his death If I have wondered sometimes as it was only natural I should whether I was not the victim of some horrible hallucination whether such an alternative was not more probable than that a young and lovely woman should be capable of so foul and treacherous a murder all wonder is past After last nights deed of horror there is no crime you could commit however vast and unnatural which could make me wonder Henceforth you must seem to me no longer a woman a guilty woman with a heart which in its worst wickedness has yet some latent power to suffer and feel I look upon you henceforth as the demoniac incarnation of some evil principle But you shall no longer pollute this place by your presence Unless you will confess what you are and who you are in the presence of the man you have deceived so long and accept from him and from me such mercy as we may be inclined to extend to you I will gather together the witnesses who shall swear to your identity and at peril of any shame to myself and those I love I will bring upon you the just and awful punishment of your crime
The woman rose suddenly and stood before him erect and resolute with her hair dashed away from her face and her eyes glittering
Bring Sir Michael she cried bring him here and I will confess anything—everything What do I care God knows I have struggled hard enough against you and fought the battle patiently enough but you have conquered Mr Robert Audley It is a great triumph is it not—a wonderful victory You have used your cool calculating frigid luminous intellect to a noble purpose You have conquered—a MAD WOMAN
A mad woman cried Mr Audley
Yes a mad woman When you say that I killed George Talboys you say the truth When you say that I murdered him treacherously and foully you lie I killed him because I AM MAD because my intellect is a little way upon the wrong side of that narrow boundaryline between sanity and insanity because when George Talboys goaded me as you have goaded me and reproached me and threatened me my mind never properly balanced utterly lost its balance and I was mad Bring Sir Michael and bring him quickly If he is to be told one thing let him be told everything let him hear the secret of my life
Robert Audley left the room to look for his uncle He went in search of that honored kinsman with God knows how heavy a weight of anguish at his heart for he knew he was about to shatter the daydream of his uncles life and he knew that our dreams are none the less terrible to lose because they have never been the realities for which we have mistaken them But even in the midst of his sorrow for Sir Michael he could not help wondering at my ladys last words—the secret of my life He remembered those lines in the letter written by Helen Talboys upon the eve of her flight from Wildernsea which had so puzzled him He remembered those appealing sentences—You should forgive me for you know why I have been so You know the secret of my life
He met Sir Michael in the hall He made no attempt to prepare the way for the terrible revelation which the baronet was to hear He only drew him into the firelit library and there for the first time addressed him quietly thus Lady Audley has a confession to make to you sir—a confession which I know will be a most cruel surprise a most bitter grief But it is necessary for your present honor and for your future peace that you should hear it She has deceived you I regret to say most basely but it is only right that you should hear from her own lips any excuses which she may have to offer for her wickedness May God soften this blow for you sobbed the young man suddenly breaking down I cannot
Sir Michael lifted his hand as if he would command his nephew to be silent but that imperious hand dropped feeble and impotent at his side He stood in the center of the firelit room rigid and immovable
Lucy he cried in a voice whose anguish struck like a blow upon the jarred nerves of those who heard it as the cry of a wounded animal pains the listener—Lucy tell me that this man is a madman tell me so my love or I shall kill him
There was a sudden fury in his voice as he turned upon Robert as if he could indeed have felled his wifes accuser to the earth with the strength of his uplifted arm
But my lady fell upon her knees at his feet interposing herself between the baronet and his nephew who stood leaning on the back of an easychair with his face hidden by his hand
He has told you the truth said my lady and he is not mad I have sent him for you that I may confess everything to you I should be sorry for you if I could for you have been very very good to me much better to me than I ever deserved but I cant I cant—I can feel nothing but my own misery I told you long ago that I was selfish I am selfish still—more selfish than ever in my misery Happy prosperous people may feel for others I laugh at other peoples sufferings they seem so small compared to my own
When first my lady had fallen on her knees Sir Michael had attempted to raise her and had remonstrated with her but as she spoke he dropped into a chair close to the spot upon which she knelt and with his hands clasped together and with his head bent to catch every syllable of those horrible words he listened as if his whole being had been resolved into that one sense of hearing
I must tell you the story of my life in order to tell you why I have become the miserable wretch who has no better hope than to be allowed to run away and hide in some desolate corner of the earth I must tell you the story of my life repeated my lady but you need not fear that I shall dwell long upon it It has not been so pleasant to me that I should wish to remember it When I was a very little child I remember asking a question which it was natural enough that I should ask God help me I asked where my mother was I had a faint remembrance of a face like what my own is now looking at me when I was very little better than a baby but I had missed the face suddenly and had never seen it since They told me that mother was away I was not happy for the woman who had charge of me was a disagreeable woman and the place in which we lived was a lonely place a village upon the Hampshire coast about seven miles from Portsmouth My father who was in the navy only came now and then to see me and I was left almost entirely to the charge of this woman who was irregularly paid and who vented her rage upon me when my father was behindhand in remitting her money So you see that at a very early age I found out what it was to be poor
Perhaps it was more from being discontented with my dreary life than from any wonderful impulse of affection that I asked very often the same question about my mother I always received the same answer—she was away When I asked where I was told that that was a secret When I grew old enough to understand the meaning of the word death I asked if my mother was dead and I was told—No she was not dead she was ill and she was away I asked how long she had been ill and I was told that she had been so some years ever since I was a baby
At last the secret came out I worried my fostermother with the old question one day when the remittances had fallen very much in arrear and her temper had been unusually tried She flew into a passion and told me that my mother was a mad woman and that she was in a madhouse forty miles away She had scarcely said this when she repented and told me that it was not the truth and that I was not to believe it or to say that she had told me such a thing I discovered afterward that my father had made her promise most solemnly never to tell me the secret of my mothers fate
I brooded horribly upon the thought of my mothers madness It haunted me by day and night I was always picturing to myself this mad woman pacing up and down some prison cell in a hideous garment that bound her tortured limbs I had exaggerated ideas of the horror of her situation I had no knowledge of the different degrees of madness and the image that haunted me was that of a distraught and violent creature who would fall upon me and kill me if I came within her reach This idea grew upon me until I used to awake in the dead of night screaming aloud in an agony of terror from a dream in which I had felt my mothers icy grasp upon my throat and heard her ravings in my ear
When I was ten years old my father came to pay up the arrears due to my protectress and to take me to school He had left me in Hampshire longer than he had intended from his inability to pay this money so there again I felt the bitterness of poverty and ran the risk of growing up an ignorant creature among coarse rustic children because my father was poor
My lady paused for a moment but only to take breath for she had spoken rapidly as if eager to tell this hated story and to have done with it She was still on her knees but Sir Michael made no effort to raise her
He sat silent and immovable What was this story that he was listening to Whose was it and to what was it to lead It could not be his wifes he had heard her simple account of her youth and had believed it as he had believed in the Gospel She had told him a very brief story of an early orphanage and a long quiet colorless youth spent in the conventional seclusion of an English boardingschool
My father came at last and I told him what I had discovered He was very much affected when I spoke of my mother He was not what the world generally calls a good man but I learned afterward that he had loved his wife very dearly and that he would have willingly sacrificed his life to her and constituted himself her guardian had he not been compelled to earn the daily bread of the mad woman and her child by the exercise of his profession So here again I beheld what a bitter thing it is to be poor My mother who might have been tended by a devoted husband was given over to the care of hired nurses
Before my father sent me to school at Torquay he took me to see my mother This visit served at least to dispel the idea which had so often terrified me I saw no raving straightwaistcoated maniac guarded by zealous jailers but a goldenhaired blueeyed girlish creature who seemed as frivolous as a butterfly and who skipped toward us with her yellow curls decorated with natural flowers and saluted us with radiant smiles and gay ceaseless chatter
But she didnt know us She would have spoken in the same manner to any stranger who had entered the gates of the garden about her prisonhouse Her madness was an hereditary disease transmitted to her from her mother who had died mad She my mother had been or had appeared sane up to the hour of my birth but from that hour her intellect had decayed and she had become what I saw her
I went away with the knowledge of this and with the knowledge that the only inheritance I had to expect from my mother was—insanity
I went away with this knowledge in my mind and with something more—a secret to keep I was a child of ten years only but I felt all the weight of that burden I was to keep the secret of my mothers madness for it was a secret that might affect me injuriously in afterlife I was to remember this
I did remember this and it was perhaps this that made me selfish and heartless for I suppose I am heartless As I grew older I was told that I was pretty—beautiful—lovely—bewitching I heard all these things at first indifferently but byandby I listened to them greedily and began to think that in spite of the secret of my life I might be more successful in the worlds great lottery than my companions I had learnt that which in some indefinite manner or other every schoolgirl learns sooner or later—I learned that my ultimate fate in life depended upon my marriage and I concluded that if I was indeed prettier than my schoolfellows I ought to marry better than any one of them
I left school before I was seventeen years of age with this thought in my mind and I went to live at the other extremity of England with my father who had retired upon his halfpay and had established himself at Wildernsea with the idea that the place was cheap and select
The place was indeed select I had not been there a month before I discovered that even the prettiest girl might wait a long time for a rich husband I wish to hurry over this part of my life I dare say I was very despicable You and your nephew Sir Michael have been rich all your lives and can very well afford to despise me but I knew how far poverty can affect a life and I looked forward with a sickening dread to a life so affected At last the rich suitor the wandering prince came
She paused for a moment and shuddered convulsively It was impossible to see any of the changes in her countenance for her face was obstinately bent toward the floor Throughout her long confession she never lifted it throughout her long confession her voice was never broken by a tear What she had to tell she told in a cold hard tone very much the tone in which some criminal dogged and sullen to the last might have confessed to a jail chaplain
The wandering prince came she repeated he was called George Talboys
For the first time since his wifes confession had begun Sir Michael Audley started He began to understand it all now A crowd of unheeded words and forgotten circumstances that had seemed too insignificant for remark or recollection flashed back upon him as vividly as if they had been the leading incidents of his past life
Mr George Talboys was a cornet in a dragoon regiment He was the only son of a rich country gentleman He fell in love with me and married me three months after my seventeenth birthday I think I loved him as much as it was in my power to love anybody not more than I have loved you Sir Michael—not so much for when you married me you elevated me to a position that he could never have given me
The dream was broken Sir Michael Audley remembered that summers evening nearly two years ago when he had first declared his love for Mr Dawsons governess he remembered the sick halfshuddering sensation of regret and disappointment that had come over him then and he felt as if it had in some manner dimly foreshadowed the agony of tonight
But I do not believe that even in his misery he felt that entire and unmitigated surprise that utter revulsion of feeling that is felt when a good woman wanders away from herself and becomes the lost creature whom her husband is bound in honor to abjure I do not believe that Sir Michael Audley had ever really believed in his wife He had loved her and admired her he had been bewitched by her beauty and bewildered by her charms but that sense of something wanting that vague feeling of loss and disappointment which had come upon him on the summers night of his betrothal had been with him more or less distinctly ever since I cannot believe that an honest man however pure and single may be his mind however simply trustful his nature is ever really deceived by falsehood There is beneath the voluntary confidence an involuntary distrust not to be conquered by any effort of the will
We were married my lady continued and I loved him very well quite well enough to be happy with him as long as his money lasted and while we were on the Continent traveling in the best style and always staying at the best hotels But when we came back to Wildernsea and lived with papa and all the money was gone and George grew gloomy and wretched and was always thinking of his troubles and appeared to neglect me I was very unhappy and it seemed as if this fine marriage had only given me a twelvemonths gayety and extravagance after all I begged George to appeal to his father but he refused I persuaded him to try and get employment and he failed My baby was born and the crisis which had been fatal to my mother arose for me I escaped but I was more irritable perhaps after my recovery less inclined to fight the hard battle of the world more disposed to complain of poverty and neglect I did complain one day loudly and bitterly I upbraided George Talboys for his cruelty in having allied a helpless girl to poverty and misery and he flew into a passion with me and ran out of the house When I awoke the next morning I found a letter lying on the table by my bed telling me that he was going to the antipodes to seek his fortune and that he would never see me again until he was a rich man
I looked upon this as a desertion and I resented it bitterly—resented it by hating the man who had left me with no protector but a weak tipsy father and with a child to support I had to work hard for my living and in every hour of labor—and what labor is more wearisome than the dull slavery of a governess—I recognized a separate wrong done me by George Talboys His father was rich his sister was living in luxury and respectability and I his wife and the mother of his son was a slave allied to beggary and obscurity People pitied me and I hated them for their pity I did not love the child for he had been left a burden upon my hands The hereditary taint that was in my blood had never until this time showed itself by any one sign or token but at this time I became subject to fits of violence and despair At this time I think my mind first lost its balance and for the first time I crossed that invisible line which separates reason from madness I have seen my fathers eyes fixed upon me in horror and alarm I have known him soothe me as only mad people and children are soothed and I have chafed against his petty devices I have resented even his indulgence
At last these fits of desperation resolved themselves into a desperate purpose I determined to run away from this wretched home which my slavery supported I determined to desert this father who had more fear of me than love for me I determined to go to London and lose myself in that great chaos of humanity
I had seen an advertisement in the Times while I was at Wildernsea and I presented myself to Mrs Vincent the advertiser under a feigned name She accepted me waiving all questions as to my antecedents You know the rest I came here and you made me an offer the acceptance of which would lift me at once into the sphere to which my ambition had pointed ever since I was a schoolgirl and heard for the first time that I was pretty
Three years had passed and I had received no token of my husbands existence for I argued that if he had returned to England he would have succeeded in finding me under any name and in any place I knew the energy of his character well enough to know this
I said I have a right to think that he is dead or that he wishes me to believe him dead and his shadow shall not stand between me and prosperity I said this and I became your wife Sir Michael with every resolution to be as good a wife as it was in my nature to be The common temptations that assail and shipwreck some women had no terror for me I would have been your true and pure wife to the end of time though I had been surrounded by a legion of tempters The mad folly that the world calls love had never had any part in my madness and here at least extremes met and the vice of heartlessness became the virtue of constancy
I was very happy in the first triumph and grandeur of my new position very grateful to the hand that had lifted me to it In the sunshine of my own happiness I felt for the first time in my life for the miseries of others I had been poor myself and I was now rich and could afford to pity and relieve the poverty of my neighbors I took pleasure in acts of kindness and benevolence I found out my fathers address and sent him large sums of money anonymously for I did not wish him to discover what had become of me I availed myself to the full of the privilege your generosity afforded me I dispensed happiness on every side I saw myself loved as well as admired and I think I might have been a good woman for the rest of my life if fate would have allowed me to be so
I believe that at this time my mind regained its just balance I had watched myself very closely since leaving Wildernsea I had held a check upon myself I had often wondered while sitting in the surgeons quiet family circle whether any suspicion of that invisible hereditary taint had ever occurred to Mr Dawson
