Chapter 3

"I say, young fellow, I don't like your way of speaking; you are mad, sir. You won't do for the Honourable Company. Good-day to you!"

"I shouldn't wonder," said I, as I proceeded rapidly eastward, "if Mr. Petulengro came from India. I think I'll go there."

* * * * *

M. E. BRADDON

Lady Audley's Secret

Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, youngest daughter of Henry Braddon, solicitor, and widow of John Maxwell, publisher, was born in London in 1837. Early in life she had literary aspirations, and, as a girl of twenty-three, wrote her first novel, "The Trail of the Serpent," which first appeared in serial form. "Lady Audley's Secret" was published in 1862, and Miss Braddon immediately sprang into fame as an authoress, combining a graphic style with keen analysis of character, and exceptional ingenuity in the construction of a plot of tantalising complexities and DRAMATIC _DÉNOUEMENT_. The book passed through many editions, and there was an immediate demand for other stories by the gifted authoress. That demand was met with an industry and resource rarely equalled. Every year since, Miss Braddon, who throughout retained her maiden as her pen-name, furnished the reading public with one, and for a long period two romances of absorbing interest.

_I.--The Second Lady Audley_

SIR MICHAEL AUDLEY was fifty-six years of age, and had married a second wife nine months before. For seventeen years he had been a widower with an only child--Alicia, now eighteen. Lady Audley had come into the neighbourhood from London, in response to an advertisement in the "Times," as a governess in the family of Mr. Dawson, the village surgeon. Her accomplishments were brilliant and numerous. Everyone, high and low, loved, admired, and praised her, and united in declaring that Lucy Graham was the sweetest girl that ever lived. Sir Michael Audley expressed a strong desire to be acquainted with her. A meeting was arranged at the surgeon's house, and that day Sir Michael's fate was sealed. One misty June evening Sir Michael, sitting opposite Lucy Graham at the window of the surgeon's little drawing-room, spoke to her on the subject nearest his heart.

"I scarcely think," he said, "there is a greater sin, Lucy, than that of a woman who marries a man she does not love. You are so precious to me that, deeply as my heart is set on this, and bitter as the mere thought of disappointment is to me, I would not have you commit such a sin for any happiness of mine. Nothing but misery can result from a marriage dictated by any motive but truth and love."

Lucy for some moments was quite silent. Then, turning to him with a sudden passion in her manner that lighted up her face with a new and wonderful beauty, she fell on her knees at his feet. Clutching at a black ribbon about her throat, she exclaimed:

"How good, how noble, how generous you are! But you ask too much of me. Only remember what my life has been! From babyhood I have never seen anything but poverty. My father was a gentleman, but poor; my mother-- but don't let me speak of her. You can never guess what is endured by genteel paupers. I cannot be disinterested; I cannot be blind to the advantages of such a marriage. I do not dislike you--no, no; and I do not love anyone in the world," she added, with a laugh, when asked if there was anyone else.

Sir Michael was silent for a few moments, and then, with a kind of effort, said: "Well, Lucy, I will not ask too much of you; but I see no reason why we should not make a very happy couple."

When Lucy went to her own room she sat down on the edge of the bed, and murmured: "No more dependence, no more drudgery, no more humiliations! Every trace of the old life melted away, every clue to identity buried and forgotten except this"--and she drew from her bosom a black ribbon and locket, and the object attached to it. It was a ring wrapped in an oblong piece of crumpled paper, partly written and partly printed.

_II.--The Return of the Gold-Seeker_

A tall, powerfully-built young man of twenty-five, his face bronzed by exposure, brown eyes, bushy black beard, moustache, and hair, was pacing impatiently the deck of the Australian liner Argus, bound from Melbourne to Liverpool. His name was George Talboys. He was joined in his promenade by a shipboard-friend, who had been attracted by the feverish ardour and freshness of the young man, and was made the confidant of his story.

"Do you know, Miss Morley," he said, "that I left my little girl asleep, with her baby in her arms, and with nothing but a few blotted lines to tell her why her adoring husband had deserted her."

