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

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down with every soul on board her before I came to see this day?”

 

He began to walk up and down the beach, his father-in-law looking

helplessly at him, rubbing his feeble eyes with a handkerchief.

 

“I’ve a strong notion that that old man didn’t treat his daughter too

well,” thought Robert, as he watched the half-pay lieutenant. “He seems,

for some reason or other, to be half afraid of George.”

 

While the agitated young man walked up and down in a fever of regret and

despair, the child ran to his grandfather, and clung about the tails of

his coat.

 

“Come home, grandpa, come home,” he said. “I’m tired.”

 

George Talboys turned at the sound of the babyish voice, and looked long

and earnestly at the boy.

 

He had his father’s brown eyes and dark hair.

 

“My darling! my darling!” said George, taking the child in his arms, “I

am your father, come across the sea to find you. Will you love me?”

 

The little fellow pushed him away. “I don’t know you,” he said. “I love

grandpa and Mrs. Monks at Southampton.”

 

“Georgey has a temper of his own, sir,” said the old man. “He has been

spoiled.”

 

They walked slowly back to the cottage, and once more George Talboys

told the history of that desertion which had seemed so cruel. He told,

too, of the twenty thousand pounds banked by him the day before. He had

not the heart to ask any questions about the past, and his father-in-law

only told him that a few months after his departure they had gone from

the place where George left them to live at Southampton, where Helen got

a few pupils for the piano, and where they managed pretty well till her

health failed, and she fell into the decline of which she died. Like

most sad stories it was a very brief one.

 

“The boy seems fond of you, Mr. Maldon,” said George, after a pause.

 

“Yes, yes,” answered the old man, smoothing the child’s curling hair;

“yes. Georgey is very fond of his grandfather.”

 

“Then he had better stop with you. The interest of my money will be

about six hundred a year. You can draw a hundred of that for Georgey’s

education, leaving the rest to accumulate till he is of age. My friend

here will be trustee, and if he will undertake the charge, I will

appoint him guardian to the boy, allowing him for the present to remain

under your care.”

 

“But why not take care of him yourself, George?” asked Robert Audley.

 

“Because I shall sail in the very next vessel that leaves Liverpool for

Australia. I shall be better in the diggings or the backwoods than ever

I could be here. I’m broken for a civilized life from this hour, Bob.”

 

The old man’s weak eyes sparkled as George declared this determination.

 

“My poor boy, I think you’re right,” he said, “I really think you’re

right. The change, the wild life, the—the—” He hesitated and broke

down as Robert looked earnestly at him.

 

“You’re in a great hurry to get rid of your son-in-law, I think, Mr.

Maldon,” he said, gravely.

 

“Get rid of him, dear boy! Oh, no, no! But for his own sake, my dear

sir, for his own sake, you know.”

 

“I think for his own sake he’d much better stay in England and look

after his son,” said Robert.

 

“But I tell you I can’t,” cried George; “every inch of this accursed

ground is hateful to me—I want to run out of it as I would out of a

graveyard. I’ll go back to town tonight, get that business about the

money settled early tomorrow morning, and start for Liverpool without a

moment’s delay. I shall be better when I’ve put half the world between

me and her grave.”

 

“Before he left the house he stole out to the landlady, and asked same

more questions about his dead wife.

 

“Were they poor?” he asked, “were they pinched for money while she was

ill?”

 

“Oh, no!” the woman answered; “though the captain dresses shabby, he has

always plenty of sovereigns in his purse. The poor lady wanted for

nothing.”

 

George was relieved at this, though it puzzled him to know where the

drunken half-pay lieutenant could have contrived to find money for all

the expenses of his daughter’s illness.

 

But he was too thoroughly broken down by the calamity which had befallen

him to be able to think much of anything, so he asked no further

questions, but walked with his father-in-law and Robert Audley down to

the boat by which they were to cross to Portsmouth.

 

The old man bade Robert a very ceremonious adieu.

 

“You did not introduce me to your friend, by-the-bye, my dear boy,” he

said. George stared at him, muttered something indistinct, and ran down

the ladder to the boat before Mr. Maldon could repeat his request. The

steamer sped away through the sunset, and the outline of the island

melted in the horizon as they neared the opposite shore.

 

“To think,” said George, “that two nights ago, at this time, I was

steaming into Liverpool, full of the hope of clasping her to my heart,

and tonight I am going away from her grave!”

 

The document which appointed Robert Audley as guardian to little George

Talboys was drawn up in a solicitor’s office the next morning.

 

“It’s a great responsibility,” exclaimed Robert; “I, guardian to anybody

or anything! I, who never in my life could take care of myself!”