Fate would not suffer me to be good My destiny compelled me to be a wretch Within a month of my marriage I read in one of the Essex papers of the return of a certain Mr Talboys a fortunate goldseeker from Australia The ship had sailed at the time I read the paragraph What was to be done
I said just now that I knew the energy of Georges character I knew that the man who had gone to the antipodes and won a fortune for his wife would leave no stone unturned in his efforts to find her It was hopeless to think of hiding myself from him
Unless he could be induced to believe that I was dead he would never cease in his search for me
My brain was dazed as I thought of my peril Again the balance trembled again the invisible boundary was passed again I was mad
I went down to Southampton and found my father who was living there with my child You remember how Mrs Vincents name was used as an excuse for this hurried journey and how it was contrived I should go with no other escort than Phoebe Marks whom I left at the hotel while I went to my fathers house
I confided to my father the whole secret of my peril He was not very much shocked at what I had done for poverty had perhaps blunted his sense of honor and principle He was not very much shocked but he was frightened and he promised to do all in his power to assist me in my horrible emergency
He had received a letter addressed to me at Wildernsea by George and forwarded from there to my father This letter had been written within a few days of the sailing of the Argus and it announced the probable date of the ships arrival at Liverpool This letter gave us therefore data upon which to act
We decided at once upon the first step This was that on the date of the probable arrival of the Argus or a few days later an advertisement of my death should be inserted in the Times
But almost immediately after deciding upon this we saw that there were fearful difficulties in the carrying out of such a simple plan The date of the death and the place in which I died must be announced as well as the death itself George would immediately hurry to that place however distant it might be however comparatively inaccessible and the shallow falsehood would be discovered
I knew enough of his sanguine temperament his courage and determination his readiness to hope against hope to know that unless he saw the grave in which I was buried and the register of my death he would never believe that I was lost to him
My father was utterly dumfounded and helpless He could only shed childish tears of despair and terror He was of no use to me in this crisis
I was hopeless of any issue out of my difficulties I began to think that I must trust to the chapter of accidents and hope that among other obscure corners of the earth Audley Court might be undreamt of by my husband
I sat with my father drinking tea with him in his miserable hovel and playing with the child who was pleased with my dress and jewels but quite unconscious that I was anything but a stranger to him I had the boy in my arms when a woman who attended him came to fetch him that she might make him more fit to be seen by the lady as she said
I was anxious to know how the boy was treated and I detained this woman in conversation with me while my father dozed over the teatable
She was a palefaced sandyhaired woman of about fiveandforty and she seemed very glad to get the chance of talking to me as long as I pleased to allow her She soon left off talking of the boy however to tell me of her own troubles She was in very great trouble she told me Her eldest daughter had been obliged to leave her situation from illhealth in fact the doctor said the girl was in a decline and it was a hard thing for a poor widow who had seen better days to have a sick daughter to support as well as a family of young children
I let the woman run on for a long time in this manner telling me the girls ailments and the girls age and the girls doctors stuff and piety and sufferings and a great deal more But I neither listened to her nor heeded her I heard her but only in a faraway manner as I heard the traffic in the street or the ripple of the stream at the bottom of it What were this womans troubles to me I had miseries of my own and worse miseries than her coarse nature could ever have to endure These sort of people always had sick husbands or sick children and expected to be helped in their illness by the rich It was nothing out of the common I was thinking this and I was just going to dismiss the woman with a sovereign for her sick daughter when an idea flashed upon me with such painful suddenness that it sent the blood surging up to my brain and set my heart beating as it only beats when I am mad
I asked the woman her name She was a Mrs Plowson and she kept a small general shop she said and only ran in now and then to look after Georgey and to see that the little maidofallwork took care of him Her daughters name was Matilda I asked her several questions about this girl Matilda and I ascertained that she was fourandtwenty that she had always been consumptive and that she was now as the doctor said going off in a rapid decline He had declared that she could not last much more than a fortnight
It was in three weeks that the ship that carried George Talboys was expected to anchor in the Mersey
I need not dwell upon this business I visited the sick girl She was fair and slender Her description carelessly given might tally nearly enough with my own though she bore no shadow of resemblance to me except in these two particulars I was received by the girl as a rich lady who wished to do her a service I bought the mother who was poor and greedy and who for a gift of money more money than she had ever before received consented to submit to anything I wished Upon the second day after my introduction to this Mrs Plowson my father went over to Ventnor and hired lodgings for his invalid daughter and her little boy Early the next morning he carried over the dying girl and Georgey who had been bribed to call her mamma She entered the house as Mrs Talboys she was attended by a Ventnor medical man as Mrs Talboys she died and her death and burial were registered in that name
The advertisement was inserted in the Times and upon the second day after its insertion George Talboys visited Ventnor and ordered the tombstone which at this hour records the death of his wife Helen Talboys
Sir Michael Audley rose slowly and with a stiff constrained action as if every physical sense had been benumbed by that one sense of misery
I cannot hear any more he said in a hoarse whisper if there is anything more to be told I cannot hear it Robert it is you who have brought about this discovery as I understand I want to know nothing more Will you take upon yourself the duty of providing for the safety and comfort of this lady whom I have thought my wife I need not ask you to remember in all you do that I have loved her very dearly and truly I cannot say farewell to her I will not say it until I can think of her without bitterness—until I can pity her as I now pray that God may pity her this night
Sir Michael walked slowly from the room He did not trust himself to look at that crouching figure He did not wish to see the creature whom he had cherished He went straight to his dressingroom rung for his valet and ordered him to pack a portmanteau and make all necessary arrangements for accompanying his master by the last uptrain
CHAPTER XXXV
THE HUSH THAT SUCCEEDS THE TEMPEST
Robert Audley followed his uncle into the vestibule after Sir Michael had spoken those few quiet words which sounded the deathknell of his hope and love Heaven knows how much the young man had feared the coming of this day It had come and though there had been no great outburst of despair no whirlwind of stormy grief no loud tempest of anguish and tears Robert took no comforting thought from the unnatural stillness He knew enough to know that Sir Michael Audley went away with the barbed arrow which his nephews hand had sent home to its aim rankling in his tortured heart he knew that this strange and icy calm was the first numbness of a heart stricken by grief so unexpected as for a time to be rendered almost incomprehensible by a blank stupor of astonishment he knew that when this dull quiet had passed away when little by little and one by one each horrible feature of the sufferers sorrow became first dimly apparent and then terribly familiar to him the storm would burst in fatal fury and tempests of tears and cruel thunderclaps of agony would rend that generous heart
Robert had heard of cases in which men of his uncles age had borne some great grief as Sir Michael had borne this with a strange quiet and had gone away from those who would have comforted them and whose anxieties have been relieved by this patient stillness to fall down upon the ground and die under the blow which at first had only stunned him He remembered cases in which paralysis and apoplexy had stricken men as strong as his uncle in the first hour of the horrible affliction and he lingered in the lamplit vestibule wondering whether it was not his duty to be with Sir Michael—to be near him in case of any emergency and to accompany him wherever he went
Yet would it be wise to force himself upon that grayheaded sufferer in this cruel hour in which he had been awakened from the one delusion of a blameless life to discover that he had been the dupe of a false face and the fool of a nature which was too coldly mercenary too cruelly heartless to be sensible of its own infamy
No thought Robert Audley I will not intrude upon the anguish of this wounded heart There is humiliation mingled with this bitter grief It is better he should fight the battle alone I have done what I believe to have been my solemn duty yet I should scarcely wonder if I had rendered myself forever hateful to him It is better he should fight the battle alone I can do nothing to make the strife less terrible Better that it should be fought alone
While the young man stood with his hand upon the library door still halfdoubtful whether he should follow his uncle or reenter the room in which he had left that more wretched creature whom it had been his business to unmask Alicia Audley opened the diningroom door and revealed to him the oldfashioned oakpaneled apartment the long table covered with showy damask and bright with a cheerful glitter of glass and silver
Is papa coming to dinner asked Miss Audley Im so hungry and poor Tomlins has sent up three times to say the fish will be spoiled It must be reduced to a species of isinglass soup by this time I should think added the young lady as she came out into the vestibule with the Times newspaper in her hand
She had been sitting by the fire reading the paper and waiting for her seniors to join her at the dinner table
Oh its you Mr Robert Audley she remarked indifferently You dine with us of course Pray go and find papa It must be nearly eight oclock and we are supposed to dine at six
Mr Audley answered his cousin rather sternly Her frivolous manner jarred upon him and he forgot in his irrational displeasure that Miss Audley had known nothing of the terrible drama which had been so long enacting under her very nose
Your papa has just endured a very great grief Alicia the young man said gravely
The girls arch laughing face changed in a moment to a tenderly earnest look of sorrow and anxiety Alicia Audley loved her father very dearly
A grief she exclaimed papa grieved Oh Robert what has happened
I can tell you nothing yet Alicia Robert answered in a low voice
He took his cousin by the wrist and drew her into the diningroom as he spoke He closed the door carefully behind him before he continued
Alicia can I trust you he asked earnestly
Trust me to do what
To be a comfort and a friend to your poor father under a very heavy affliction
Yes cried Alicia passionately How can you ask me such a question Do you think there is anything I would not do to lighten any sorrow of my fathers Do you think there is anything I would not suffer if my suffering could lighten his
The rushing tears rose to Miss Audleys bright gray eyes as she spoke
Oh Robert Robert could you think so badly of me as to think I would not try to be a comfort to my father in his grief she said reproachfully
No no my dear answered the young man quietly I never doubted your affection I only doubted your discretion May I rely upon that
You may Robert said Alicia resolutely
Very well then my dear girl I will trust you Your father is going to leave the Court for a time at least The grief which he has just endured—a sudden and unlookedfor sorrow remember—has no doubt made this place hateful to him He is going away but he must not go alone must he Alicia
Alone no no But I suppose my lady—
Lady Audley will not go with him said Robert gravely he is about to separate himself from her
For a time
No forever
Separate himself from her forever exclaimed Alicia Then this grief—
Is connected with Lady Audley Lady Audley is the cause of your fathers sorrow
Alicias face which had been pale before flushed crimson Sorrow of which my lady was the cause—a sorrow which was to separate Sir Michael forever from his wife There had been no quarrel between them—there had never been anything but harmony and sunshine between Lady Audley and her generous husband This sorrow must surely then have arisen from some sudden discovery it was no doubt a sorrow associated with disgrace Robert Audley understood the meaning of that vivid blush
You will offer to accompany your father wherever he may choose to go Alicia he said You are his natural comforter at such a time as this but you will best befriend him in this hour of trial by avoiding all intrusion upon his grief Your very ignorance of the particulars of that grief will be a security for your discretion Say nothing to your father that you might not have said to him two years ago before he married a second wife Try and be to him what you were before the woman in yonder room came between you and your fathers love
I will murmured Alicia I will
You will naturally avoid all mention of Lady Audleys name If your father is often silent be patient if it sometimes seems to you that the shadow of this great sorrow will never pass away from his life be patient still and remember that there can be no better hope of a cure of his grief than the hope that his daughters devotion may lead him to remember there is one woman upon this earth who will love him truly and purely until the last
Yes—yes Robert dear cousin I will remember
Mr Audley for the first time since he had been a schoolboy took his cousin in his arms and kissed her broad forehead
My dear Alicia he said do this and you will make me happy I have been in some measure the means of bringing this sorrow upon your father Let me hope that it is not an enduring one Try and restore my uncle to happiness Alicia and I will love you more dearly than brother ever loved a noblehearted sister and a brotherly affection may be worth having perhaps after all my dear though it is very different to poor Sir Harrys enthusiastic worship
Alicias head was bent and her face hidden from her cousin while he spoke but she lifted her head when he had finished and looked him full in the face with a smile that was only the brighter for her eyes being filled with tears
You are a good fellow Bob she said and Ive been very foolish and wicked to feel angry with you because—
The young lady stopped suddenly
Because what my dear asked Mr Audley
Because Im silly Cousin Robert Alicia said quickly never mind that Bob Ill do all you wish and it shall not be my fault if my dearest father doesnt forget his troubles before long Id go to the end of the world with him poor darling if I thought there was any comfort to be found for him in the journey Ill go and get ready directly Do you think papa will go tonight
Yes my dear I dont think Sir Michael will rest another night under this roof yet awhile
The mail goes at twenty minutes past nine said Alicia we must leave the house in an hour if we are to travel by it I shall see you again before we go Robert
Yes dear
Miss Audley ran off to her room to summon her maid and make all necessary preparations for the sudden journey of whose ultimate destination she was as yet quite ignorant
She went heart and soul into the carrying out of the duty which Robert had dictated to her She assisted in the packing of her portmanteaus and hopelessly bewildered her maid by stuffing silk dresses into her bonnetboxes and satin shoes into her dressingcase She roamed about her rooms gathering together drawingmaterials musicbooks needlework hairbrushes jewelry and perfumebottles very much as she might have done had she been about to sail for some savage country devoid of all civilized resources She was thinking all the time of her fathers unknown grief and perhaps a little of the serious face and earnest voice which had that night revealed her Cousin Robert to her in a new character
Mr Audley went upstairs after his cousin and found his way to Sir Michaels dressingroom He knocked at the door and listened Heaven knows how anxiously for the expected answer There was a moments pause during which the young mans heart beat loud and fast and then the door was opened by the baronet himself Robert saw that his uncles valet was already hard at work preparing for his masters hurried journey
Sir Michael came out into the corridor
Have you anything more to say to me Robert he asked quietly
I only came to ascertain if I could assist in any of your arrangements You go to London by the mail
Yes
Have you any idea of where you will stay
Yes I shall stop at the Clarendon I am known there Is that all you have to say
Yes except that Alicia will accompany you
Alicia
She could not very well stay here you know just now It would be best for her to leave the Court until—
Yes yes I understand interrupted the baronet but is there nowhere else that she could go—must she be with me
She could go nowhere else so immediately and she would not be happy anywhere else
Let her come then said Sir Michael let her come
He spoke in a strange subdued voice and with an apparent effort as if it were painful to him to have to speak at all as if all this ordinary business of life were a cruel torture to him and jarred so much upon his grief as to be almost worse to bear than that grief itself
Very well my dear uncle then all is arranged Alicia will be ready to start at nine oclock
Very good very good muttered the baronet let her come if she pleases poor child let her come
He sighed heavily as he spoke in that half pitying tone of his daughter He was thinking how comparatively indifferent he had been toward that only child for the sake of the woman now shut in the firelit room below
I shall see you again before you go sir said Robert I will leave you till then
Stay said Sir Michael suddenly have you told Alicia
I have told her nothing except that you are about to leave the Court for some time
You are very good my boy you are very good the baronet murmured in a broken voice
He stretched out his hand His nephew took it in both his own and pressed it to his lips
Oh sir how can I ever forgive myself he said how can I ever cease to hate myself for having brought this grief upon you
No no Robert you did right I wish that God had been so merciful to me as to take my miserable life before this night but you did right
Sir Michael reentered his dressingroom and Robert slowly returned to the vestibule He paused upon the threshold of that chamber in which he had left Lucy—Lady Audley otherwise Helen Talboys the wife of his lost friend
She was lying upon the floor upon the very spot in which she had crouched at her husbands feet telling her guilty story Whether she was in a swoon or whether she lay there in the utter helplessness of her misery Robert scarcely cared to know He went out into the vestibule and sent one of the servants to look for her maid the smart beribboned damsel who was loud in wonder and consternation at the sight of her mistress
Lady Audley is very ill he said take her to her room and see that she does not leave it tonight You will be good enough to remain near her but do not either talk to her or suffer her to excite herself by talking
