Lady Audley's Secret - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (books to read in your 20s female .TXT) 📗
- Author: Mary Elizabeth Braddon
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“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
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