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

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 thoughtfully at the child for some minutes before he could get any further.

“I dare say you’re hungry, Georgey?” he said, at last.

The boy nodded, and the waiter whisked some more invisible dust from the nearest table as a preparatory step toward laying a cloth.

“Perhaps you’d like some lunch?” Mr. Audley suggested, still pulling his mustache.

The boy burst out laughing.

“Lunch!” he cried. “Why, it’s afternoon, and I’ve had my dinner.”

Robert Audley felt himself brought to a standstill. What refreshment could he possibly provide for a boy who called it afternoon at three o’clock?

“You shall have some bread and milk, Georgey,” he said, presently. “Waiter, bread and milk, and a pint of hock.”

Master Talboys made a wry face.

“I never have bread and milk,” he said, “I don’t like it. I like what gran’pa calls something savory. I should like a veal cutlet. Gran’pa told me he dined here once, and the veal cutlets were lovely, gran’pa said. Please may I have a veal cutlet, with egg and breadcrumb, you know, and lemon-juice you know?” he added to the waiter: “Gran’pa knows the cook here. The cook’s such a nice gentleman, and once gave me a shilling, when gran’pa brought me here. The cook wears better clothes than gran’pa⁠—better than yours, even,” said Master Georgey, pointing to Robert’s rough greatcoat with a depreciating nod.

Robert Audley stared aghast. How was he to deal with this epicure of five years old, who rejected bread and milk and asked for veal cutlets?

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you, little Georgey,” he exclaimed, after a pause⁠—“I’ll give you a dinner!”

The waiter nodded briskly.

“Upon my word, sir,” he said, approvingly, “I think the little gentleman will know how to eat it.”

“I’ll give you a dinner, Georgey,” repeated Robert⁠—“some stewed eels, a little Julienne, a dish of cutlets, a bird, and a pudding. What do you say to that, Georgey?”

“I don’t think the young gentleman will object to it when he sees it, sir,” said the waiter. “Eels, Julienne, cutlets, bird, pudding⁠—I’ll go and tell the cook, sir. What time, sir?”

“Well, we’ll say six, and Master Georgey will get to his new school by bedtime. You can contrive to amuse the child for this afternoon, I dare say. I have some business to settle, and shan’t be able to take him out. I shall sleep here tonight. Goodbye, Georgey; take care of yourself and try and get your appetite in order against six o’clock.”

Robert Audley left the boy in charge of the idle waiter, and strolled down to the water side, choosing that lonely bank which leads away under the moldering walls of the town toward the little villages beside the narrowing river.

He had purposely avoided the society of the child, and he walked through the light drifting snow till the early darkness closed upon him.

He went back to the town, and made inquiries at the station about the trains for Dorsetshire.

“I shall start early tomorrow morning,” he thought, “and see George’s father before nightfall. I will tell him all⁠—all but the interest which I take in⁠—in the suspected person, and he shall decide what is next to be done.”

Master Georgey did very good justice to the dinner which Robert had ordered. He drank Bass’ pale ale to an extent which considerably alarmed his entertainer, and enjoyed himself amazingly, showing an appreciation of roast pheasant and bread-sauce which was beyond his years. At eight o’clock a fly was brought out for his accommodation, and he departed in the highest spirits, with a sovereign in his pocket, and a letter from Robert to Mr. Marchmont, inclosing a check for the young gentleman’s outfit.

“I’m glad I’m going to have new clothes,” he said, as he bade Robert goodbye; “for Mrs. Plowson has mended the old ones ever so many times. She can have them now, for Billy.”

“Who’s Billy?” Robert asked, laughing at the boy’s chatter.

“Billy is poor Matilda’s little boy. He’s a common boy, you know. Matilda was common, but she⁠—”

But the flyman snapping his whip at this moment, the old horse jogged off, and Robert Audley heard no more of Matilda.

XXII Coming to a Standstill

Mr. Harcourt Talboys lived in a prim, square, redbrick mansion, within a mile of a little village called Grange Heath, in Dorsetshire. The prim, square, redbrick mansion stood in the center of prim, square grounds, scarcely large enough to be called a park, too large to be called anything else⁠—so neither the house nor the grounds had any name, and the estate was simply designated Squire Talboys’.

Perhaps Mr. Harcourt Talboys was the last person in this world with whom it was possible to associate the homely, hearty, rural old English title of squire. He neither hunted nor farmed. He had never worn crimson, pink, or top-boots in his life. A southerly wind and a cloudy sky were matters of supreme indifference to him, so long as they did not in any way interfere with his own prim comforts; and he only cared for the state of the crops inasmuch as it involved the hazard of certain rents which he received for the farms upon his estate. He was a man of about fifty years of age, tall, straight, bony and angular, with a square, pale face, light gray eyes, and scanty dark hair, brushed from either ear across a bald crown, and thus imparting to his physiognomy some faint resemblance to that of a terrier⁠—a