My lady had not fainted she allowed the girl to assist her and rose from the ground upon which she had groveled Her golden hair fell in loose disheveled masses about her ivory throat and shoulders her face and lips were colorless her eyes terrible in their unnatural light
Take me away she said and let me sleep Let me sleep for my brain is on fire
As she was leaving the room with her maid she turned and looked at Robert Is Sir Michael gone she asked
He will leave in half an hour
There were no lives lost in the fire at Mount Stanning
None
I am glad of that
The landlord of the house Marks was very terribly burned and lies in a precarious state at his mothers cottage but he may recover
I am glad of that—I am glad no life was lost Goodnight Mr Audley
I shall ask to see you for half an hours conversation in the course of tomorrow my lady
Whenever you please Good night
Good night
She went away quietly leaning upon her maids shoulder and leaving Robert with a sense of strange bewilderment that was very painful to him
He sat down by the broad hearth upon which the red embers were fading and wondered at the change in that old house which until the day of his friends disappearance had been so pleasant a home for all who sheltered beneath its hospitable roof He sat brooding over the desolate hearth and trying to decide upon what must be done in this sudden crisis He sat helpless and powerless to determine upon any course of action lost in a dull revery from which he was aroused by the sound of carriagewheels driving up to the little turret entrance
The clock in the vestibule struck nine as Robert opened the library door Alicia had just descended the stairs with her maid a rosyfaced country girl
Goodby Robert said Miss Audley holding out her hand to her cousin goodby and God bless you You may trust me to take care of papa
I am sure I may God bless you my dear
For the second time that night Robert Audley pressed his lips to his cousins candid forehead and for the second time the embrace was of a brotherly or paternal character rather than the rapturous proceeding which it would have been had Sir Harry Towers been the privileged performer
It was five minutes past nine when Sir Michael came downstairs followed by his valet grave and grayhaired like himself The baronet was pale but calm and selfpossessed The hand which he gave to his nephew was as cold as ice but it was with a steady voice that he bade the young man goodby
I leave all in your hands Robert he said as he turned to leave the house in which he had lived so long I may not have heard the end but I have heard enough Heaven knows I have no need to hear more I leave all to you but you will not be cruel—you will remember how much I loved—
His voice broke huskily before he could finish the sentence
I will remember you in everything sir the young man answered I will do everything for the best
A treacherous mist of tears blinded him and shut out his uncles face and in another minute the carriage had driven away and Robert Audley sat alone in the dark library where only one red spark glowed among the pale gray ashes He sat alone trying to think what he ought to do and with the awful responsibility of a wicked womans fate upon his shoulders
Good Heaven he thought surely this must be Gods judgment upon the purposeless vacillating life I led up to the seventh day of last September Surely this awful responsibility has been forced upon me in order that I may humble myself to an offended Providence and confess that a man cannot choose his own life He cannot say I will take existence lightly and keep out of the way of the wretched mistaken energetic creatures who fight so heartily in the great battle He cannot say I will stop in the tents while the strife is fought and laugh at the fools who are trampled down in the useless struggle He cannot do this He can only do humbly and fearfully that which the Maker who created him has appointed for him to do If he has a battle to fight let him fight it faithfully but woe betide him if he skulks when his name is called in the mighty musterroll woe betide him if he hides in the tents when the tocsin summons him to the scene of war
One of the servants brought candles into the library and relighted the fire but Robert Audley did not stir from his seat by the hearth He sat as he had often sat in his chambers in Figtree Court with his elbows resting upon the arms of his chair and his chin upon his hand
But he lifted his head as the servant was about to leave the room
Can I send a message from here to London he asked
It can be sent from Brentwood sir—not from here
Mr Audley looked at his watch thoughtfully
One of the men can ride over to Brentwood sir if you wish any message to be sent
I do wish to send a message will you manage it for me Richards
Certainly sir
You can wait then while I write the message
Yes sir
The man brought writing materials from one of the sidetables and placed them before Mr Audley
Robert dipped a pen in the ink and stared thoughtfully at one of the candles for a few moments before he began to write
The message ran thus
From Robert Audley of Audley Court Essex to Francis Wilmington of Paperbuildings Temple
DEAR WILMINGTON—If you know any physician experienced in cases of mania and to be trusted with a secret be so good as to send me his address by telegraph
Mr Audley sealed this document in a stout envelope and handed it to the man with a sovereign
You will see that this is given to a trustworthy person Richards he said and let the man wait at the station for the return message He ought to get it in an hour and a half
Mr Richards who had known Robert Audley in jackets and turndown collars departed to execute his commission Heaven forbid that we should follow him into the comfortable servants hall at the Court where the household sat round the blazing fire discussing in utter bewilderment the events of the day
Nothing could be wider from the truth than the speculations of these worthy people What clew had they to the mystery of that firelit room in which a guilty woman had knelt at their masters feet to tell the story of her sinful life They only knew that which Sir Michaels valet had told them of this sudden journey How his master was as pale as a sheet and spoke in a strange voice that didnt sound like his own somehow and how you might have knocked him—Mr Parsons the valet—down with a feather if you had been minded to prostrate him by the aid of so feeble a weapon
The wiseheads of the servants hall decided that Sir Michael had received sudden intelligence through Mr Robert—they were wise enough to connect the young man with the catastrophe—either of the death of some near and dear relation—the elder servants decimated the Audley family in their endeavors to find a likely relation—or of some alarming fall in the funds or of the failure of some speculation or bank in which the greater part of the baronets money was invested The general leaning was toward the failure of a bank and every member of the assembly seemed to take a dismal and ravenlike delight in the fancy though such a supposition involved their own ruin in the general destruction of that liberal household
Robert sat by the dreary hearth which seemed dreary even now when the blaze of a great woodfire roared in the wide chimney and listened to the low wail of the March wind moaning round the house and lifting the shivering ivy from the walls it sheltered He was tired and worn out for remember that he had been awakened from his sleep at two oclock that morning by the hot breath of blazing timber and the sharp crackling of burning woodwork But for his presence of mind and cool decision Mr Luke Marks would have died a dreadful death He still bore the traces of the nights peril for the dark hair had been singed upon one side of his forehead and his left hand was red and inflamed from the effect of the scorching atmosphere out of which he had dragged the landlord of the Castle Inn He was thoroughly exhausted with fatigue and excitement and he fell into a heavy sleep in his easychair before the bright fire from which he was only awakened by the entrance of Mr Richards with the return message
This return message was very brief
DEAR AUDLEY—Always glad to oblige Alwyn Mosgrave MD 12 Saville Row Safe
This with names and addresses was all that it contained
I shall want another message taken to Brentwood tomorrow morning Richards said Mr Audley as he folded the telegram I should be glad if the man would ride over with it before breakfast He shall have half a sovereign for his trouble
Mr Richards bowed
Thank you sir—not necessary sir but as you please of course sir he murmured At what hour might you wish the man to go
Mr Audley might wish the man to go as early as he could so it was decided that he should go at six
My room is ready I suppose Richards said Robert
Yes sir—your old room
Very good I shall go to bed at once Bring me a glass of brandy and water as hot as you can make it and wait for the telegram
This second message was only a very earnest request to Doctor Mosgrave to pay an immediate visit to Audley Court on a matter of serious moment
Having written this message Mr Audley felt that he had done all that he could do He drank his brandy and water He had actual need of the diluted alcohol for he had been chilled to the bone by his adventures during the fire He slowly sipped the pale golden liquid and thought of Clara Talboys of that earnest girl whose brothers memory was now avenged whose brothers destroyer was humiliated in the dust Had she heard of the fire at the Castle Inn How could she have done otherwise than hear of it in such a place as Mount Stanning But had she heard that he had been in danger and that he had distinguished himself by the rescue of a drunken boor I fear that even sitting by that desolate hearth and beneath the roof whose noble was an exile from his own house Robert Audley was weak enough to think of these things—weak enough to let his fancy wander away to the dismal firtrees under the cold March sky and the darkbrown eyes that were so like the eyes of his lost friend
CHAPTER XXXVI
DR MOSGRAVES ADVICE
My lady slept Through that long winter night she slept soundly Criminals have often so slept their last sleep upon earth and have been found in the gray morning slumbering peacefully by the jailer who came to wake them
The game had been played and lost I do not think that my lady had thrown away a card or missed the making of a trick which she might by any possibility have made but her opponents hand had been too powerful for her and he had won
She looked upon herself as a species of state prisoner who would have to be taken good care of A second Iron Mask who must be provided for in some comfortable place of confinement She abandoned herself to a dull indifference She had lived a hundred lives within the space of the last few days of her existence and she had worn out her capacity for suffering—for a time at least
She ate her breakfast and took her morning bath and emerged with perfumed hair and in the most exquisitely careless of morning toilets from her luxurious dressingroom She looked at herself in the chevalglass before she left the room A long nights rest had brought back the delicate rosetints of her complexion and the natural luster of her blue eyes That unnatural light which had burned so fearfully the day before had gone and my lady smiled triumphantly as she contemplated the reflection of her beauty The days were gone in which her enemies could have branded her with whitehot irons and burned away the loveliness which had done such mischief Whatever they did to her they must leave her her beauty she thought At the worst they were powerless to rob her of that
The March day was bright and sunny with a cheerless sunshine certainly My lady wrapped herself in an Indian shawl a shawl that had cost Sir Michael a hundred guineas I think she had an idea that it would be well to wear this costly garment so that if hustled suddenly away she might carry at least one of her possessions with her Remember how much she had periled for a fine house and gorgeous furniture for carriages and horses jewels and laces and do not wonder if she clings with a desperate tenacity to gauds and gewgaws in the hour of her despair If she had been Judas she would have held to her thirty pieces of silver to the last moment of her shameful life
Mr Robert Audley breakfasted in the library He sat long over his solitary cup of tea smoking his meerschaum pipe and meditating darkly upon the task that lay before him
I will appeal to the experience of this Dr Mosgrave he though physicians and lawyers are the confessors of this prosaic nineteenth century Surely he will be able to help me
The first fast train from London arrived at Audley at halfpast ten oclock and at five minutes before eleven Richards the grave servant announced Dr Alwyn Mosgrave
The physician from Saville Row was a tall man of about fifty years of age He was thin and sallow with lantern jaws and eyes of a pale feeble gray that seemed as if they had once been blue and had faded by the progress of time to their present neutral shade However powerful the science of medicine as wielded by Dr Alwyn Mosgrave it had not been strong enough to put flesh upon his bones or brightness into his face He had a strangely expressionless and yet strangely attentive countenance He had the face of a man who had spent the greater part of his life in listening to other people and who had parted with his own individuality and his own passions at the very outset of his career
He bowed to Robert Audley took the opposite seat indicated by him and addressed his attentive face to the young barrister Robert saw that the physicians glance for a moment lost its quiet look of attention and became earnest and searching
He is wondering whether I am the patient thought Mr Audley and is looking for the diagnoses of madness in my face
Dr Mosgrave spoke as if in answer to this thought
Is it not about your own—health—that you wish to consult me he said interrogatively
Oh no
Dr Mosgrave looked at his watch a fiftyguinea Bensonmade chronometer which he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket as carelessly as if it had been a potato
I need not remind you that my time is precious he said your telegram informed me that my services were required in a case of—danger—as I apprehend or I should not be here this morning
Robert Audley had sat looking gloomily at the fire wondering how he should begin the conversation and had needed this reminder of the physicians presence
You are very good Dr Mosgrave he said rousing himself by an effort and I thank you very much for having responded to my summons I am about to appeal to you upon a subject which is more painful to me than words can describe I am about to implore your advice in a most difficult case and I trust almost blindly to your experience to rescue me and others who are very dear to me from a cruel and complicated position
The businesslike attention in Dr Mosgraves face grew into a look of interest as he listened to Robert Audley
The revelation made by the patient to the physician is I believe as sacred as the confession of a penitent to his priest Robert asked gravely
Quite as sacred
A solemn confidence to be violated under no circumstances
Most certainly
Robert Audley looked at the fire again How much should he tell or how little of the dark history of his uncles second wife
I have been given to understand Dr Mosgrave that you have devoted much of your attention to the treatment of insanity
Yes my practice is almost confined to the treatment of mental diseases
Such being the case I think I may venture to conclude that you sometimes receive strange and even terrible revelations
Dr Mosgrave bowed
He looked like a man who could have carried safely locked in his passionless breast the secrets of a nation and who would have suffered no inconvenience from the weight of such a burden
The story which I am about to tell you is not my own story said Robert after a pause you will forgive me therefore if I once more remind you that I can only reveal it upon the understanding that under no circumstances or upon no apparent justification is that confidence to be betrayed
Dr Mosgrave bowed again A little sternly perhaps this time
I am all attention Mr Audley he said coldly
Robert Audley drew his chair nearer to that of the physician and in a low voice began the story which my lady had told upon her knees in that same chamber upon the previous night Dr Mosgraves listening face turned always toward the speaker betrayed no surprise at that strange revelation He smiled once a grave quiet smile when Mr Audley came to that part of the story which told of the conspiracy at Ventnor but he was not surprised Robert Audley ended his story at the point at which Sir Michael Audley had interrupted my ladys confession He told nothing of the disappearance of George Talboys nor of the horrible suspicions that had grown out of that disappearance He told nothing of the fire at the Castle Inn
Dr Mosgrave shook his head gravely when Mr Audley came to the end of his story
You have nothing further to tell me he said
No I do not think there is anything more that need be told Robert answered rather evasively
You would wish to prove that this lady is mad and therefore irresponsible for her actions Mr Audley said the physician
Robert Audley stared wondering at the mad doctor By what process had he so rapidly arrived at the young mans secret desire
Yes I would rather if possible think her mad I should be glad to find that excuse for her
And to save the esclandre of a Chancery suit I suppose Mr Audley said Dr Mosgrave
Robert shuddered as he bowed an assent to this remark It was something worse than a Chancery suit that he dreaded with a horrible fear It was a trial for murder that had so long haunted his dreams How often he had awoke in an agony of shame from a vision of a crowded courthouse and his uncles wife in a criminal dock hemmed in on every side by a sea of eager faces
I fear that I shall not be of any use to you the physician said quietly I will see the lady if you please but I do not believe that she is mad
Why not
Because there is no evidence of madness in anything she has done She ran away from her home because her home was not a pleasant one and she left in the hope of finding a better There is no madness in that She committed the crime of bigamy because by that crime she obtained fortune and position There is no madness there When she found herself in a desperate position she did not grow desperate She employed intelligent means and she carried out a conspiracy which required coolness and deliberation in its execution There is no madness in that
But the traits of hereditary insanity—
May descend to the third generation and appear in the ladys children if she have any Madness is not necessarily transmitted from mother to daughter I should be glad to help you if I could Mr Audley but I do not think there is any proof of insanity in the story you have told me I do not think any jury in England would accept the plea of insanity in such a case as this The best thing you can do with this lady is to send her back to her first husband if he will have her
Robert started at this sudden mention of his friend
Her first husband is dead he answered at least he has been missing for some time—and I have reason to believe that he is dead
Dr Mosgrave saw the startled movement and heard the embarrassment in Robert Audleys voice as he spoke of George Talboys
The ladys first husband is missing he said with a strange emphasis on the word—you think that he is dead
He paused for a few moments and looked at the fire as Robert had looked before
Mr Audley he said presently there must be no halfconfidences between us You have not told me all
Robert looking up suddenly plainly expressed in his face the surprise he felt at these words
I should be very poorly able to meet the contingencies of my professional experience said Dr Mosgrave if I could not perceive where confidence ends and reservation begins You have only told me half this ladys story Mr Audley You must tell me more before I can offer you any advice What has become of the first husband
He asked this question in a decisive tone as if he knew it to be the keystone of an arch
