Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (popular books of all time .TXT) 📖

>Robert looked savagely at this solitary watering-place—the shabby

seaport.

 

“It is such a place as this,” he thought, “that works a strong man’s

ruin. He comes here, heart whole and happy, with no better experience of

women than is to be learned at a flower-show or in a ball-room; with no

more familiar knowledge of the creature than he has of the far-away

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 far-away

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

marble-legged 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

sitting-room as prim and elderly-looking as herself. Mrs. Barkamb, a

comfortable matron of about sixty years of age, was sitting in an

arm-chair before a bright handful of fire in the shining grate. An

elderly terrier, whose black-and-tan coat was thickly sprinkled with

gray, reposed in Mrs. Barkamb’s lap. Every object in the quiet

sitting-room 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 arm-chair opposite Mrs. Barkamb, at that lady’s

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 house-letting.

 

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 Maldon’s 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 husband’s 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?”

 

“I’m 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—mightn’t 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

old-fashioned 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 tax-papers were mingled in

hopeless confusion; and among these Mrs. Barkamb set to work to search

for Captain Maldon’s 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.

 

“I’ve got the letter,” she said; “and there’s a note inside it from Mrs.

Talboys.”

 

Robert Audley’s pale face flushed a vivid crimson as he stretched out

his hand to receive the papers.

 

“The persons who stole Helen Maldon’s love-letters from George’s 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 lady’s

generosity pretty severely during his residence in her house, rarely

paying his rent until threatened with the intruding presence of the

broker’s 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

Helen’s departure, according to Mr. Maldon’s 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

watering-place and the arrival of Lucy Graham at the Brompton school,

not more than eight-and-forty 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

didn’t 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 time-table.

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, A.A.”

 

“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 step-daughter in that pretty, childlike manner which

has such a bewitching air of innocent frivolity. Poor little creature;

poor unhappy little golden-haired sinner; the battle between us seems

terribly unfair. Why doesn’t 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 doesn’t 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 doesn’t 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 uncle’s

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 brother’s 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