"Deserted her!" cried Miss Morley.

"Yes. I was a cornet in a cavalry regiment when I first met my darling. We were quartered in a stupid seaport town, where my pet lived with her shabby old father--a half-pay naval man. It was a case of love at first sight on both sides, and my darling and I made a match of it. My father is a rich man, but no sooner did he hear that I was married to a penniless girl than he wrote a furious letter telling me that he would never again hold any communication with me, and that my yearly allowance was stopped.

"I sold out my commission, thinking that before the money I got for it was exhausted I should be sure to drop into something. I took my darling to Italy, lived in splendid style, and then, when there was nothing left but a couple of hundred pounds, we came back to England and boarded with my wretched father-in-law, who fleeced us finely. I went to London and tried in vain to get employment; and on my return, my little girl burst into a storm of lamentations, blaming me for the cruel wrong of marrying her if I could give her nothing but poverty and misery. Her tears and reproaches drove me almost mad. I ran out of the house, rushed down to the pier, intending, after dark, to drop quietly into the water and end all.

"While I sat smoking two men came along, and began to talk of the Australian gold-diggings and the great fortunes that were to be made there in a short time. I got into conversation with them, and learned that a ship sailed from Liverpool for Melbourne in three days. The thought flashed on me that that was better than the water. I returned home, crept upstairs, and wrote a few hurried lines which told her that I never loved her better than now when I seemed to desert her; that I was going to try my fortune in a new world; that if I succeeded I should come back to bring her plenty and happiness, but if I failed I should never look upon her face again. I kissed her hand and the baby once, and slipped out of the room. Three nights after I was out at sea, bound for Melbourne, a steerage passenger with a digger's tools for my baggage, and seven shillings in my pocket. After three and a half years of hard and bitter struggles on the goldfields, at last I struck it rich, realised twenty thousand pounds, and a fortnight later I took my passage for England. All this time I had never communicated with my wife, but the moment fortune came, I wrote, telling her I should be in England almost as soon as my letter, and giving her an address at a coffee-house in London."

That same evening Phoebe Marks, maid to Lady Audley, invited her cousin and sweetheart, Luke Marks, a farm labourer with ambitions to own a public-house, to survey the wonders of Audley Court, including my lady's private apartments and her jewel-box. During the inspection, by accident, a knob in the framework of the jewel-box was pushed, and a secret drawer sprang out There were neither gold nor gems in it. Only a baby's little worsted shoe, rolled in a piece of paper, and a tiny lock of silky yellow hair, evidently taken from a baby's head. Phoebe's eyes dilated as she examined the little packet.

"So this is what my lady hides in the secret drawer," she said, putting the little packet in her pocket.

"Why, Phoebe, you're never going to be such a fool as to take that?" cried Luke.

"I'd rather have this than the diamond bracelet you would have liked to take," she said, her lips curving into a curious smile. "You shall have the public-house, Luke."

_III.--Robert Audley Comes on the Scene_

Robert Audley was supposed to be a barrister, and had chambers in Fig Tree Court, Temple. He was a handsome, lazy, care-for-nothing fellow of seven-and-twenty, the only son of the younger brother of Sir Michael Audley, who had left him a moderate competency.

One morning, Robert Audley strolled out of the Temple, Blackfriarswards. At the corner of a court in St. Paul's Churchyard he was almost knocked down by a man of his own age dashing headlong into the narrow opening. Robert remonstrated; the stranger stopped suddenly, looked very hard at the speaker, and cried, in a tone of intense astonishment:

"Bob! I only touched British ground after dark last night, and to think I should meet you this morning!"

George Talboys, for the stranger was the late passenger on board the Argus, had been from boyhood the inseparable chum of Robert Audley. The tale of Talboys' marriage, his expedition to Australia, and his return with a fortune, was briefly told. The pair took a hansom to the Westminster coffee-house where Talboys had written to his wife to forward letters. There was no letter, and the young man showed very bitter disappointment. By and by George mechanically picked up a "Times" newspaper of a day or two before, and stared vacantly at the first page. He turned a sickly colour, and pointed to a line which ran: "On the 24th inst., at Ventnor-Isle of Wight, Helen Talboys, aged 22." He knew no more until he opened his eyes in a room in his friend's chambers in the Temple.