I have already told you Dr Mosgrave that I do not know
Yes answered the physician but your face has told me what you have withheld from me it has told me that you suspect
Robert Audley was silent
If I am to be of use to you you must trust me Mr Audley said the physician The first husband disappeared—how and when I want to know the history of his disappearance
Robert paused for some time before he replied to this speech but by and by he lifted his head which had been bent in an attitude of earnest thought and addressed the physician
I will trust you Dr Mosgrave he said I will confide entirely in your honor and goodness I do not ask you to do any wrong to society but I ask you to save our stainless name from degradation and shame if you can do so conscientiously
He told the story of Georges disappearance and of his own doubts and fears Heaven knows how reluctantly
Dr Mosgrave listened as quietly as he had listened before Robert concluded with an earnest appeal to the physicians best feelings He implored him to spare the generous old man whose fatal confidence in a wicked woman had brought much misery upon his declining years
It was impossible to draw any conclusion either favorable or otherwise from Dr Mosgraves attentive face He rose when Robert had finished speaking and looked at his watch once more
I can only spare you twenty minutes he said I will see the lady if you please You say her mother died in a madhouse
She did Will you see Lady Audley alone
Yes alone if you please
Robert rung for my ladys maid and under convoy of that smart young damsel the physician found his way to the octagon antechamber and the fairy boudoir with which it communicated
Ten minutes afterward he returned to the library in which Robert sat waiting for him
I have talked to the lady he said quietly and we understand each other very well There is latent insanity Insanity which might never appear or which might appear only once or twice in a lifetime It would be a dementia in its worst phase perhaps acute mania but its duration would be very brief and it would only arise under extreme mental pressure The lady is not mad but she has the hereditary taint in her blood She has the cunning of madness with the prudence of intelligence I will tell you what she is Mr Audley She is dangerous
Dr Mosgrave walked up and down the room once or twice before he spoke again
I will not discuss the probabilities of the suspicion which distresses you Mr Audley he said presently but I will tell you this much I do not advise any esclandre This Mr George Talboys has disappeared but you have no evidence of his death If you could produce evidence of his death you could produce no evidence against this lady beyond the one fact that she had a powerful motive for getting rid of him No jury in the United Kingdom would condemn her upon such evidence as that
Robert Audley interrupted Dr Mosgrave hastily
I assure you my dear sir he said that my greatest fear is the necessity of any exposure—any disgrace
Certainly Mr Audley answered the physician coolly but you cannot expect me to assist you to condone one of the worst offenses against society If I saw adequate reason for believing that a murder had been committed by this woman I should refuse to assist you in smuggling her away out of the reach of justice although the honor of a hundred noble families might be saved by my doing so But I do not see adequate reason for your suspicions and I will do my best to help you
Robert Audley grasped the physicians hands in both his own
I will thank you when I am better able to do so he said with emotion I will thank you in my uncles name as well as in my own
I have only five minutes more and I have a letter to write said Dr Mosgrave smiling at the young mans energy
He seated himself at a writingtable in the window dipped his pen in the ink and wrote rapidly for about seven minutes He had filled three sides of a sheet of notepaper when he threw down his pen and folded his letter
He put this letter into an envelope and delivered it unsealed to Robert Audley
The address which it bore was
Monsieur Val
Villebrumeuse
Belgium
Mr Audley looked rather doubtfully from this address to the doctor who was putting on his gloves as deliberately as if his life had never known a more solemn purpose than the proper adjustment of them
That letter he said in answer to Robert Audleys inquiring look is written to my friend Monsieur Val the proprietor and medical superintendent of a very excellent maison de sante in the town of Villebrumeuse We have known each other for many years and he will no doubt willingly receive Lady Audley into his establishment and charge himself with the full responsibility of her future life it will not be a very eventful one
Robert Audley would have spoken he would have once more expressed his gratitude for the help which had been given to him but Dr Mosgrave checked him with an authoritative gesture
From the moment in which Lady Audley enters that house he said her life so far as life is made up of action and variety will be finished Whatever secrets she may have will be secrets forever Whatever crimes she may have committed she will be able to commit no more If you were to dig a grave for her in the nearest churchyard and bury her alive in it you could not more safely shut her from the world and all worldly associations But as a physiologist and as an honest man I believe you could do no better service to society than by doing this for physiology is a lie if the woman I saw ten minutes ago is a woman to be trusted at large If she could have sprung at my throat and strangled me with her little hands as I sat talking to her just now she would have done it
She suspected your purpose then
She knew it You think I am mad like my mother and you have come to question me she said You are watching for some sign of the dreadful taint in my blood Goodday to you Mr Audley the physician added hurriedly my time was up ten minutes ago it is as much as I shall do to catch the train
CHAPTER XXXVII
BURIED ALIVE
Robert Audley sat alone in the library with the physicians letter upon the table before him thinking of the work which was still to be done
The young barrister had constituted himself the denouncer of this wretched woman He had been her judge and he was now her jailer Not until he had delivered the letter which lay before him to its proper address not until he had given up his charge into the safekeeping of the foreign madhouse doctor not until then would the dreadful burden be removed from him and his duty done
He wrote a few lines to my lady telling her that he was going to carry her away from Audley Court to a place from which she was not likely to return and requesting her to lose no time in preparing for the journey He wished to start that evening if possible he told her
Miss Susan Martin the ladys maid thought it a very hard thing to have to pack her mistress trunks in such a hurry but my lady assisted in the task She toiled resolutely in directing and assisting her servant who scented bankruptcy and ruin in all this packing up and hurrying away and was therefore rather languid and indifferent in the discharge of her duties and at six oclock in the evening she sent her attendant to tell Mr Audley that she was ready to depart as soon as he pleased
Robert had consulted a volume of Bradshaw and had discovered that Villebrumeuse lay out of the track of all railway traffic and was only approachable by diligence from Brussels The mail for Dover left London Bridge at nine oclock and could be easily caught by Robert and his charge as the seven oclock uptrain from Audley reached Shoreditch at a quarter past eight Traveling by the Dover and Calais route they would reach Villebrumeuse by the following afternoon or evening
It was late in the afternoon of the next day when the diligence bumped and rattled over the uneven paving of the principal street in Villebrumeuse
Robert Audley and my lady had had the coupe of the diligence to themselves for the whole of the journey for there were not many travelers between Brussels and Villebrumeuse and the public conveyance was supported by the force of tradition rather than any great profit attaching to it as a speculation
My lady had not spoken during the journey except to decline some refreshments which Robert had offered her at a halting place upon the road Her heart sunk when they left Brussels behind for she had hoped that city might have been the end of her journey and she had turned with a feeling of sickness and despair from the dull Belgian landscape
She looked up at last as the vehicle jolted into a great stony quadrangle which had been the approach to a monastery once but which was now the court yard of a dismal hotel in whose cellars legions of rats skirmished and squeaked even while the broad sunshine was bright in the chambers above
Lady Audley shuddered as she alighted from the diligence and found herself in that dreary court yard Robert was surrounded by chattering porters who clamored for his baggages and disputed among themselves as to the hotel at which he was to rest One of these men ran away to fetch a hackneycoach at Mr Audleys behest and reappeared presently urging on a pair of horses—which were so small as to suggest the idea that they had been made out of one ordinarysized animal—with wild shrieks and whoops that had a demoniac sound in the darkness
Mr Audley left my lady in a dreary coffeeroom in the care of a drowsy attendant while he drove away to some distant part of the quiet city There was official business to be gone through before Sir Michaels wife could be quietly put away in the place suggested by Dr Mosgrave Robert had to see all manner of important personages and to take numerous oaths and to exhibit the English physicians letter and to go through much ceremony of signing and countersigning before he could take his lost friends cruel wife to the home which was to be her last upon earth Upward of two hours elapsed before all this was arranged and the young man was free to return to the hotel where he found his charge staring absently at a pair of waxcandles with a cup of untasted coffee standing cold and stagnant before her
Robert handed my lady into the hired vehicle and took his seat opposite to her once more
Where are you going to take me she asked at last I am tired of being treated like some naughty child who is put into a dark cellar as a punishment for its offenses Where are you taking me
To a place in which you will have ample leisure to repent the past Mrs Talboys Robert answered gravely
They had left the paved streets behind them and had emerged out of a great gaunt square in which there appeared to be about half a dozen cathedrals into a small boulevard a broad lamplit road on which the shadows of the leafless branches went and came tremblingly like the shadows of a paralytic skeleton There were houses here and there upon this boulevard stately houses entre cour et jardin and with plaster vases of geraniums on the stone pillars of the ponderous gateways The rumbling hackneycarriage drove upward of threequarters of a mile along this smooth roadway before it drew up against a gateway older and more ponderous than any of those they had passed
My lady gave a little scream as she looked out of the coachwindow The gaunt gateway was lighted by an enormous lamp a great structure of iron and glass in which one poor little shivering flame struggled with the March wind
The coachman rang the bell and a little wooden door at the side of the gate was opened by a grayhaired man who looked out at the carriage and then retired He reappeared three minutes afterward behind the folding iron gates which he unlocked and threw back to their full extent revealing a dreary desert of stonepaved courtyard
The coachman led his wretched horses into the courtyard and piloted the vehicle to the principal doorway of the house a great mansion of gray stone with several long ranges of windows many of which were dimly lighted and looked out like the pale eyes of weary watchers upon the darkness of the night
My lady watchful and quiet as the cold stars in the wintry sky looked up at these casements with an earnest and scrutinizing gaze One of the windows was shrouded by a scanty curtain of faded red and upon this curtain there went and came a dark shadow the shadow of a woman with a fantastic head dress the shadow of a restless creature who paced perpetually backward and forward before the window
Sir Michael Audleys wicked wife laid her hand suddenly upon Roberts arm and pointed with the other hand to this curtained window
I know where you have brought me she said This is a MADHOUSE
Mr Audley did not answer her He had been standing at the door of the coach when she addressed him and he quietly assisted her to alight and led her up a couple of shallow stone steps and into the entrancehall of the mansion He handed Dr Mosgraves letter to a neatlydressed cheerfullooking middleaged woman who came tripping out of a little chamber which opened out of the hall and was very much like the bureau of an hotel This person smilingly welcome Robert and his charge and after dispatching a servant with the letter invited them into her pleasant little apartment which was gayly furnished with bright amber curtains and heated by a tiny stove
Madam finds herself very much fatigued the Frenchwoman said interrogatively with a look of intense sympathy as she placed an armchair for my lady
Madam shrugged her shoulders wearily and looked round the little chamber with a sharp glance of scrutiny that betokened no very great favor
WHAT is this place Robert Audley she cried fiercely Do you think I am a baby that you may juggle with and deceive me—what is it It is what I said just now is it not
It is a maison de sante my lady the young man answered gravely I have no wish to juggle with or to deceive you
My lady paused for a few moments looking reflectively at Robert
A maison de sante she repeated Yes they manage these things better in France In England we should call it a madhouse This a house for mad people this is it not madam she said in French turning upon the woman and tapping the polished floor with her foot
Ah but no madam the woman answered with a shrill scream of protest It is an establishment of the most agreeable where one amuses ones self—
She was interrupted by the entrance of the principal of this agreeable establishment who came beaming into the room with a radiant smile illuminating his countenance and with Dr Mosgraves letter open in his hand
It was impossible to say how enchanted he was to make the acquaintance of Msieu There was nothing upon earth which he was not ready to do for Msieu in his own person and nothing under heaven which he would not strive to accomplish for him as the friend of his acquaintance so very much distinguished the English doctor Dr Mosgraves letter had given him a brief synopsis of the case he informed Robert in an undertone and he was quite prepared to undertake the care of the charming and very interesting Madam—Madam—
He rubbed his hands politely and looked at Robert Mr Audley remembered for the first time that he had been recommended to introduce his wretched charge under a feigned name
He affected not to hear the proprietors question It might seem a very easy matter to have hit upon a heap of names any one of which would have answered his purpose but Mr Audley appeared suddenly to have forgotten that he had ever heard any mortal appellation except that of himself and of his lost friend
Perhaps the proprietor perceived and understood his embarrassment He at any rate relieved it by turning to the woman who had received them and muttering something about No 14 Bis The woman took a key from a long range of others that hung over the mantelpiece and a wax candle from a bracket in a corner of the room and having lighted the candle led the way across the stonepaved hall and up a broad slippery staircase of polished wood
The English physician had informed his Belgian colleague that money would be of minor consequence in any arrangements made for the comfort of the English lady who was to be committed to his care Acting upon this hint Monsieur Val opened the outer door of a stately suite of apartments which included a lobby paved with alternate diamonds of black and white marble but of a dismal and cellarlike darkness a saloon furnished with gloomy velvet draperies and with a certain funereal splendor which is not peculiarly conducive to the elevation of the spirits and a bedchamber containing a bed so wondrously made as to appear to have no opening whatever in its coverings unless the counterpane had been split asunder with a penknife
My lady stared dismally round at the range of rooms which looked dreary enough in the wan light of a single waxcandle This solitary flame pale and ghostlike in itself was multiplied by paler phantoms of its ghostliness which glimmered everywhere about the rooms in the shadowy depths of the polished floors and wainscot or the windowpanes in the lookingglasses or in those great expanses of glimmering something which adorned the rooms and which my lady mistook for costly mirrors but which were in reality wretched mockeries of burnished tin
Amid all the faded splendor of shabby velvet and tarnished gilding and polished wood the woman dropped into an armchair and covered her face with her hands The whiteness of them and the starry light of diamonds trembling about them glittered in the dimlylighted chamber She sat silent motionless despairing sullen and angry while Robert and the French doctor retired to an outer chamber and talked together in undertones Mr Audley had very little to say that had not been already said for him with a far better grace than he himself could have expressed it by the English physician He had after great trouble of mind hit upon the name of Taylor as a safe and simple substitute for that other name to which alone my lady had a right He told the Frenchman that this Mrs Taylor was distantly related to him—that she had inherited the seeds of madness from her mother as indeed Dr Mosgrave had informed Monsieur Val and that she had shown some fearful tokens of the lurking taint that was latent in her mind but that she was not to be called mad He begged that she might be treated with all tenderness and compassion that she might receive all reasonable indulgences but he impressed upon Monsieur Val that under no circumstances was she to be permitted to leave the house and grounds without the protection of some reliable person who should be answerable for her safekeeping He had only one other point to urge and that was that Monsieur Val who as he had understood was himself a Protestant—the doctor bowed—would make arrangements with some kind and benevolent Protestant clergyman through whom spiritual advice and consolation might be secured for the invalid lady who had especial need Robert added gravely of such advantages
This—with all necessary arrangements as to pecuniary matters which were to be settled from time to time between Mr Audley and the doctor unassisted by any agents whatever—was the extent of the conversation between the two men and occupied about a quarter of an hour
My lady sat in the same attitude when they reentered the bedchamber in which they had left her with her ringed hands still clasped over her face
Robert bent over to whisper in her ear
Your name is Madam Taylor here he said I do not think you would wish to be known by your real name
She only shook her head in answer to him and did not even remove her hands from over her face
Madam will have an attendant entirely devoted to her service said Monsieur Val Madam will have all her wishes obeyed her reasonable wishes but that goes without saying monsieur adds with a quaint shrug Every effort will be made to render madams sojourn at Villebrumeuse agreeable The inmates dine together when it is wished I dine with the inmates sometimes my subordinate a clever and a worthy man always I reside with my wife and children in a little pavilion in the grounds my subordinate resides in the establishment Madam may rely upon our utmost efforts being exerted to insure her comfort
