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

had skipped to nine by the time they reached the archway; but before they could pass under its shadow they had to step aside to allow a carriage to dash past them. It was a fly from the village, but Lady Audley’s fair face peeped out at the window. Dark as it was, she could see the two figures of the young men black against the dusk.

“Who is that?” she asked, putting out her head. “Is it the gardener?”

“No, my dear aunt,” said Robert, laughing; “it is your most dutiful nephew.”

He and George stopped by the archway while the fly drew up at the door, and the surprised servants came out to welcome their master and mistress.

“I think the storm will hold off tonight,” said the baronet looking up at the sky; “but we shall certainly have it tomorrow.”

IX After the Storm

Sir Michael was mistaken in his prophecy upon the weather. The storm did not hold off until next day, but burst with terrible fury over the village of Audley about half an hour before midnight.

Robert Audley took the thunder and lightning with the same composure with which he accepted all the other ills of life. He lay on a sofa in the sitting-room, ostensibly reading the five-days-old Chelmsford paper, and regaling himself occasionally with a few sips from a large tumbler of cold punch. But the storm had quite a different effect upon George Talboys. His friend was startled when he looked at the young man’s white face as he sat opposite the open window listening to the thunder, and staring at the black sky, rent every now and then by forked streaks of steel-blue lightning.

“George,” said Robert, after watching him for some time, “are you frightened of the lightning?”

“No,” he answered, curtly.

“But, dear boy, some of the most courageous men have been frightened of it. It is scarcely to be called a fear: it is constitutional. I am sure you are frightened of it.”

“No, I am not.”

“But, George, if you could see yourself, white and haggard, with your great hollow eyes staring out at the sky as if they were fixed upon a ghost. I tell you I know that you are frightened.”

“And I tell you that I am not.”

“George Talboys, you are not only afraid of the lightning, but you are savage with yourself for being afraid, and with me for telling you of your fear.”

“Robert Audley, if you say another word to me, I shall knock you down,” cried George, furiously; having said which, Mr. Talboys strode out of the room, banging the door after him with a violence that shook the house. Those inky clouds, which had shut in the sultry earth as if with a roof of hot iron, poured out their blackness in a sudden deluge as George left the room; but if the young man was afraid of the lightning, he certainly was not afraid of the rain; for he walked straight downstairs to the inn door, and went out into the wet high road. He walked up and down, up and down, in the soaking shower for about twenty minutes, and then, re-entering the inn, strode up to his bedroom.

Robert Audley met him on the landing, with his hair beaten about his white face, and his garments dripping wet.

“Are you going to bed, George?”

“Yes.”

“But you have no candle.”

“I don’t want one.”

“But look at your clothes, man! Do you see the wet streaming down your coat-sleeves? What on earth made you go out upon such a night?”

“I am tired, and want to go to bed⁠—don’t bother me.”

“You’ll take some hot brandy-and-water, George?”

Robert Audley stood in his friend’s way as he spoke, anxious to prevent his going to bed in the state he was in; but George pushed him fiercely aside, and, striding past him, said, in the same hoarse voice Robert had noticed at the Court:

“Let me alone, Robert Audley, and keep clear of me if you can.”

Robert followed George to his bedroom, but the young man banged the door in his face, so there was nothing for it but to leave Mr. Talboys to himself, to recover his temper as best he might.

“He was irritated at my noticing his terror of the lightning,” thought Robert, as he calmly retired to rest, serenely indifferent to the thunder, which seemed to shake him in his bed, and the lightning playing fitfully round the razors in his open dressing-case.

The storm rolled away from the quiet village of Audley, and when Robert awoke the next morning it was to see bright sunshine, and a peep of cloudless sky between the white curtains of his bedroom window.

It was one of those serene and lovely mornings that sometimes succeed a storm. The birds sung loud and cheerily, the yellow corn uplifted itself in the broad fields, and waved proudly after its sharp tussle with the tempest, which had done its best to beat down the heavy ears with cruel wind and driving rain half the night through. The vine-leaves clustering round Robert’s window fluttered with a joyous rustling, shaking the raindrops in diamond showers from every spray and tendril.

Robert Audley found his friend waiting for him at the breakfast-table.

George was very pale, but perfectly tranquil⁠—if anything, indeed, more cheerful than usual.

He shook Robert by the hand with something of that hearty manner for which he had been distinguished before the one affliction of his life overtook and shipwrecked him.

“Forgive me, Bob,” he said, frankly, “for my surly temper of last night. You were quite correct in your assertion; the thunderstorm did upset me. It always had the same effect upon me in my youth.”

“Poor old boy! Shall we go up by the express, or shall we stop here and dine with my uncle tonight?” asked Robert.

“To tell the truth, Bob, I would rather do neither. It’s a glorious morning. Suppose we stroll about all day, take another turn with the rod and line, and go up to town by the train that leaves