Next day he and Robert Audley journeyed by express to Ventnor, learned on inquiry at the principal hotel that a Captain Maldon, whose daughter was lately dead, was staying at Lansdowne Cottage; and thither they proceeded. The captain and his little grandson, Georgey, were out.

George Talboys and his friend visited the churchyard where his wife was buried, commissioned a mason to erect a headstone on the grave, and then went to the beach to seek Captain Maldon and the little boy.

The captain, when he saw his son-in-law, coloured violently with something of a frightened look. He told Talboys that only a few months after his departure he and Helen came to live at Southampton, where she had obtained a few pupils for the piano; but her health failed, and she fell into a decline, of which she died. Broken-hearted, Talboys started for Liverpool to take ship for Australia, but failed to catch the steamer; returned to London, and accompanied Robert Audley on a long visit to Russia.

A year passed, and Robert proposed to take his friend to Audley Court, but had a letter from his cousin Alicia, saying that her stepmother had taken into her head that she was too ill to entertain, though in reality there was nothing the matter with her.

"My lady's airs and graces shan't keep us out of Essex, for all that," said Robert Audley. "We will go to a comfortable old inn in the village of Audley."

Thither they went; but Lady Audley, who had casually seen him, although he was unaware of it, continued on one excuse or another to avoid meeting George Talboys. The two young men strolled up to the Court in the absence of Sir Michael and Lady Audley, where they met Alicia Audley, who showed them the lime walk and the old well.

Robert was anxious to see the portrait of his new aunt; but Lady Audley's picture was in her private apartments, the door of which was locked. Alicia remembered there was, unknown to Lady Audley, access to these by means of a secret passage. In a spirit of fun the young men explored the passage and reached the portrait. George Talboys sat before it without uttering a word, only staring blankly.

"We managed it capitally; but I don't like the portrait," said Robert, when they had crept back. "There is something odd about it."

"There is," answered Alicia. "We never have seen my lady look as she does in that picture; but I think she could look so."

Next day Talboys and Robert went fishing. George pretended to fish; Robert slept on the river-bank. The servants were at dinner at the Court; Alicia had gone riding. Lady Audley sauntered out, book in hand, to the shady lime walk. George Talboys came up to the hall, rang the bell, was told that her ladyship was walking in the lime avenue. He looked disappointed at the intelligence, and walked away. A full hour and a half later, Lady Audley returned to the house, not coming from the lime avenue, but from the opposite direction. In her own room she confronted her maid, Phoebe. The eyes of the two women met.

"Phoebe Marks," said my lady presently, "you are a good girl; and while I live and am prosperous, you shall not want a firm friend and a twenty-pound note."

_IV.--The Search and the Counter Check_

Robert Audley awoke from his nap to find George Talboys gone. He searched in the grounds and in the inn for him in vain. At the railway-station he heard that a man who, from the description given, might be Talboys, had gone by the afternoon train to London. In the evening he went up to the Court to dinner. Lady Audley was gay and fascinating; but gave a little nervous shudder when Robert, feeling uneasy about his friend, said so.

Again, when Lady Audley was at the piano he observed a bruise on her arm. She said that it was caused by tying a piece of ribbon too tightly round her arm two or three days before. But Robert saw that the bruise was recent, and that it had been made by the four fingers, one of which had a ring, of a powerful hand.

Suspicion began to be aroused in the mind of Robert Audley, first as to the real identity of Lady Audley; and second, as to the fate of his friend. He brought into play all the keenness of his intellect, and abandoned his lazy habits. He went to Southampton, saw Captain Maldon, who told him that George Talboys had arrived the morning before at one o'clock to have a look at his boy before sailing for Australia. On inquiry at Liverpool, this proved to be false.