Monsieur is saying a great deal more to the same effect rubbing his hands and beaming radiantly upon Robert and his charge when madam rises suddenly erect and furious and dropping her jeweled fingers from before her face tells him to hold his tongue
Leave me alone with the man who has brought me here she cried between her set teeth Leave me
She points to the door with a sharp imperious gesture so rapid that the silken drapery about her arm makes a swooping sound as she lifts her hand The sibilant French syllables hiss through her teeth as she utters them and seem better fitted to her mood and to herself than the familiar English she has spoken hitherto
The French doctor shrugs his shoulders as he goes out into the lobby and mutters something about a beautiful devil and a gesture worthy of the Mars My lady walked with a rapid footstep to the door between the bedchamber and the saloon closed it and with the handle of the door still in her hand turned and looked at Robert Audley
You have brought me to my grave Mr Audley she cried you have used your power basely and cruelly and have brought me to a living grave
I have done that which I thought just to others and merciful to you Robert answered quietly I should have been a traitor to society had I suffered you to remain at liberty after—the disappearance of George Talboys and the fire at Castle Inn I have brought you to a place in which you will be kindly treated by people who have no knowledge of your story—no power to taunt or to reproach you You will lead a quiet and peaceful life my lady such a life as many a good and holy woman in this Catholic country freely takes upon herself and happily endures until the end The solitude of your existence in this place will be no greater than that of a kings daughter who flying from the evil of the time was glad to take shelter in a house as tranquil as this Surely it is a small atonement which I ask you to render for your sins a light penance which I call upon you to perform Live here and repent nobody will assail you nobody will torment you I only say to you repent
I cannot cried my lady pushing her hair fiercely from her white forehead and fixing her dilated eyes upon Robert Audley I cannot Has my beauty brought me to this Have I plotted and schemed to shield myself and laid awake in the long deadly nights trembling to think of my dangers for this I had better have given up at once since this was to be the end I had better have yielded to the curse that was upon me and given up when George Talboys first came back to England
She plucked at the feathery golden curls as if she would have torn them from her head It had served her so little after all that gloriously glittering hair that beautiful nimbus of yellow light that had contrasted so exquisitely with the melting azure of her eyes She hated herself and her beauty
I would laugh at you and defy you if I dared she cried I would kill myself and defy you if I dared But I am a poor pitiful coward and have been so from the first Afraid of my mothers horrible inheritance afraid of poverty afraid of George Talboys afraid of you
She was silent for a little while but she held her place by the door as if determined to detain Robert as long as it was her pleasure to do so
Do you know what I am thinking of she said presently Do you know what I am thinking of as I look at you in the dim light of this room I am thinking of the day upon which George Talboys disappeared
Robert started as she mentioned the name of his lost friend his face turned pale in the dusky light and his breathing grew quicker and louder
He was standing opposite me as you are standing now continued my lady You said that you would raze the old house to the ground that you would root up every tree in the gardens to find your dead friend You would have had no need to do so much the body of George Talboys lies at the bottom of the old well in the shrubbery beyond the limewalk
Robert Audley flung his hands and clasped them above his head with one loud cry of horror
Oh my God he said after a dreadful pause have all the ghastly things that I have thought prepared me so little for the ghastly truth that it should come upon me like this at last
He came to me in the limewalk resumed my lady in the same hard dogged tone as that in which she had confessed the wicked story of her life I knew that he would come and I had prepared myself as well as I could to meet him I was determined to bribe him to cajole him to defy him to do anything sooner than abandon the wealth and the position I had won and go back to my old life He came and he reproached me for the conspiracy at Ventnor He declared that so long as he lived he would never forgive me for the lie that had broken his heart He told me that I had plucked his heart out of his breast and trampled upon it and that he had now no heart in which to feel one sentiment of mercy for me That he would have forgiven me any wrong upon earth but that one deliberate and passionless wrong that I had done him He said this and a great deal more and he told me that no power on earth should turn him from his purpose which was to take me to the man I had deceived and make me tell my wicked story He did not know the hidden taint that I had sucked in with my mothers milk He did not know that it was possible to drive me mad He goaded me as you have goaded me he was as merciless as you have been merciless We were in the shrubbery at the end of the limewalk I was seated upon the broken masonry at the mouth of the well George Talboys was leaning upon the disused windlass in which the rusty iron spindle rattled loosely whenever he shifted his position I rose at last and turned upon him to defy him as I had determined to defy him at the worst I told him that if he denounced me to Sir Michael I would declare him to be a madman or a liar and I defied him to convince the man who loved me—blindly as I told him—that he had any claim to me I was going to leave him after having told him this when he caught me by the wrist and detained me by force You saw the bruises that his fingers made upon my wrist and noticed them and did not believe the account I gave of them I could see that Mr Robert Audley and I saw that you were a person I should have to fear
She paused as if she had expected Robert to speak but he stood silent and motionless waiting for the end
George Talboys treated me as you treated me she said petulantly He swore that if there was but one witness of my identity and that witness was removed from Audley Court by the width of the whole earth he would bring him there to swear to my identity and to denounce me It was then that I was mad it was then that I drew the loose iron spindle from the shrunken wood and saw my first husband sink with one horrible cry into the black mouth of the well There is a legend of its enormous depth I do not know how deep it is It is dry I suppose for I heard no splash only a dull thud I looked down and I saw nothing but black emptiness I knelt down and listened but the cry was not repeated though I waited for nearly a quarter of an hour—God knows how long it seemed to me—by the mouth of the well
Robert Audley uttered a word of horror when the story was finished He moved a little nearer toward the door against which Helen Talboys stood Had there been any other means of exit from the room he would gladly have availed himself of it He shrank from even a momentary contact with this creature
Let me pass you if you please he said in an icy voice
You see I do not fear to make my confession to you said Helen Talboys for two reasons The first is that you dare not use it against me because you know it would kill your uncle to see me in a criminal dock the second is that the law could pronounce no worse sentence than this—a lifelong imprisonment in a madhouse You see I do not thank you for your mercy Mr Robert Audley for I know exactly what it is worth
She moved away from the door and Robert passed her without a word without a look
Half an hour afterward he was in one of the principal hotels at Villebrumeuse sitting at a neatlyordered suppertable with no power to eat with no power to distract his mind even for a moment from the image of that lost friend who had been treacherously murdered in the thicket at Audley Court
CHAPTER XXXVIII
GHOSTHAUNTED
No feverish sleeper traveling in a strange dream ever looked out more wonderingly upon a world that seemed unreal than Robert Audley as he stared absently at the flat swamps and dismal poplars between Villebrumeuse and Brussels Could it be that he was returning to his uncles house without the woman who had reigned in it for nearly two years as queen and mistress He felt as if he had carried off my lady and had made away with her secretly and darkly and must now render up an account to Sir Michael of the fate of that woman whom the baronet had so dearly loved
What shall I tell him he thought Shall I tell the truth—the horrible ghastly truth No that would be too cruel His generous spirit would sink under the hideous revelation Yet in his ignorance of the extent of this wretched womans wickedness he may think perhaps that I have been hard with her
Brooding thus Mr Robert Audley absently watched the cheerless landscape from the seat in the shabby coupe of the diligence and thought how great a leaf had been torn out of his life now that the dark story of George Talboys was finished
What had he to do next A crowd of horrible thoughts rushed into his mind as he remembered the story that he had heard from the white lips of Helen Talboys His friend—his murdered friend—lay hidden among the moldering ruins of the old well at Audley Court He had lain there for six long months unburied unknown hidden in the darkness of the old convent well What was to be done
To institute a search for the remains of the murdered man was to inevitably bring about a coroners inquest Should such an inquest be held it was next to impossible that the history of my ladys crime could fail to be brought to light To prove that George Talboys met with his death at Audley Court was to prove almost as surely that my lady had been the instrument of that mysterious death for the young man had been known to follow her into the limewalk upon the day of his disappearance
My God Robert exclaimed as the full horror of his position became evident to him is my friend to rest in this unhallowed burialplace because I have condoned the offenses of the woman who murdered him
He felt that there was no way out of this difficulty Sometimes he thought that it little mattered to his dead friend whether he lay entombed beneath a marble monument whose workmanship should be the wonder of the universe or in that obscure hidingplace in the thicket at Audley Court At another time he would be seized with a sudden horror at the wrong that had been done to the murdered man and would fain have traveled even more rapidly than the express between Brussels and Paris could carry him in his eagerness to reach the end of his journey that he might set right this cruel wrong
He was in London at dusk on the second day after that on which he had left Audley Court and he drove straight to the Clarendon to inquire after his uncle He had no intention of seeing Sir Michael as he had not yet determined how much or how little he should tell him but he was very anxious to ascertain how the old man had sustained the cruel shock he had so lately endured
I will see Alicia he thought she will tell me all about her father It is only two days since he left Audley I can scarcely expect to hear of any favorable change
But Mr Audley was not destined to see his cousin that evening for the servants at the Clarendon told him that Sir Michael and his daughter had left by the morning mail for Paris on their way to Vienna
Robert was very well pleased to receive this intelligence it afforded him a welcome respite for it would be decidedly better to tell the baronet nothing of his guilty wife until he returned to England with health unimpaired and spirits reestablished it was to be hoped
Mr Audley drove to the Temple The chambers which had seemed dreary to him ever since the disappearance of George Talboys were doubly so tonight For that which had been only a dark suspicion had now become a horrible certainty There was no longer room for the palest ray the most transitory glimmer of hope His worst terrors had been too well founded
George Talboys had been cruelly and treacherously murdered by the wife he had loved and mourned
There were three letters waiting for Mr Audley at his chambers One was from Sir Michael and another from Alicia The third was addressed in a hand the young barrister knew only too well though he had seen it but once before His face flushed redly at the sight of the superscription and he took the letter in his hand carefully and tenderly as if it had been a living thing and sentient to his touch He turned it over and over in his hands looking at the crest upon the envelope at the postmark at the color of the paper and then put it into the bosom of his waistcoat with a strange smile upon his face
What a wretched and unconscionable fool I am he thought Have I laughed at the follies of weak men all my life and am I to be more foolish than the weakest of them at last The beautiful browneyed creature Why did I ever see her Why did my relentless Nemesis ever point the way to that dreary house in Dorsetshire
He opened the first two letters He was foolish enough to keep the last for a delicious morsel—a fairylike dessert after the commonplace substantialities of a dinner
Alicias letter told him that Sir Michael had borne his agony with such a persevering tranquility that she had become at last far more alarmed by his patient calmness than by any stormy manifestation of despair In this difficulty she had secretly called upon the physician who attended the Audley household in any cases of serious illness and had requested this gentleman to pay Sir Michael an apparently accidental visit He had done so and after stopping half an hour with the baronet had told Alicia that there was no present danger of any serious consequence from this great grief but that it was necessary that every effort should be made to arouse Sir Michael and to force him however unwillingly into action
Alicia had immediately acted upon this advice had resumed her old empire as a spoiled child and reminded her father of a promise he had made of taking her through Germany With considerable difficulty she had induced him to consent to fulfilling this old promise and having once gained her point she had contrived that they should leave England as soon as it was possible to do so and she told Robert in conclusion that she would not bring her father back to his old house until she had taught him to forget the sorrows associated with it
The baronets letter was very brief It contained half a dozen blank checks on Sir Michael Audleys London bankers
You will require money my dear Robert he wrote for such arrangements as you may think fit to make for the future comfort of the person I committed to your care I need scarcely tell you that those arrangements cannot be too liberal But perhaps it is as well that I should tell you now for the first and only time that it is my earnest wish never again to hear that persons name I have no wish to be told the nature of the arrangements you may make for her I am sure that you will act conscientiously and mercifully I seek to know no more Whenever you want money you will draw upon me for any sums that you may require but you will have no occasion to tell me for whose use you want that money
Robert Audley breathed a long sigh of relief as he folded this letter It released him from a duty which it would have been most painful for him to perform and it forever decided his course of action with regard to the murdered man
George Talboys must lie at peace in his unknown grave and Sir Michael Audley must never learn that the woman he had loved bore the red brand of murder on her soul
Robert had only the third letter to open—the letter which he had placed in his bosom while he read the others he tore open the envelope handling it carefully and tenderly as he had done before
The letter was as brief as Sir Michaels It contained only these few lines
DEAR MR AUDLEY—The rector of this place has been twice to see Marks the man you saved in the fire at the Castle Inn He lies in a very precarious state at his mothers cottage near Audley Court and is not expected to live many days His wife is attending him and both he and she have expressed a most earnest desire that you should see him before he dies Pray come without delay
Yours very sincerely
CLARA TALBOYS
Mount Stanning Rectory March 6
Robert Audley folded this letter very reverently and placed it underneath that part of his waistcoat which might be supposed to cover the region of his heart Having done this he seated himself in his favorite armchair filled and lighted a pipe and smoked it out staring reflectingly at the fire as long as his tobacco lasted What can that man Marks want with me thought the barrister He is afraid to die until he has made confession perhaps He wishes to tell me that which I know already—the story of my ladys crime I knew that he was in the secret I was sure of it even upon the night on which I first saw him He knew the secret and he traded on it
Robert Audley shrank strangely from returning to Essex How should he meet Clara Talboys now that he knew the secret of her brothers fate How many lies he should have to tell or how much equivocation he must use in order to keep the truth from her Yet would there be any mercy in telling that horrible story the knowledge of which must cast a blight upon her youth and blot out every hope she had even secretly cherished He knew by his own experience how possible it was to hope against hope and to hope unconsciously and he could not bear that her heart should be crushed as his had been by the knowledge of the truth Better that she should hope vainly to the last he thought better that she should go through life seeking the clew to her lost brothers fate than that I should give that clew into her hands and say Our worst fears are realized The brother you loved has been foully murdered in the early promise of his youth
But Clara Talboys had written to him imploring him to return to Essex without delay Could he refuse to do her bidding however painful its accomplishment might be And again the man was dying perhaps and had implored to see him Would it not be cruel to refuse to go—to delay an hour unnecessarily He looked at his watch It wanted only five minutes to nine There was no train to Audley after the Ipswich mail which left London at halfpast eight but there was a train that left Shoreditch at eleven and stopped at Brentwood between twelve and one Robert decided upon going by this train and walking the distance between Brentwood and Audley which was upwards of six miles
Fleet street was quiet and lonely at this late hour and Robert Audley being in a ghostseeing mood would have been scarcely astonished had he seen Johnsons set come roystering westward in the lamplight or blind John Milton groping his way down the steps before Saint Brides Church
Mr Audley hailed a hansom at the corner of Farrington street and was rattled rapidly away across tenantless Smithfield market and into a labyrinth of dingy streets that brought him out upon the broad grandeur of Finsbury Pavement
The hansom rattled up the steep and stony approach to Shoreditch Station and deposited Robert at the doors of that unlovely temple There were very few people going to travel by this midnight train and Robert walked up and down the long wooden platform reading the huge advertisements whose gaunt lettering looked wan and ghastly in the dim lamplight
He had the carriage in which he sat all to himself All to himself did I say Had he not lately summoned to his side that ghostly company which of all companionship is the most tenacious The shadow of George Talboys pursued him even in the comfortable firstclass carriage and was behind him when he looked out of the window and was yet far ahead of him and the rushing engine in that thicket toward which the train was speeding by the side of the unhallowed hidingplace in which the mortal remains of the dead man lay neglected and uncared for
