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

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. Malden—I am sorry for

all of us.”

 

“I do not believe that my son-in-law 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 re-entered 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.

 

“Don’t cry, gran’pa,” he said, “don’t 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 don’t mind, gran’pa. Let’s 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, gran’pa.”

 

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 gran’pa 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 child’s question, but stopped him

as he was dragging his grandfather toward the door.

 

“Your grandpapa does not want the watch to-day, 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 can’t keep the

wolf from the door; and then I say, ‘Gran’pa, 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 to-day—not loud, you

know; only tears running down his poor cheeks, not so that you could

hear him in the passage.”

 

Painful as the child’s prattle was to Robert Audley, it seemed a relief

to the old man. He did not hear the boy’s 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 son-in-law is dead,” answered Mr. Audley, fixing his eyes upon Mrs.

Plowson’s 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 guardian’s face as this was

said.

 

“Who’s dead?” he said. “George Talboys is my name. Who’s dead?”

 

“Another person whose name is Talboys, Georgey.”

 

“Poor person! Will he go to the pit-hole?”

 

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 pit-hole,” 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 man’s agitation had very much subsided by this time. He had

found another pipe stuck behind the tawdry frame of the looking-glass,

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 don’t think you’d

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 half-mournful,

half-compassionate, “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 it’s not kind of the gentleman to take his poor

grandpa’s 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 haven’t many years to live; I sha’n’t 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, by-and-by, when

Mrs. Plowson and Georgey had returned, “nor even wished him any ill. He

was a good son-in-law 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 don’t believe he is dead—no, sir;

no, I don’t believe it!” exclaimed the old man, dropping his hand from

his eyes, and looking with new energy at Robert Audley. “I—I don’t

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 boy’s hand.

 

The little fellow sprung toward the old man, and clinging about him,

kissed the dirty tears from his faded cheeks.

 

“Don’t be sorry for me, gran’pa,” 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, sha’n’t I?” he added, turning to Robert.

 

“Yes, my dear, by-and-by.”

 

“Take him away, sir—take him away,” cried Mr. Maldon; “you are breaking

my heart.”

 

The little fellow trotted away contentedly at Robert’s 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 rum-and-water

from his grandfather’s 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 good-natured

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. Marchmont’s academy for young

gentlemen.

 

He found Mr. Marchmont a very sensible man, and he met a file of

orderly-looking 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.

Marchmont’s 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 business-like 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 Georgey’s 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,

guinea-pigs, dormice, canary-birds, 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 five-and-twenty years, and tried to remember his own diet

at the age of five.

 

“I’ve a vague recollection of getting a good deal of bread and milk and

boiled mutton,” he thought; “and I’ve 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