Lady Audley’s Secret by M. E. Braddon (top ebook reader TXT) 📕

She flung her beautiful head back upon the soft cushions, and took a book from the table near her. Insignificant as this action was, it spoke very plainly. It spoke very plainly of ever-recurring fears⁠—of fatal necessities for concealment⁠—of a mind that in its silent agonies was ever alive to the importance of outward effect. It 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 stepdaughter, 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