I must give my lost friend decent burial Robert thought as the chill wind swept across the flat landscape and struck him with such frozen breath as might have emanated from the lips of the dead I must do it or I shall die of some panic like this which has seized upon me tonight I must do it at any peril at any cost Even at the price of that revelation which will bring the mad woman back from her safe hidingplace and place her in a criminal dock He was glad when the train stopped at Brentwood at a few minutes after twelve
It was halfpast one oclock when the night wanderer entered the village of Audley and it was only there that he remembered that Clara Talboys had omitted to give him any direction by which he might find the cottage in which Luke Marks lay
It was Dawson who recommended that the poor creature should be taken to his mothers cottage Robert thought byandby and I dare say Dawson has attended him ever since the fire Hell be able to tell me the way to the cottage
Acting upon this idea Mr Audley stopped at the house in which Helen Talboys had lived before her second marriage The door of the little surgery was ajar and there was a light burning within Robert pushed the door open and peeped in The surgeon was standing at the mahogany counter mixing a draught in a glass measure with his hat close beside him Late as it was he had evidently only just come in The harmonious snoring of his assistant sounded from a little room within the surgery
I am sorry to disturb you Mr Dawson Robert said apologetically as the surgeon looked up and recognized him but I have come down to see Marks who I hear is in a very bad way and I want you to tell me the way to his mothers cottage
Ill show you the way Mr Audley answered the surgeon I am going there this minute
The man is very bad then
So bad that he can be no worse The change that can happen is that change which will take him beyond the reach of any earthly suffering
Strange exclaimed Robert He did not appear to be much burned
He was not much burnt Had he been I should never have recommended his being removed from Mount Stanning It is the shock that has done the business He has been in a raging fever for the last two days but tonight he is much calmer and Im afraid before tomorrow night we shall have seen the last of him
He has asked to see me I am told said Mr Audley
Yes answered the surgeon carelessly A sick mans fancy no doubt You dragged him out of the house and did your best to save his life I dare say rough and boorish as the poor fellow is he thinks a good deal of that
They had left the surgery the door of which Mr Dawson had locked behind him There was money in the till perhaps for surely the village apothecary could not have feared that the most daring housebreaker would imperil his liberty in the pursuit of blue pill and colocynth of salts and senna
The surgeon led the way along the silent street and presently turned into a lane at the end of which Robert Audley saw the wan glimmer of a light a light which told of the watch that is kept by the sick and dying a pale melancholy light which always has a dismal aspect when looked upon in this silent hour betwixt night and morning It shone from the window of the cottage in which Luke Marks lay watched by his wife and mother
Mr Dawson lifted the latch and walked into the common room of the little tenement followed by Robert Audley It was empty but a feeble tallow candle with a broken back and a long cauliflowerheaded wick sputtered upon the table The sick man lay in the room above
Shall I tell him you are here asked Mr Dawson
Yes yes if you please But be cautious how you tell him if you think the news likely to agitate him I am in no hurry I can wait You can call me when you think I can safely come upstairs
The surgeon nodded and softly ascended the narrow wooden stairs leading to the upper chamber
Robert Audley seated himself in a Windsor chair by the cold hearthstone and stared disconsolately about him But he was relieved at last by the low voice of the surgeon who looked down from the top of the little staircase to tell him that Luke Marks was awake and would be glad to see him
Robert immediately obeyed this summons He crept softly up the stairs and took off his hat before he bent his head to enter at the low doorway of the humble rustic chamber He took off his hat in the presence of this common peasant man because he knew that there was another and a more awful presence hovering about the room and eager to be admitted
Phoebe Marks was sitting at the foot of the bed with her eyes fixed upon her husbands face—not with any very tender expression in the pale light but with a sharp terrified anxiety which showed that it was the coming of death itself that she dreaded rather than the loss of her husband The old woman was busy at the fireplace airing linen and preparing some mess of broth which it was not likely the patient would ever eat The sick man lay with his head propped up by pillows his coarse face deadly pale and his great hands wandering uneasily about the coverlet Phoebe had been reading to him for an open Testament lay among the medicine and lotion bottles upon the table near the bed Every object in the room was neat and orderly and bore witness of that delicate precision which had always been a distinguishing characteristic of Phoebe
The young woman rose as Robert Audley crossed the threshold and hurried toward him
Let me speak to you for a moment sir before you talk to Luke she said in an eager whisper Pray let me speak to you first
Whats the gal asayin there asked the invalid in a subdued roar which died away hoarsely on his lips He was feebly savage even in his weakness The dull glaze of death was gathering over his eyes but they still watched Phoebe with a sharp glance of dissatisfaction Whats she up to there he said I wont have no plottin and no hatchin agen me I want to speak to Mr Audley my own self and whatever I done Im goin to answer for If I done any mischief Im agoin to try and undo it Whats she asayin
She aint asayin nothin lovey answered the old woman going to the bedside of her son who even when made more interesting than usual by illness did not seem a very fit subject for this tender appellation
Shes only atellin the gentleman how bad youve been my pretty
What Im agoin to tell Im only agoin to tell to him remember growled Mr Mark and ketch me atellin of it to him if it warnt for what he done for me the other night
To be sure not lovey answered the old woman soothingly
Phoebe Marks had drawn Mr Audley out of the room and onto the narrow landing at the top of the little staircase This landing was a platform of about three feet square and it was as much as the two could manage to stand upon it without pushing each other against the whitewashed wall or backward down the stairs
Oh sir I wanted to speak to you so badly Phoebe answered eagerly you know what I told you when I found you safe and well upon the night of the fire
Yes yes
I told you what I suspected what I think still
Yes I remember
But I never breathed a word of it to anybody but you sir and I think that Luke has forgotten all about that night I think that what went before the fire has gone clean out of his head altogether He was tipsy you know when my la—when she came to the Castle and I think he was so dazed and scared like by the fire that it all went out of his memory He doesnt suspect what I suspect at any rate or hed have spoken of it to anybody or everybody but hes dreadful spiteful against my lady for he says if shed have let him have a place at Brentwood or Chelmsford this wouldnt have happened So what I wanted to beg of you sir is not to let a word drop before Luke
Yes yes I understand I will be careful
My lady has left the Court I hear sir
Yes
Never to come back sir
Never to come back
But she has not gone where shell be cruelly treated where shell be illused
No she will be very kindly treated
Im glad of that sir I beg your pardon for troubling you with the question sir but my lady was a kind mistress to me
Lukes voice husky and feeble was heard within the little chamber at this period of the conversation demanding angrily when that gal would have done jawing upon which Phoebe put her finger to her lips and led Mr Audley back into the sickroom
I dont want you said Mr Marks decisively as his wife reentered the chamber—I dont want you youve no call to hear what Ive got to say—I only want Mr Audley and I wants to speak to him all alone with none o your sneakin listenin at doors dye hear so you may go downstairs and keep there till youre wanted and you may take mother—no mother may stay I shall want her presently
The sick mans feeble hand pointed to the door through which his wife departed very submissively
Ive no wish to hear anything Luke she said but I hope you wont say anything against those that have been good and generous to you
I shall say what I like answered Mr Marks fiercely and Im not agoin to be ordered by you You aint the parson as Ive ever heerd of nor the lawyer neither
The landlord of the Castle Inn had undergone no moral transformation by his deathbed sufferings fierce and rapid as they had been Perhaps some faint glimmer of a light that had been far off from his life now struggled feebly through the black obscurities of ignorance that darkened his soul Perhaps a half angry half sullen penitence urged him to make some rugged effort to atone for a life that had been selfish and drunken and wicked Be it how it might he wiped his white lips and turning his haggard eyes earnestly upon Robert Audley pointed to a chair by the bedside
You made game of me in a general way Mr Audley he said presently and youve drawed me out and youve tumbled and tossed me about like in a gentlemanly way till I was nothink or anythink in your hands and youve looked me through and through and turned me inside out till you thought you knowed as much as I knowed Id no particular call to be grateful to you not before the fire at the Castle tother night But I am grateful to you for that Im not grateful to folks in a general way praps because the things as gentlefolks have give have amost allus been the very things I didnt want Theyve give me soup and tracks and flannel and coals but Lord theyve made such a precious noise about it that Id have been to send em all back to em But when a gentleman goes and puts his own life in danger to save a drunken brute like me the drunkenest brute as ever was feels grateful like to that gentleman and wishes to say before he dies—which he sees in the doctors face as he aint got long to live—Thank ye sir Im obliged to you
Luke Marks stretched out his left hand—the right hand had been injured by the fire and was wrapped in linen—and groped feebly for that of Mr Robert Audley
The young man took the coarse but shrunken hand in both his own and pressed it cordially
I need no thanks Luke Marks he said I was very glad to be of service to you
Mr Marks did not speak immediately He was lying quietly upon his side staring reflectingly at Robert Audley
You was oncommon fond of that gent as disappeared at the Court warnt you sir he said at last
Robert started at the mention of his dead friend
You was oncommon fond of that Mr Talboys Ive heard say sir repeated Luke
Yes yes answered Robert rather impatiently he was my very dear friend
Ive heard the servants at the Court say how you took on when you couldnt find him Ive heered the landlord of the Sun Inn say how cut up you was when you first missed him If the two gents had been brothers the landlord said our gent meanin you sir couldnt have been more cut up when he missed the other
Yes yes I know I know said Robert pray do not speak any more of this subject I cannot tell you now much it distresses me
Was he to be haunted forever by the ghost of his unburied friend He came here to comfort the sick man and even here he was pursued by this relentless shadow even here he was reminded of the secret crime which had darkened his life
Listen to me Marks he said earnestly believe me that I appreciate your grateful words and that I am very glad to have been of service to you But before you say anything more let me make one most solemn request If you have sent for me that you may tell me anything of the fate of my lost friend I entreat you to spare yourself and to spare me that horrible story You can tell me nothing which I do not already know The worst you can tell me of the woman who was once in your power has already been revealed to me by her own lips Pray then be silent upon this subject I say again you can tell me nothing which I do not know
Luke Marks looked musingly at the earnest face of his visitor and some shadowy expression which was almost like a smile flitted feebly across the sick mans haggard features
I cant tell you nothin you dont know he asked
Nothing
Then it aint no good for me to try said the invalid thoughtfully Did she tell you he asked after a pause
I must beg Marks that you will drop the subject Robert answered almost sternly I have already told you that I do not wish to hear it spoken of Whatever discoveries you made you made your market out of them Whatever guilty secrets you got possession of you were paid for keeping silence You had better keep silence to the end
Had I cried Luke Marks in an eager whisper Had I really now better hold my tongue to the last
I think so most decidedly You traded on your secret and you were paid to keep it It would be more honest to hold to your bargain and keep it still
But suppose I want to tell something cried Luke with feverish energy suppose I feel I cant die with a secret on my mind and have asked to see you on purpose that I might tell you suppose that and youll suppose nothing but the truth Id have been burnt alive before Id have told her He spoke these words between his set teeth and scowled savagely as he uttered them Id have been burnt alive first I made her pay for her pretty insolent ways I made her pay for her airs and graces Id never have told her—never never I had my power over her and I kept it I had my secret and was paid for it and there wasnt a petty slight as she ever put upon me or mine that I didnt pay her out for twenty times over
Marks Marks for Heavens sake be calm said Robert earnestly What are you talking of What is it that you could have told
Im agoin to tell you answered Luke wiping his lips Give us a drink mother
The old woman poured out some cooling drink into a mug and carried it to her son
He drank it in an eager hurry as if he felt that the brief remainder of his life must be a race with the pitiless pedestrian Time
Stop where you are he said to his mother pointing to a chair at the foot of the bed
The old woman obeyed and seated herself meekly opposite to Mr Audley
Ill ask you another question mother said Luke and I think itll be strange if you cant answer it Do you remember when I was at work upon Atkinsons farm before I was married you know and when I was livin down here along of you
Yes yes Mrs Marks answered nodding triumphantly I remember that my dear It were last fall just about as the apples was bein gathered in the orchard across our lane and about the time as you had your new sprigged wesket I remember Luke I remember
Mr Audley wondered where all this was to lead to and how long he would have to sit by the sick mans bed hearing a conversation that had no meaning to him
If you remember that much maybe youll remember more mother said Luke Can you call to mind my bringing some one home here one night while Atkinsons was stackin the last o their corn
Once more Mr Audley started violently and this time he looked up earnestly at the face of the speaker and listened with a strange breathless interest that he scarcely understood himself to what Luke Marks was saying
I reklect your bringing home Phoebe the old woman answered with great animation I reklect your bringin Phoebe home to take a cup o tea or a little snack o supper a mort o times
Bother Phoebe cried Mr Marks whos a talkin of Phoebe Whats Phoebe that anybody should go to put theirselves out about her Do you remember my bringin home a gentleman after ten oclock one September night a gentleman as was wet through to the skin and was covered with mud and slush and green slime and black muck from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot and had his arm broke and his shoulder swelled up awful and was such a objeck that nobody would ha knowed him a gentleman as had to have his clothes cut off him in some places and as sat by the kitchen fire starin at the coals as if he had gone mad or stupidlike and didnt know where he was or who he was and as had to be cared for like a baby and dressed and dried and washed and fed with spoonfuls of brandy that had to be forced between his locked teeth before any life could be got into him Do you remember that mother
The old woman nodded and muttered something to the effect that she remembered all these circumstances most vividly now that Luke happened to mention them
Robert Audley uttered a wild cry and fell down upon his knees by the side of the sick mans bed
My God he ejaculated I think Thee for Thy wondrous mercies George Talboys is alive
Wait a bit said Mr Marks dont you be too fast Mother give us down that tin box on the shelf over against the chest of drawers will you
The old woman obeyed and after fumbling among broken teacups and milkjugs lidless wooden cottonboxes and a miscellaneous litter of rags and crockery produced a tin snuffbox with a sliding lid a shabby dirtylooking box enough
Robert Audley still knelt by the bedside with his face hidden by his clasped hands Luke Marks opened the tin box
There aint no money in it mores the pity he said or if there had been it wouldnt have been let stop very long But theres summat in it that perhaps youll think quite as valliable as money and thats what Im goin to give you as a proof that a drunken brute can feel thankful to them as is kind to him
He took out two folded papers which he gave into Robert Audleys hands
They were two leaves torn out of a pocketbook and they were written upon in pencil and in a handwriting that was quite strange to Mr Audley—a cramped stiff and yet scrawling hand such as some plowman might have written
I dont know this writing Robert said as he eagerly unfolded the first of the two papers What has this to do with my friend Why do you show me these
Suppose you read em first said Mr Marks and ask me questions about them afterwards
The first paper which Robert Audley had unfolded contained the following lines written in that cramped yet scrawling hand which was so strange to him
MY DEAR FRIEND—I write to you in such utter confusion of mind as perhaps no man ever before suffered I cannot tell you what has happened to me I can only tell you that something has happened which will drive me from England a brokenhearted man to seek some corner of the earth in which I may live and die unknown and forgotten I can only ask you to forget me If your friendship could have done me any good I would have appealed to it If your counsel could have been any help to me I would have confided in you But neither friendship nor counsel can help me and all I can say to you is this God bless you for the past and teach you to forget me in the future GT
The second paper was addressed to another person and its contents were briefer than those of the first
HELEN—May God pity and forgive you for that which you have done today as truly as I do Rest in peace You shall never hear of me again to you and to the world I shall henceforth be that which you wished me to be today You need fear no molestation from me I leave England never to return
GT
Robert Audley sat staring at these lines in hopeless bewilderment They were not in his friends familiar hand and yet they purported to be written by him and were signed with his initials
He looked scrutinizingly at the face of Luke Marks thinking that perhaps some trick was being played upon him
This was not written by George Talboys he said
It was answered Luke Marks it was written by Mr Talboys every line of it He wrote it with his own hand but it was his left hand for he couldnt use his right because of his broken arm
