Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (popular books of all time .TXT) đ
- Author: Mary Elizabeth Braddon
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and trying to look steadily at his unexpected visitor.
âWhatever this manâs secrets are,â thought Robert, as Mrs. Plowson
hustled little George Talboys out of the room, âthat 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 friendâs unknown grave.â
CHAPTER XXI.
LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME.
âI am going to take your grandson away with me, Mr. Maldon,â Robert said
gravely, as Mrs. Plowson retired with her young charge.
The old manâs 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 Maldonâs intellect
took a considerable time in piercing the hazy vapors of rum-and-water;
but the flickering light at last faintly glimmered athwart the clouds,
and the old man screwed his poor wits to the sticking-point.
âYes, yes,â he said, feebly; âtake the boy away from his poor old
grandfather; I always thought so.â
âYou always thought that I should take him away?â scrutinizing the
half-drunken countenance with a searching glance. âWhy did you think so,
Mr. Maldon?â
The fogs of intoxication got the better of the light of sobriety for a
moment, and the lieutenant answered vaguely:
âThought soââcause I thought so.â
Meeting the young barristerâs impatient frown, he made another effort,
and the light glimmered again.
âBecause I thought you or his father would fetch âm away.â
âWhen I was last in this house, Mr. Maldon, you told me that George
Talboys had sailed for Australia.â
âYes, yesâI know, I know,â the old man answered, confusedly, shuffling
his scanty limp gray hairs with his two wandering handsââI know; but he
might have come backâmightnât he? He was restless, andâandâqueer in
his mind, perhaps, sometimes. He might have come back.â
He repeated this two or three times in feeble, muttering tones; groping
about on the littered mantle-piece for a dirty-looking 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 half-pay lieutenant with a dark
solemnity in his handsome face.
âMr. Maldon,â he said, slowly watching the effect of every syllable as
he spoke, âGeorge Talboys never sailed for Australiaâthat 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.â
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.
âThe 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 itâthe remainder is in my possession.â
Lieutenant Maldon was quite sober now.
âWhat have I done?â he murmured, hopelessly. âOh, my God! what have I
done?â
âAt two oâclock on the 7th of September last,â continued the pitiless,
accusing voice, âGeorge Talboys was seen alive and well at a house in
Essex.â
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.
âAt two oâclock on that day,â remarked Robert Audley, âmy poor friend
was seen alive and well at â-, 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 carefullyâat first, even hopefully. Now I know
that he is dead.â
Robert Audley had been prepared to witness some considerable agitation
in the old manâs manner, but he was not prepared for the terrible
anguish, the ghastly terror, which convulsed Mr. Maldonâs haggard face
as he uttered the last word.
âNo, no, no, no,â reiterated the lieutenant, in a shrill, half-screaming
voice; âno, no! For Godâs sake, donât say that! Donât think itâdonât
let me think itâdonât let me dream of it! Not deadâanything but
dead! Hidden away, perhapsâbribed to keep out of the way, perhaps; but
not deadânot deadânot dead!â
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 longerâthey were strengthened by some
convulsive force that gave them a new power.
âI believe,â said Robert, in the same solemn, relentless voice, âthat my
friend left Essex; and I believe he died on the 7th of September last.â
The wretched old man, still beating his hands among his thin gray hair,
slid from his chair to the ground, and groveled at Robertâs feet.
âOh! no, noâfor Godâs, no!â he shrieked hoarsely. âNo! you donât know
what you sayâyou donât know what your words mean!â
âI know their weight and value only too wellâas well as I see you do,
Mr. Maldon. God help us!â
âOh, what am I doing? what am I doing?â muttered the old man, feebly;
then raising himself from the ground with an effort, he drew himself to
his full hight, and said, in a manner which was new to him, and which
was not without a certain dignity of his ownâthat dignity which must be
always attached to unutterable misery, in whatever form it may
appearâhe said, gravely:
âYou 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 theâthe officer, sir, whoâwhoâ.â He did not stammer, but his
lips trembled so violently that his words seemed to be shaken into
pieces by their motion. âThe officer, I repeat, sir, who arrests
aâthief, or aâ.â He stopped to wipe his lips, and to still them if he
could by doing so, which he could not. âA thief or a murdererââ 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. âGives
him warning, sir, fair warning, that he may say nothing which shall
commit himselfâorâorâother people. Theâtheâlaw, sir, has that
amount of mercy for aâaâsuspected criminal. But you, sir,âyou come to
my house, and you come at a time whenâwhenâcontrary to my usual
habitsâwhich, as people will tell you, are soberâyou take the
opportunity toâterrify meâand it is not right, sirâit isââ
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 housesâin all the
petty miseries, the burning shames, the cruel sorrows, the bitter
disgraces which own poverty for their fatherâthere 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.
âIf I had known this,â he thought, âI might have spared him. It would
have been better, perhaps, to have spared him.â
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.
âWhy do I go on with this?â he thought; âhow 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.â
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.
âMr. Maldon,â Robert Audley said, after a pause, âI 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 laterâif not through
me, through some one else. There areââ 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. âThere 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. Ifâif 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 theâthe hand that wronged him is as cold as
his own. If I could let the matter rest; ifâif I could leave England
forever, and purposely fly from the possibility of ever coming across
another clew to the secret, I would do itâI would gladly, thankfully do
itâbut 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 themâall whose peace their wickedness has
endangered; let them go awayâthey shall not be pursued. But if they
slight your warningâif they try to hold their present position in
defiance of what it will be in your power to tell themâlet them beware
of me, for, when the hour comes, I swear that I will not spare them.â
The old man looked up for the first time, and wiped his wrinkled face
upon a ragged
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