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

and being of a light, feathery quality, had spread itself into a tangled mass that surrounded her forehead like a yellow flame. There was another flame in her eyes⁠—a greenish light, such as might flash from the changing-hued orbs of an angry mermaid.

“Stop,” she cried. “I didn’t come up here in the dead of night to listen to your insolence. How much is this debt?”

“Nine pound.”

Lady Audley produced her purse⁠—a toy of ivory, silver, and turquoise⁠—she took from it a note and four sovereigns. She laid these upon the table.

“Let that man give me a receipt for the money,” she said, “before I go.”

It was some time before the man could be roused into sufficient consciousness for the performance of this simple duty, and it was only by dipping a pen into the ink and pushing it between his clumsy fingers, that he was at last made to comprehend that his autograph was wanted at the bottom of the receipt which had been made out by Phoebe Marks. Lady Audley took the document as soon as the ink was dry, and turned to leave the parlor. Phoebe followed her.

“You mustn’t go home alone, my lady,” she said. “You’ll let me go with you?”

“Yes, yes; you shall go home with me.”

The two women were standing near the door of the inn as my lady said this. Phoebe stared wonderingly at her patroness. She had expected that Lady Audley would be in a hurry to return home after settling this business which she had capriciously taken upon herself; but it was not so; my lady stood leaning against the inn door and staring into vacancy, and again Mrs. Marks began to fear that trouble had driven her late mistress mad.

A little Dutch clock in the bar struck two while Lady Audley lingered in this irresolute, absent manner. She started at the sound and began to tremble violently.

“I think I am going to faint, Phoebe,” she said; “where can I get some cold water?”

“The pump is in the washhouse, my lady; I’ll run and get you a glass of cold water.”

“No, no, no,” cried my lady, clutching Phoebe’s arm as she was about to run away upon this errand; “I’ll get it myself. I must dip my head in a basin of water if I want to save myself from fainting. In which room does Mr. Audley sleep?”

There was something so irrelevant in this question that Phoebe Marks stared aghast at her mistress before she answered it.

“It was number three that I got ready, my lady⁠—the front room⁠—the room next to ours,” she replied, after that pause of astonishment.

“Give me a candle,” said my lady. “I’ll go into your room, and get some water for my head; stay where you are, and see that that brute of a husband of yours does not follow me!”

She snatched the candle which Phoebe had lighted from the girl’s hand and ran up the rickety, winding staircase which led to the narrow corridor upon the upper floor. Five bedrooms opened out of this low-ceilinged, close-smelling corridor; the numbers of these rooms were indicated by squat black figures painted upon the panels of the doors. Lady Audley had driven up to Mount Stanning to inspect the house when she bought the business for her servant’s bridegroom, and she knew her way about the dilapidated old place; she knew where to find Phoebe’s bedroom, but she stopped before the door of that other chamber which had been prepared for Mr. Robert Audley.

She stopped and looked at the number on the door. The key was in the lock, and her hand dropped upon it as if unconsciously. But presently she suddenly began to tremble again, as she had trembled a few minutes before at the striking of the clock. She stood for a few moments trembling thus, with her hand still upon the key; then a horrible expression came over her face, and she turned the key in the lock. She turned it twice, double locking the door.

There was no sound from within; the occupant of the chamber made no sign of having heard that ominous creaking of the rusty key in the rusty lock.

Lady Audley hurried into the next room. She set the candle on the dressing-table, flung off her bonnet and slung it loosely across her arm; then she went to the washstand and filled the basin with water. She plunged her golden hair into this water, and then stood for a few moments in the center of the room looking about her, with a white, earnest face, and an eager gaze that seemed to take in every object in the poorly furnished chamber. Phoebe’s bedroom was certainly very shabbily furnished; she had been compelled to select all the most decent things for those best bedrooms which were set apart for any chance traveler who might stop for a night’s lodging at the Castle Inn; but Phoebe Marks had done her best to atone for the lack of substantial furniture in her apartment by a superabundance of drapery. Crisp curtains of cheap chintz hung from the tent-bedstead; festooned drapery of the same material shrouded the narrow window shutting out the light of day, and affording a pleasant harbor for tribes of flies and predatory bands of spiders. Even the looking-glass, a miserably cheap construction which distorted every face whose owner had the hardihood to look into it, stood upon a draperied altar of starched muslin and pink glazed calico, and was adorned with frills of lace and knitted work.

My lady smiled as she looked at the festoons and furbelows which met her eyes upon every side. She had reason, perhaps, to smile, remembering the costly elegance of her own apartments; but there was something in that sardonic smile that seemed to have a deeper meaning than any natural contempt for Phoebe’s attempts at decoration. She went to the dressing-table and, smoothed her wet hair before the looking-glass, and then put on her bonnet. She was obliged to place the flaming tallow