Robert Audley looked up suddenly and the shadow of suspicion passed away from his face
I understand he said I understand Tell me all tell me how it was that my poor friend was saved
I was at work up at Atkinsons farm last September said Luke Marks helping to stack the last of the corn and as the nighest way from the farm to mothers cottage was through the meadows at the back of the Court I used to come that way and Phoebe used to stand in the garden wall beyond the limewalk sometimes to have a chat with me knowin my time o comin home
I dont know what Phoebe was adoin upon the evenin of the seventh o September—I reklect the date because Farmer Atkinson paid me my wages all of a lump on that day and Id had to sign a bit of a receipt for the money he give me—I dont know what she was adoin but she warnt at the gate agen the limewalk so I went round to the other side o the gardens and jumped across the dry ditch for I wanted particler to see her that night as I was goin away to work upon a farm beyond Chelmsford the next day Audley church clock struck nine as I was crossin the meadows between Atkinsons and the Court and it must have been about a quarter past nine when I got into the kitchen garden
I crossed the garden and went into the limewalk the nighest way to the servants hall took me through the shrubbery and past the dry well It was a dark night but I knew my way well enough about the old place and the light in the window of the servants hall looked red and comfortable through the darkness I was close against the mouth of the dry well when I heard a sound that made my blood creep It was a groan—a groan of a man in pain as was lyin somewhere hid among the bushes I warnt afraid of ghosts and I warnt afraid of anythink in a general way but there was somethin in hearin this groan as chilled me to the very heart and for a minute I was struck all of a heap and didnt know what to do But I heard the groan again and then I began to search among the bushes I found a man lyin hidden under a lot o laurels and I thought at first he was up to no good and I was agoin to collar him to take him to the house when he caught me by the wrist without gettin up from the ground but lookin at me very earnest as I could see by the way his face was turned toward me in the darkness and asked me who I was and what I was and what I had to do with the folks at the Court
There was somethin in the way he spoke that told me he was a gentleman though I didnt know him from Adam and couldnt see his face and I answered his questions civil
I want to get away from this place he said without bein seen by any livin creetur remember that Ive been lyin here ever since four oclock today and Im half dead but I want to get away without bein seen mind that
I told him that was easy enough but I began to think my first thoughts of him might have been right enough after all and that he couldnt have been up to no good to want to sneak away so precious quiet
Can you take me to any place where I can get a change of dry clothes he says without half a dozen people knowin it
Hed got up into a sittin attitude by this time and I could see that his right arm hung close by his side and that he was in pain
I pointed to his arm and asked him what was the matter with it but he only answered very quiet like Broken my lad broken Not that thats much he says in another tone speaking to himself like more than to me Theres broken hearts as well as broken limbs and theyre not so easy mended
I told him I could take him to mothers cottage and that he could dry his clothes there and welcome
Can your mother keep a secret he asked
Well she could keep one well enough if she could remember it I told him but you might tell her all the secrets of the Freemasons and Foresters and Buffalers and Oddfellers as ever was tonight and shed have forgotten all about em tomorrow mornin
He seemed satisfied with this and he got himself up by holdin on to me for it seemed as if his limbs was cramped the use of em was almost gone I felt as he came agen me that his clothes was wet and mucky
You havent been and fell into the fishpond have you sir I asked
He made no answer to my question he didnt seem even to have heard it I could see now he was standin upon his feet that he was a tall finemade man a head and shoulders higher than me
Take me to your mothers cottage he said and get me some dry clothes if you can Ill pay you well for your trouble
I knew that the key was mostly left in the wooden gate in the garden wall so I led him that way He could scarcely walk at first and it was only by leanin heavily upon my shoulder that he managed to get along I got him through the gate leavin it unlocked behind me and trustin to the chance of that not bein noticed by the undergardener who had the care of the key and was a careless chap enough I took him across the meadows and brought him up here still keepin away from the village and in the fields where there wasnt a creature to see us at that time o night and so I got him into the room downstairs where mother was asittin over the fire gettin my bit o supper ready for me
I put the strange chap in a chair agen the fire and then for the first time I had a good look at him I never see anybody in such a state before He was all over green damp and muck and his hands was scratched and cut to pieces I got his clothes off him how I could for he was like a child in my hands and sat starin at the fire as helpless as any baby only givin a long heavy sigh now and then as if his heart was agoin to bust At last he dropped into a kind of a doze a stupid sort of sleep and began to nod over the fire so I ran and got a blanket and wrapped him in it and got him to lie down on the press bedstead in the room under this I sent mother to bed and I sat by the fire and watched him and kep the fire up till it was just upon daybreak when he woke up all of a sudden with a start and said he must go directly this minute
I begged him not to think of such a thing and told him he warnt fit to move for ever so long but he said he must go and he got up and though he staggered like and at first could hardly stand steady two minutes together he wouldnt be beat and he got me to dress him in his clothes as Id dried and cleaned as well as I could while he laid asleep I did manage it at last but the clothes was awful spoiled and he looked a dreadful objeck with his pale face and a great cut on his forehead that Id washed and tied up with a handkercher He could only get his coat on by buttoning it on round his neck for he couldnt put a sleeve upon his broken arm But he held out agen everything though he groaned every now and then and what with the scratches and bruises on his hands and the cut upon his forehead and his stiff limbs and broken arm hed plenty of call to groan and by the time it was broad daylight he was dressed and ready to go
Whats the nearest town to this upon the London road he asked me
I told him as the nighest town was Brentwood
Very well then he says if youll go with me to Brentwood and take me to some surgeon asll set my arm Ill give you a five pound note for that and all your other trouble
I told him that I was ready and willin to do anything as he wanted done and asked him if I shouldnt go and see if I could borrow a cart from some of the neighbors to drive him over in for I told him it was a good six miles walk
He shook his head No no no he said he didnt want anybody to know anything about him hed rather walk it
He did walk it and he walked like a good un too though I know as every step he took o them six miles he took in pain but he held out as hed held out before I never see such a chap to hold out in all my blessed life He had to stop sometimes and lean agen a gateway to get his breath but he held out still till at last we got into Brentwood and then he says Take me to the nighest surgeons and I waited while he had his arm set in splints which took a precious long time The surgeon wanted him to stay in Brentwood till he was better but he said it warnt to be heard on he must get up to London without a minutes loss of time so the surgeon made him as comfortable as he could considering and tied up his arm in a sling
Robert Audley started A circumstance connected with his visit to Liverpool dashed suddenly back upon his memory He remembered the clerk who had called him back to say there was a passenger who took his berth on board the Victoria Regia within an hour or so of the vessels sailing a young man with his arm in a sling who had called himself by some common name which Robert had forgotten
When his arm was dressed continued Luke he says to the surgeon Can you give me a pencil to write something before I go away The surgeon smiles and shakes his head Youll never be able to write with that there hand today he says pointin to the arm as had just been dressed Praps not the young chap answers quiet enough but I can write with the other Cant I write it for you says the surgeon No thank you answers the other what Ive got to write is private If you can give me a couple of envelopes Ill be obliged to you
With that the surgeon goes to fetch the envelopes and the young chap takes a pocketbook out of his coat pocket with his left hand the cover was wet and dirty but the inside was clean enough and he tears out a couple of leaves and begins to write upon em as you see and he writes dreadful awkard with his left hand and he writes slow but he contrives to finish what you see and then he puts the two bits o writin into the envelopes as the surgeon brings him and he seals em up and he puts a pencil cross upon one of em and nothing on the other and then he pays the surgeon for his trouble and the surgeon says aint there nothin more he can do for him and cant he persuade him to stay in Brentwood till his arms better but he says no no it aint possible and then he says to me Come along o me to the railway station and Ill give you what Ive promised
So I went to the station with him We was in time to catch the train as stops at Brentwood at half after eight and we had five minutes to spare So he takes me into a corner of the platform and he says I wants you to deliver these here letters for me which I told him I was willin Very well then he says look here you know Audley Court Yes I says I ought to for my sweetheart lives ladys maid there Whose ladys maid he says So I tells him My ladys the new lady what was governess at Mr Dawsons Very well then he says this here letter with the cross upon the envelope is for Lady Audley but youre to be sure to give it into her own hands and remember to take care as nobody sees you give it I promises to do this and he hands me the first letter And then he says Do you know Mr Audley as is nevy to Sir Michael and I said Yes Ive heerd tell on him and Ive heerd as he was a reglar swell but affable and freespoken for I heerd em tell on you you know Luke added parenthetically Now look here the young chap says youre to give this other letter to Mr Robert Audley whose astayin at the Sun Inn in the village and I tells him its all right as Ive knowd the Sun ever since I was a baby So then he gives me the second letter whats got nothing wrote upon the envelope and he gives me a fivepound note accordin to promise and then he says Goodday and thank you for all your troubleand he gets into a secondclass carriage and the last I sees of him is a face as white as a sheet of writin paper and a great patch of stickinplaster crisscrossed upon his forehead
Poor George poor George
I went back to Audley and I went straight to the Sun Inn and asked for you meanin to deliver both letters faithful so help me God then but the landlord told me as youd started off that mornin for London and he didnt know when youd come back and he didnt know the name o the place where you lived in London though he said he thought it was in one o them law courts such as Westminster Hall or Doctors Commons or somethin like that So what was I to do I couldnt send a letter by post not knowin where to direct to and I couldnt give it into your own hands and Id been told partickler not to let anybody else know of it so Id nothing to do but to wait and see if you come back and bide my time for givin of it to you
I thought Id go over to the Court in the eveninand see Phoebe and find out from her when thered be a chance of seein her lady for I knowd she could manage it if she liked So I didnt go to work that day though I ought to ha done and I lounged and idled about until it was nigh upon dusk and then I goes down to the meadows behind the Court and there I finds Phoebe sure enough waitin agen the wooden door in the wall on the lookout for me
I hadnt been talkin to her long before I see there was somethink wrong with her and I told her as much
Well she says I aint quite myself this evenin for I had a upset yesterday and I aint got over it yet
A upset I says You had a quarrel with your missus I suppose
She didnt answer me directly but she smiled the queerest smile as ever I see and presently she says
No Luke it werent nothin o that kind and whats more nobody could be friendlier toward me than my lady I think shed do any think for me amost and I think whether it was a bit o farming stock and furniture or such like or whether it was the goodwill of a publichouse she wouldnt refuse me anythink as I asked her
I couldnt make out this for it was only a few days before as shed told me her missus was selfish and extravagant and we might wait a long time before we could get what we wanted from her
So I says to her Why this is rather sudden like Phoebe and she says Yes it is sudden and she smiles again just the same sort of smile as before Upon that I turns round upon her sharp and says
Ill tell you what it is my gal youre akeepin somethink from me somethink youve been told or somethink youve found out and if you think youre agoin to try that game on with me youll find youre very much mistaken and so I give you warnin
But she laughed it off like and says Lor Luke what could have put such fancies into your head
Perhaps other people can keep secrets as well as you I said and perhaps other people can make friends as well as you There was a gentleman came here to see your missus yesterday warnt there—a tall young gentleman with a brown beard
Instead of answering of me like a Christian my Cousin Phoebe bursts out acryin and wrings her hands and goes on awful until Im dashed if I can make out what shes up to
But little by little I got it out of her for I wouldnt stand no nonsense find she told me how shed been sittin at work at the window of her little room which was at the top of the house right up in one of the gables and overlooked the limewalk and the shrubbery and the well when she see my lady walking with a strange gentleman and they walked together for a long time until byandby they—
Stop cried Robert I know the rest
Well Phoebe told me all about what she see and she told me shed met her lady almost directly afterward and somethin had passed between em not much but enough to let her missus know that the servant what she looked down upon had found out that as would put her in that servants power to the last day of her life
And she is in my power Luke says Phoebe and shell do anythin in the world for us if we keep her secret
So you see both my Lady Audley and her maid thought as the gentleman as Id seen safe off by the London train was lying dead at the bottom of the well If I was to give the letter theyd find out the contrary of this and if I was to give the letter Phoebe and me would lose the chance of gettin started in life by her missus
So I kep the letter and kep my secret and my lady kep hern But I thought if she acted liberal by me and gave me the money I wanted free like Id tell her everythink and make her mind easy
But she didnt Whatever she give me she throwed me as if Id been a dog Whenever she spoke to me she spoke as she might have spoken to a dog and a dog she couldnt abide the sight of There was no word in her mouth that was too bad for me there was no toss as she could give her head that was too proud and scornful for me and my blood biled agen her and I kep my secret and let her keep hern I opened the two letters and I read em but I couldnt make much sense out of em and I hid em away and not a creature but me has seen em until this night
Luke Marks had finished his story and lay quietly enough exhausted by having talked so long He watched Robert Audleys face fully expecting some reproof some grave lecture for he had a vague consciousness that he had done wrong
But Robert did not lecture him he had no fancy for an office which he did not think himself fitted to perform
Robert Audley sat until long after daybreak with the sick man who fell into a heavy slumber a short time after he had finished his story The old woman had dozed comfortably throughout her sons confession Phoebe was asleep upon the press bedstead in the room below so the young barrister was the only watcher
He could not sleep he could only think of the story he had heard He could only thank God for his friends preservation and pray that he might be able to go to Clara Talboys and say Your brother still lives and has been found
Phoebe came upstairs at eight oclock ready to take her place at the sickbed and Robert Audley went away to get a bed at the Sun Inn It was nearly dusk when he awoke out of a long dreamless slumber and dressed himself before dining in the little sittingroom in which he and George had sat together a few months before
The landlord waited upon him at dinner and told him that Luke Marks had died at five oclock that afternoon He went off rather sudden like the man said but very quiet
Robert Audley wrote a long letter that evening addressed to Madame Taylor care of Monsieur Val Villebrumeuse a long letter in which he told the wretched woman who had borne so many names and was to bear a false one for the rest of her life the story that the dying man had told him
It may be some comfort to her to hear that her husband did not perish in his youth by her wicked hand he thought if her selfish soul can hold any sentiment of pity or sorrow for others
CHAPTER XL
RESTORED
Clara Talboys returned to Dorsetshire to tell her father that his only son had sailed for Australia upon the 9th of September and that it was most probable he yet lived and would return to claim the forgiveness of the father he had never very particularly injured except in the matter of having made that terrible matrimonial mistake which had exercised so fatal an influence upon his youth
Mr HarcourtTalboys was fairly nonplused Junius Brutus had never been placed in such a position as this and seeing no way of getting out of this dilemma by acting after his favorite model Mr Talboys was fain to be natural for once in his life and to confess that he had suffered much uneasiness and pain of mind about his only son since his conversation with Robert Audley and that he would be heartily glad to take his poor boy to his arms whenever he should return to England But when was he likely to return and how was he to be communicated with That was the question Robert Audley remembered the advertisements which he had caused to be inserted in the Melbourne and Sydney papers If George had reentered either city alive how was it that no notice had ever been taken of that advertisement Was it likely that his friend would be indifferent to his uneasiness But then again it was just possible that George Talboys had not happened to see this advertisement and as he had traveled under a feigned name neither his fellow passengers nor the captain of the vessel would have been able to identify him with the person advertised for What was to be done Must they wait patiently till George grew weary of his exile and returned to his friends who loved him or were there any means to be taken by which his return might be hastened Robert Audley was at fault Perhaps in the unspeakable relief of mind which he had experienced upon the discovery of his friends escape he was unable to look beyond the one fact of that providential preservation
