Lady Audley's Secret, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [world of reading .txt] 📗

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 gentleman’s 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 morning’s 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 lime-walk; 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,

iron-bound oak door.

 

The servant who answered his summons told him that Sir Michael was out,

and my lady walking in the lime-tree 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 lime-walk, 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 low-arched

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 noble-hearted! 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, wouldn’t

you?”

 

My lady, safely sheltered behind her step-daughter, 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. George’s 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 easy-chair, 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 twenty-pound note.”

 

CHAPTER X.

 

MISSING.

 

When Robert Audley awoke he was surprised to see the fishing-rod 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.

 

By-and-by 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 isn’t 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 Audley’s

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 sitting-room, 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; “where’s Mr. Talboys?”

 

“He ain’t been in, sir, since you went out together this morning.”

 

“What!” cried Robert. “Why, in heaven’s 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 afternoon’s 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 dog-cart dashing down the road, carrying the master of the Audley

hounds to his seven o’clock 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 shouldn’t wonder,” said Robert, “if George Talboys has gone down

to the Court to call upon my uncle. It isn’t like him, but it’s just

possible that he has done it.”

 

It was six o’clock when Robert knocked at the door of his uncle’s 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 o’clock 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 haven’t walked fast since I was at Eton,” he murmured, as he hurried

across one of Sir Michael’s meadows in the direction of the village;

“and the worst of it is, that I haven’t 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 can’t say that I do.

You came by the four o’clock, if you remember, and there’s always a good

many passengers by that train.”

 

“You don’t remember him, then?”

 

“Not to my knowledge, sir.”

 

“That’s provoking! I want to know, Smithers, whether he has taken a

ticket for London since two o’clock to-day. He’s a tall, broad-chested

young fellow, with a big brown beard. You couldn’t well mistake him.”

 

“There was four or five gentlemen as took tickets for the 3.30 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 tea-table.

 

“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 dark-brown beard?”

 

“Well, I don’t know, but it was brownish-like.”

 

“Was he dressed in gray?”

 

“I believe it