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

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

well-bred 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 lady’s retreat.

 

It was Phoebe Marks, the pale-faced 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,

cold-looking 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 lady’s maid had often sat upon it

listening to her mistress’ prattle in the old days, when she had been my

lady’s chief companion and confidante,

 

“Sit down here, Phoebe,” Lady Audley repeated; “sit down here and talk

to me; I’m 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

bric-a-brac, 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 lady’s maid’s

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 step-daughter, and

clung to this pale-faced, pale-haired 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 Audley’s feet. Her smooth

bands of light hair were unruffled by the March winds; her trimly-made

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

lady’s 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 lady’s face, looking upward at her late mistress

with pale, anxious eyes, that only relaxed their watchfulness when Lady

Audley’s glance met that of her companion.

 

“I think I know whom you mean, my lady,” said the innkeeper’s 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 everybody’s

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 starting-point 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 didn’t 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 can’t tell how hard he can be upon me if I go

against him.”

 

“Why did he send you?”

 

The innkeeper’s wife dropped her eyelids under Lady Audley’s angry

glances, and hesitated confusedly before she answered this question.

 

“Indeed, my lady,” she stammered, “I didn’t 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 can’t get him to be

careful or steady. He’s not sober; and when he’s drinking with a lot of

rough countrymen, and drinking, perhaps even more than they do, it isn’t

likely that his head can be very clear for accounts. If it hadn’t been

for me we should have been ruined before this; and hard as I’ve tried, I

haven’t been able to keep the ruin off. You remember giving me the money

for the brewer’s 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 we’d received from you before.

But that isn’t 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 it’s owing now, and—and there’s a bailiff in

the house tonight, and we’re 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 wouldn’t 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

jewel-case has been half emptied to meet your claims? Do you know that

my pin-money, which I thought such a princely allowance when my marriage

settlement was made, and when I was a poor governess at Mr. Dawson’s,

Heaven help me! my pin-money 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, Leroy’s and Benson’s ormolu

clocks, or my Gobelin tapestried chairs and ottomans? How shall I

satisfy you next?”

 

“Oh, my lady, my lady,” cried Phoebe, piteously, “don’t be so cruel to

me; you know, you know that it isn’t 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 Phoebe’s

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. There’s 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. “He’s not fit

to be the landlord of a public-house. I didn’t 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 he’d have given up

his own fancy, either; for he’s obstinate enough, as you know, my lady.

He’s not fit for his present business. He’s scarcely ever sober after

dark; and when he’s drunk he gets almost wild, and doesn’t seem to know

what he does. We’ve had two or three narrow escapes with him already.”

 

“Narrow escapes!” repeated Lady Audley. “What do you mean?”

 

“Why, we’ve 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 lady’s-maid.

 

“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 won’t insure it; for they say if the place did happen to catch

fire