In this state of mind he went down to Dorsetshire to pay a visit to Mr Talboys who had given way to a perfect torrent of generous impulses and had gone so far as to invite his sons friend to share the prim hospitality of the square red brick mansion
Mr Talboys had only two sentiments upon the subject of Georges story one was a natural relief and happiness in the thought that his son had been saved the other was an earnest wish that my lady had been his wife and that he might thus have had the pleasure of making a signal example of her
It is not for me to blame you Mr Audley he said for having smuggled this guilty woman out of the reach of justice and thus as I may say paltered with the laws of your country I can only remark that had the lady fallen into my hands she would have been very differently treated
It was in the middle of April when Robert Audley found himself once more under those black firtrees beneath which his wandering thoughts had so often stayed since his first meeting with Clara Talboys There were primroses and early violets in the hedges now and the streams which upon his first visit had been hard and frostbound as the heart of Harcourt Talboys had thawed like that gentleman and ran merrily under the blackthorn bushes in the capricious April sunshine
Robert had a prim bedroom and an uncompromising dressingroom allotted him in the square house and he woke every morning upon a metallic spring mattress which always gave him the idea of sleeping upon some musical instrument to see the sun glaring in upon him through the square white blinds and lighting up the two lackered urns which adorned the foot of the blue iron bedstead until they blazed like two tiny brazen lamps of the Roman period He emulated Mr Harcourt Talboys in the matter of showerbaths and cold water and emerged prim and blue as that gentleman himself as the clock in the hall struck seven to join the master of the house in his antebreakfast constitutional under the firtrees in the stiff plantation
But there was generally a third person who assisted in the constitutional promenades and that third person was Clara Talboys who used to walk by her fathers side more beautiful than the morning—for that was sometimes dull and cloudy while she was always fresh and bright—in a broadleaved strawhat and flapping blue ribbons one quarter of an inch of which Mr Audley would have esteemed a prouder decoration than ever adorned a favored creatures buttonhole
At first they were very ceremonious toward each other and were only familiar and friendly upon the one subject of Georges adventures but little by little a pleasant intimacy arose between them and before the first three weeks of Roberts visit had elapsed Miss Talboys made him happy by taking him seriously in hand and lecturing him on the purposeless life he had led so long and the little use he had made of the talents and opportunities that had been given to him
How pleasant it was to be lectured by the woman he loved How pleasant it was to humiliate himself and depreciate himself before her How delightful it was to get such splendid opportunities of hinting that if his life had been sanctified by an object he might indeed have striven to be something better than an idle flaneur upon the smooth pathways that have no particular goal that blessed by the ties which would have given a solemn purpose to every hour of his existence he might indeed have fought the battle earnestly and unflinchingly He generally wound up with a gloomy insinuation to the effect that it was only likely he would drop quietly over the edge of the Temple Gardens some afternoon when the river was bright and placid in the low sunlight and the little children had gone home to their tea
Do you think I can read French novels and smoke mild Turkish until I am threescoreandten Miss Talboys he asked Do you think there will not come a day in which my meerschaums will be foul and the French novels more than usually stupid and life altogether such a dismal monotony that I shall want to get rid of it somehow or other
I am sorry to say that while this hypocritical young barrister was holding forth in this despondent way he had mentally sold up his bachelor possessions including all Michel Levys publications and half a dozen solid silvermounted meerschaums pensioned off Mrs Maloney and laid out two or three thousand pounds in the purchase of a few acres of verdant shrubbery and sloping lawn embosomed amid which there should be a fairy cottage ornee whose rustic casements should glimmer out of bowers of myrtle and clematis to see themselves reflected in the purple bosom of the lake
Of course Clara Talboys was far from discovering the drift of these melancholy lamentations She recommended Mr Audley to read hard and think seriously of his profession and begin life in real earnest It was a hard dry sort of existence perhaps which she recommended a life of serious work and application in which he should strive to be useful to his fellowcreatures and win a reputation for himself
Id do all that he thought and do it earnestly if I could be sure of a reward for my labor If she would accept my reputation when it was won and support me in the struggle by her beloved companionship But what if she sends me away to fight the battle and marries some hulking country squire while my back is turned
Being naturally of a vacillating and dilatory disposition there is no saying how long Mr Audley might have kept his secret fearful to speak and break the charm of that uncertainty which though not always hopeful was very seldom quite despairing had not he been hurried by the impulse of an unguarded moment into a full confession of the truth
He had stayed five weeks at Grange Heath and felt that he could not in common decency stay any longer so he had packed his portmanteau one pleasant May morning and had announced his departure
Mr Talboys was not the sort of man to utter any passionate lamentations at the prospect of losing his guest but he expressed himself with a cool cordiality which served with him as the strongest demonstration of friendship
We have got on very well together Mr Audley he said and you have been pleased to appear sufficiently happy in the quiet routine of our orderly household nay more you have conformed to our little domestic regulations in a manner which I cannot refrain from saying I take as an especial compliment to myself
Robert bowed How thankful he was to the good fortune which had never suffered him to oversleep the signal of the clanging bell or led him away beyond the ken of clocks at Mr Talboys luncheon hour
I trust as we have got on so remarkably well together Mr Talboys resumed you will do me the honor of repeating your visit to Dorsetshire whenever you feel inclined You will find plenty of sport among my farms and you will meet with every politeness and attention from my tenants if you like to bring your gun with you
Robert responded most heartily to these friendly overtures He declared that there was no earthly occupation that was more agreeable to him than partridgeshooting and that he should be only too delighted to avail himself of the privilege so kindly offered to him He could not help glancing toward Clara as he said this The perfect lids drooped a little over the brown eyes and the faintest shadow of a blush illuminated the beautiful face
But this was the young barristers last day in Elysium and there must be a dreary interval of days and nights and weeks and months before the first of September would give him an excuse for returning to Dorsetshire a dreary interval which fresh colored young squires or fat widowers of eightandforty might use to his disadvantage It was no wonder therefore that he contemplated this dismal prospect with moody despair and was bad company for Miss Talboys that morning
But in the evening after dinner when the sun was low in the west and Harcourt Talboys closeted in his library upon some judicial business with his lawyer and a tenant farmer Mr Audley grew a little more agreeable He stood by Claras side in one of the long windows of the drawingroom watching the shadows deepening in the sky and the rosy light growing every moment rosier as the sun died out He could not help enjoying that quiet teteatete though the shadow of the next mornings express which was to carry him away to London loomed darkly across the pathway of his joy He could not help being happy in her presence forgetful of the past reckless of the future
They talked of the one subject which was always a bond of union between them They talked of her lost brother George She spoke of him in a very melancholy tone this evening How could she be otherwise than sad remembering that if he lived—and she was not even sure of that—he was a lonely wanderer far away from all who loved him and carrying the memory of a blighted life wherever he went
I cannot think how papa can be so resigned to my poor brothers absence she said for he does love him Mr Audley even you must have seen lately that he does love him But I cannot think how he can so quietly submit to his absence If I were a man I would go to Australia and find him and bring him back if he was still to be found among the living she added in a lower voice
She turned her face away from Robert and looked out at the darkening sky He laid his hand upon her arm It trembled in spite of him and his voice trembled too as he spoke to her
Shall I go to look for your brother he said
You She turned her head and looked at him earnestly through her tears You Mr Audley Do you think that I could ask you to make such a sacrifice for me or for those I love
And do you think Clara that I should think any sacrifice too great a one if it were made for you Do you think there is any voyage I would refuse to take if I knew that you would welcome me when I came home and thank me for having served you faithfully I will go from one end of the continent of Australia to the other to look for your brother if you please Clara and will never return alive unless I bring him with me and will take my chance of what reward you shall give me for my labor
Her head was bent and it was some moments before she answered him
You are very good and generous Mr Audley she said at last and I feel this offer too much to be able to thank you for it But what you speak of could never be By what right could I accept such a sacrifice
By the right which makes me your bounden slave forever and ever whether you will or no By right of the love I bear you Clara cried Mr Audley dropping on his knees—rather awkwardly it must be confessed—and covering a soft little hand that he had found half hidden among the folds of a silken dress with passionate kisses
I love you Clara he said I love you You may call for your father and have me turned out of the house this moment if you like but I shall go on loving you all the same and I shall love you forever and ever whether you will or no
The little hand was drawn away from his but not with a sudden or angry gesture and it rested for one moment lightly and tremulously upon his dark hair
Clara Clara he murmured in a low pleading voice shall I go to Australia to look for your brother
There was no answer I dont know how it is but there is scarcely anything more delicious than silence in such cases Every moment of hesitation is a tacit avowal every pause is a tender confession
Shall we both go dearest Shall we go as man and wife Shall we go together my dear love and bring our brother back between us
Mr Harcourt Talboys coming into the lamplit room a quarter of an hour afterward found Robert Audley alone and had to listen to a revelation which very much surprised him Like all selfsufficient people he was tolerably blind to everything that happened under his nose and he had fully believed that his own society and the Spartan regularity of his household had been the attractions which had made Dorsetshire delightful to his guest
He was rather disappointed therefore but he bore his disappointment pretty well and expressed a placid and rather stoical satisfaction at the turn which affairs had taken
So Robert Audley went back to London to surrender his chambers in Figtree Court and to make all due inquiries about such ships as sailed from Liverpool for Sydney in the month of June
He had lingered until after luncheon at Grange Heath and it was in the dusky twilight that he entered the shady Temple courts and found his way to his chambers He found Mrs Maloney scrubbing the stairs as was her wont upon a Saturday evening and he had to make his way upward amidst an atmosphere of soapy steam that made the balusters greasy under his touch
Theres lots of letters yer honor the laundress said as she rose from her knees and flattened herself against the wall to enable Robert to pass her and theres some parcels and theres a gentleman which has called ever so many times and is waitin tonight for I towld him youd written to me to say your rooms were to be aired
He opened the door of his sittingroom and walked in The canaries were singing their farewell to the setting sun and the faint yellow light was flickering upon the geranium leaves The visitor whoever he was sat with his back to the window and his head bent upon his breast But he started up as Robert Audley entered the room and the young man uttered a great cry of delight and surprise and opened his arms to his lost friend George Talboys
We know how much Robert had to tell He touched lightly and tenderly upon that subject which he knew was cruelly painful to his friends he said very little of the wretched woman who was wearing out the remnant of her wicked life in the quiet suburb of the forgotten Belgian city
George Talboys spoke very briefly of that sunny seventh of September upon which he had left his friend sleeping by the trout stream while he went to accuse his false wife of that conspiracy which had well nigh broken his heart
God knows that from the moment in which I sunk into the black pit knowing the treacherous hand that had sent me to what might have been my death my chief thought was of the safety of the woman who had betrayed me I fell upon my feet upon a mass of slush and mire but my shoulder was bruised and my arm broken against the side of the well I was stunned and dazed for a few minutes but I roused myself by an effort for I felt that the atmosphere I breathed was deadly I had my Australian experiences to help me in my peril I could climb like a cat The stones of which the well was built were rugged and irregular and I was able to work my way upward by planting my feet in the interstices of the stones and resting my back at times against the opposite side of the well helping myself as well as I could with my hands though one arm was crippled It was hard work Bob and it seems strange that a man who had long professed himself weary of his life should take so much trouble to preserve it I think I must have been working upward of half an hour before I got to the top I know the time seemed an eternity of pain and peril It was impossible for me to leave the place until after dark without being observed so I hid myself behind a clump of laurelbushes and lay down on the grass faint and exhausted to wait for nightfall The man who found me there told you the rest Robert
Yes my poor old friend—yes he told me all
George had never returned to Australia after all He had gone on board the Victoria Regia but had afterward changed his berth for one in another vessel belonging to the same owners and had gone to New York where he had stayed as long as he could endure the loneliness of an existence which separated him from every friend he had ever known
Jonathan was very kind to me Bob he said I had enough money to enable me to get on pretty well in my own quiet way and I meant to have started for the California gold fields to get more when that was gone I might have made plenty of friends had I pleased but I carried the old bullet in my breast and what sympathy could I have with men who knew nothing of my grief I yearned for the strong grasp of your hand Bob the friendly touch of the hand which had guided me through the darkest passage of my life
CHAPTER XLI
AT PEACE
Two years have passed since the May twilight in which Robert found his old friend and Mr Audleys dream of a fairy cottage has been realized between Teddington Locks and Hampton Bridge where amid a little forest of foliage there is a fantastical dwelling place of rustic woodwork whose latticed windows look out upon the river Here among the lilies and the rushes on the sloping bank a brave boy of eight years old plays with a toddling baby who peers wonderingly from his nurses arms at that other baby in the purple depth of the quiet water
Mr Audley is a rising man upon the home circuit by this time and has distinguished himself in the great breach of promise case of Hobbs v Nobbs and has convulsed the court by his deliciously comic rendering of the faithless Nobbs amatory correspondence The handsome darkeyed boy is Master George Talboys who declines musa at Eton and fishes for tadpoles in the clear water under the spreading umbrage beyond the ivied walls of the academy But he comes very often to the fairy cottage to see his father who lives there with his sister and his sisters husband and he is very happy with his Uncle Robert his Aunt Clara and the pretty baby who has just begun to toddle on the smooth lawn that slopes down to the waters brink upon which there is a little Swiss boathouse and landingstage where Robert and George moor their slender wherries
Other people come to the cottage near Teddington A bright merryhearted girl and a graybearded gentleman who has survived he trouble of his life and battled with it as a Christian should
It is more than a year since a blackedged letter written upon foreign paper came to Robert Audley to announce the death of a certain Madame Taylor who had expired peacefully at Villebrumeuse dying after a long illness which Monsieur Val describes as a maladie de langueur
Another visitor comes to the cottage in this bright summer of 1861—a frank generous hearted young man who tosses the baby and plays with Georgey and is especially great in the management of the boats which are never idle when Sir Harry Towers is at Teddington
There is a pretty rustic smokingroom over the Swiss boathouse in which the gentlemen sit and smoke in the summer evenings and whence they are summoned by Clara and Alicia to drink tea and eat strawberries and cream upon the lawn
Audley Court is shut up and a grim old housekeeper reigns paramount in the mansion which my ladys ringing laughter once made musical A curtain hangs before the preRaphaelite portrait and the blue mold which artists dread gathers upon the Wouvermans and Poussins the Cuyps and Tintorettis The house is often shown to inquisitive visitors though the baronet is not informed of that fact and people admire my ladys rooms and ask many questions about the pretty fairhaired woman who died abroad
Sir Michael has no fancy to return to the familiar dwellingplace in which he once dreamed a brief dream of impossible happiness He remains in London until Alicia shall be Lady Towers when he is to remove to a house he has lately bought in Hertfordshire on the borders of his soninlaws estate George Talboys is very happy with his sister and his old friend He is a young man yet remember and it is not quite impossible that he may byandby find some one who will console him for the past That dark story of the past fades little by little every day and there may come a time in which the shadow my ladys wickedness has cast upon the young mans life will utterly vanish away
The meerschaum and the French novels have been presented to a young Templar with whom Robert Audley had been friendly in his bachelor days and Mrs Maloney has a little pension paid her quarterly for her care of the canaries and geraniums
I hope no one will take objection to my story because the end of it leaves the good people all happy and at peace If my experience of life has not been very long it has at least been manifold and I can safely subscribe to that which a mighty king and a great philosopher declared when he said that neither the experience of his youth nor of his age had ever shown him the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging their bread
THE END