He sought the assistance of George's father, Squire Talboys, at Grange Heath, Dorsetshire, to discover the murderer; but the squire resolutely refused to accept that his son was dead. He was only hiding, hoping for forgiveness, which would never be given.

The beautiful sister of George Talboys followed Robert when he left the mansion and besought him passionately to avenge her brother's murder, in which she implicitly believed, and this he promised to do.

Then he learned that Phoebe, Lady Audley's maid, had married her cousin Luke Marks, who, under veiled threats, had obtained one hundred pounds from her ladyship to enable him to lease the Castle Inn. And having visited the place, and held conversation with the half-drunken landlord, he felt assured that Luke Marks and his wife had by some means obtained a sinister power over Lady Audley.

Robert thereafter traced the life history of Helen Maldon from her marriage to George Talboys at Wildernsea, Yorkshire, her secret departure from there after her husband's desertion, her appearance the following day as a teacher in a girl's school at Brompton under the name of Lucy Graham; her arrival as a governess in Essex, and finally her marriage to Sir Michael Audley.

Once more he returned to the Court, where his uncle was lying ill, attended by Lady Audley. He demanded a private audience of my lady, at which he told her he had discovered the whole of the conspiracy concocted by an artful woman who had speculated upon the chance of her husband's death, and had secured a splendid position at the risk of committing a crime.

"My friend, George Talboys," said Robert, "was last seen entering these gardens, and was never seen to leave them. I will have such a search made as shall level that house to the earth, and root up every tree rather than I will fail in finding the grave of my murdered friend."

"You shall never live to do this," she said. "I will kill you first!"

That evening Lady Audley gave to her husband a gloss of what his nephew had said, and boldly accused him of being mad. "You would," she said, "never let anyone influence you against me, would you, darling?"

"No, my love; they had better not try it."

Lady Audley laughed aloud, with a gay, triumphant peal as she tripped out of the room; but as she sat in her own chamber, brooding, she muttered: "Dare I defy him? Will anything stop him but--death?"

Just then Phoebe Marks arrived to warn Lady Audley that Robert had appeared at the Castle Inn. She also explained that a bailiff was in the house, as the rent was due, and she wanted money to pay him out. Lady Audley, insisted to Phoebe's astonishment, that she herself would bring the money. She did so; and, unknown to Phoebe, cunningly set fire to the inn, hoping that Robert Audley would meet his death. She and her maid then left the inn to make the long tramp back to the Court. Half the distance had been covered, when Phoebe looked back and saw a red glare in the sky. She stopped, suddenly fell on her knees, and cried: "Oh, my God! Say it's not true! It's too horrible!"

"What's too horrible?" said Lady Audley.

"The thought that is in my mind."

"I will tell you nothing except that you are a mad woman; and go home." Lady Audley walked away in the darkness.

_V.--My Lady Tells the Truth_

Lady Audley next day was under the dominion of a terrible restlessness. Towards the dinner hour she walked in the quadrangle. In the dusk she lost all self-control when a figure approached. Her knees sank under her and she dropped to the ground. It was Robert Audley who helped her to rise and then led her into the library. In a pitiless voice he called her the incendiary of the fire at the inn. Fortunately, he had changed his room, and escaped being burnt to death, saving, at the same time, Luke Marks. The day was now past, he insisted, for mercy, after last night's deed of horror; and she should no longer pollute the Court with her presence.

"Bring Sir Michael," she cried, "and I will confess everything!"

And so the confession was made. Briefly stated, it was that as a little child, in a Hampshire coast village, when she asked where her mother was, the answer always was that that was a secret. In a fit of passion the foster-mother told her that her own mother was a madwoman in an asylum many miles away. Afterwards, she learned that the madness was a hereditary disease, and she was instructed to keep the secret because it might affect her injuriously in after life. Then she detailed the story of her life until her marriage with Sir Michael Audley, justifying that on the ground that she had a right to believe her first husband was dead. In the sunshine of love at Audley Court she felt, for the first time in her life, the miseries of others, and took pleasure in acts of kindness.