 

“I trust in your noble heart, Bob,” said George. “I know you will take

care of my poor orphan boy, and see that he is well used by his

grandfather. I shall only draw enough from Georgey’s fortune to take me

back to Sydney, and then begin my old work again.”

 

But it seemed as if George was destined to be himself the guardian of

his son; for when he reached Liverpool, he found that a vessel had just

sailed, and that there would not be another for a month; so he returned

to London, and once more threw himself upon Robert Audley’s hospitality.

 

The barrister received him with open arms; he gave him the room with the

birds and flowers, and had a bed put up in his dressing-room for

himself. Grief is so selfish that George did not know the sacrifices his

friend made for his comfort. He only knew that for him the sun was

darkened, and the business of life done. He sat all day long smoking

cigars, and staring at the flowers and canaries, chafing for the time to

pass that he might be far out at sea.

 

But just as the hour was drawing near for the sailing of the vessel,

Robert Audley came in one day, full of a great scheme.

 

A friend of his, another of those barristers whose last thought is of a

brief, was going to St. Petersburg to spend the winter, and wanted

Robert to accompany him. Robert would only go on condition that George

went too.

 

For a long time the young man resisted; but when he found that Robert

was, in a quiet way, thoroughly determined upon not going without him,

he gave in, and consented to join the party. What did it matter? he

said. One place was the same to him as another; anywhere out of England;

what did he care where?

 

This was not a very cheerful way of looking at things, but Robert Audley

was quite satisfied with having won his consent.

 

The three young men started under very favorable circumstances, carrying

letters of introduction to the most influential inhabitants of the

Russian capital.

 

Before leaving England, Robert wrote to his cousin Alicia, telling her

of his intended departure with his old friend George Talboys, whom he

had lately met for the first time after a lapse of years, and who had

just lost his wife.

 

Alicia’s reply came by return post, and ran thus:

 

“MY DEAR ROBERT—How cruel of you to run away to that horrid St.

Petersburg before the hunting season! I have heard that people lose

their noses in that disagreeable climate, and as yours is rather a long

one, I should advise you to return before the very severe weather sets

in. What sort of person is this Mr. Talboys? If he is very agreeable you

may bring him to the Court as soon as you return from your travels. Lady

Audley tells me to request you to secure her a set of sables. You are

not to consider the price, but to be sure that they are the handsomest

that can be obtained. Papa is perfectly absurd about his new wife, and

she and I cannot get on together at all; not that she is, disagreeable

to me, for, as far as that goes, she makes herself agreeable to every

one; but she is so irretrievably childish and silly.

 

“Believe me to be, my dear Robert.

 

“Your affectionate cousin,

 

“ALICIA AUDLEY.”

 

CHAPTER VII.

 

AFTER A YEAR.

 

The first year of George Talboys’ widowhood passed away, the deep band

of crepe about his hat grew brown and dusty, and as the last burning day

of another August faded out, he sat smoking cigars in the quiet chambers

of Figtree Court, much as he had done the year before, when the horror

of his grief was new to him, and every object in life, however trifling

or however important, seemed saturated with his one great sorrow.

 

But the big ex-dragoon had survived his affliction by a twelvemonth, and

hard as it may be to have to tell it, he did not look much the worse for

it. Heaven knows what wasted agonies of remorse and self-reproach may

not have racked George’s honest heart, as he lay awake at nights

thinking of the wife he had abandoned in the pursuit of a fortune, which

she never lived to share.

 

Once, while they were abroad, Robert Audley ventured to congratulate him

upon his recovered spirits. He burst into a bitter laugh.

 

“Do you know, Bob,” he said, “that when some of our fellows were wounded

in India, they came home, bringing bullets inside them. They did not

talk of them, and they were stout and hearty, and looked as well,

perhaps, as you or I; but every change in the weather, however slight,

every variation of the atmosphere, however trifling, brought back the

old agony of their wounds as sharp as ever they had felt it on the

battle-field. I’ve had my wound, Bob; I carry the bullet still, and I

shall carry it into my coffin.”

 

The travelers returned from St. Petersburg in the spring, and George

again took up his quarters at his old friend’s chambers, only leaving

them now and then to run down to Southampton and take a look at his

little boy. He always went loaded with toys and sweetmeats to give to

the child; but, for all this, Georgey would not become very familiar

with his papa, and the young man’s heart sickened as he began to fancy

that even his child was lost to him.

 

“What can I do?” he thought. “If I take him away from his grandfather, I

shall break his heart; if I let him remain, he will grow up a stranger

to me, and care more for that drunken old hypocrite than for his own

father. But then, what could an ignorant, heavy dragoon like me do with

such a child? What could I teach him, except to smoke cigars and idle

around all day with his hands in