In an Essex paper she read of the return of her first husband to England. Knowing his character, she thought that unless he could be induced to believe she was dead, he would never abandon his search for her. Again she became mad. In collusion with her father she induced a Mrs. Plowson in Southampton, who had a daughter in the last stage of consumption, to pass off that daughter as Mrs. George Talboys, and removed her to Ventnor, Isle of Wight, with her own little boy schooled to call her "mamma." There she died in a fortnight, was buried as Mrs. George Talboys, and the advertisement of the death was inserted in the "Times" two days before her husband's arrival in England.

Sir Michael could hear no more. He and his daughter Alicia departed that evening for the Continent. Next day, Dr. Mosgrave, a mental specialist, arrived from London. He was fully informed of the history of Lady Audley, examined her, and finally reported to Robert: "The lady is not mad, but she has a hereditary taint in her blood. She has the cunning of madness, with the prudence of intelligence. She is dangerous." He gave Robert a letter addressed to Monsieur Val, Villebrumeuse, Belgium, who, he said, was the proprietor and medical superintendent of an excellent _maison de santé_, and would, no doubt, willingly receive Lady Audley into his establishment, and charge himself with the full responsibility of her future life.

Robert escorted Lady Audley to Villebrumeuse, where she was presented to Monsieur Val as Madame Taylor. When Monsieur Val retired from the reception room, at my lady's request, she turned to Robert, and said: "You have brought me to a living grave; you have used your power basely and cruelly."

"I have done that which I thought was just to others, and merciful to you," replied Robert. "Live here and repent."

"I cannot," cried my lady. "I would defy you and kill myself if I dared. Do you know what I am thinking of? It is of the day upon which George Talboys--disappeared! The body of George Talboys lies at the bottom of the old well in the shrubbery beyond the lime walk. He came to me there, goaded me beyond endurance, and I called him a madman and a liar. I was going to leave him when he seized me by the wrist and sought to detain me by force. You yourself saw the bruises. I became mad, and drew the loose iron spindle from the shrunken wood of the windlass. My first husband sank with one horrible cry into the black mouth of the well!"

_VI.--The Mystery Cleared Up_

On arrival in London, Robert Audley received a letter from Clara Talboys saying that Luke Marks, the man whom he had saved in the fire at the Castle Inn, was lying at his mother's cottage at Audley, and expressed a very earnest wish to see him. Robert took train at once to Audley.

The dying man confessed that on the night of George Talboys's disappearance, when going home to his mother's cottage, he heard groans come from the laurel bushes in the shrubbery near the old well. On search, he found Talboys covered with slime, and with a broken arm. He carried the crippled man to his mother's cottage, washed, fed, and nursed him.

Next day Talboys gave him a five-pound note to accompany him to the town of Brentwood, where he called on a surgeon to have his broken arm set and dressed. That done, Talboys wrote two notes in pencil with his left hand, and gave them to Luke to deliver--one with a cross to be handed to Lady Audley, and the other to the nephew of Sir Michael, and then took train to London in a second-class carriage.

Phoebe, who had seen from her window Lady Audley pushing George Talboys into the well, said that my lady was in their power, and that she would do anything for them to keep her secret. So the letters were not delivered.

He hid them away; not a creature had seen them. The old mother, who had been present throughout the confession, took the papers from a drawer and handed them to Robert Audley.

The note to Robert said that something had happened to the writer, he could not tell what, which drove him from England, a broken-hearted man, to seek some corner of the earth where he might live and die unknown and forgotten. He left his son in his friend's hands, knowing that he could leave him to no truer guardian. The second note was addressed "Helen," saying, "May God pity and forgive you for that which you have done to-day, as truly as I do. Rest in peace. You shall never hear from me again. I leave England, never to return.--G. T."

Luke Marks died that afternoon. Robert Audley wrote a long letter the same evening, addressed to Madame Taylor, in which he told the story related by Marks; and as soon as possible he went down to Dorsetshire to inform George Talboys's father that his son was alive. He stayed five weeks at Grange Heath, and the love which had come to him at first sight of Clara Talboys rapidly ripened.