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

you know why I have been so. You know the secret which is the key to my life?”

He wearied his brain in endeavoring to find a clue to the signification of these two sentences. He could remember nothing, nor could he imagine anything that would throw a light upon their meaning. The date of Helen’s departure, according to Mr. Maldon’s letter, was the 16th of August, 1854. Miss Tonks had declared that Lucy Graham entered the school at Crescent Villas upon the 17th or 18th of August in the same year. Between the departure of Helen Talboys from the Yorkshire watering-place and the arrival of Lucy Graham at the Brompton school, not more than eight-and-forty hours could have elapsed. This made a very small link in the chain of circumstantial evidence, perhaps; but it was a link, nevertheless, and it fitted neatly into its place.

“Did Mr. Maldon hear from his daughter after she had left Wildernsea?” Robert asked.

“Well, I believe he did hear from her,” Mrs. Barkamb answered; “but I didn’t see much of the old gentleman after that August. I was obliged to sell him up in November, poor fellow, for he owed me fifteen months’ rent; and it was only by selling his poor little bits of furniture that I could get him out of my place. We parted very good friends, in spite of my sending in the brokers; and the old gentleman went to London with the child, who was scarcely a twelvemonth old.”

Mrs. Barkamb had nothing more to tell, and Robert had no further questions to ask. He requested permission to retain the two letters written by the lieutenant and his daughter, and left the house with them in his pocketbook.

He walked straight back to the hotel, where he called for a timetable. An express for London left Wildernsea at a quarter past one. Robert sent his portmanteau to the station, paid his bill, and walked up and down the stone terrace fronting the sea, waiting for the starting of the train.

“I have traced the histories of Lucy Graham and Helen Talboys to a vanishing point,” he thought; “my next business is to discover the history of the woman who lies buried in Ventnor churchyard.”

XXVIII Hidden in the Grave

Upon his return from Wildernsea, Robert Audley found a letter from his Cousin Alicia, awaiting him at his chambers.

“Papa is much better,” the young lady wrote, “and is very anxious to have you at the Court. For some inexplicable reason, my stepmother has taken it into her head that your presence is extremely desirable, and worries me with her frivolous questions about your movements. So pray come without delay, and set these people at rest. Your affectionate cousin, A. A.”

“So my lady is anxious to know my movements,” thought Robert Audley, as he sat brooding and smoking by his lonely fireside. “She is anxious; and she questions her stepdaughter in that pretty, childlike manner which has such a bewitching air of innocent frivolity. Poor little creature; poor unhappy little golden-haired sinner; the battle between us seems terribly unfair. Why doesn’t she run away while there is still time? I have given her fair warning, I have shown her my cards, and worked openly enough in this business, Heaven knows. Why doesn’t she run away?”

He repeated this question again and again as he filled and emptied his meerschaum, surrounding himself with the blue vapor from his pipe until he looked like some modern magician seated in his laboratory.

“Why doesn’t she run away? I would bring no needless shame upon that house, of all other houses upon this wide earth. I would only do my duty to my missing friend, and to that brave and generous man who has pledged his faith to a worthless woman. Heaven knows I have no wish to punish. Heaven knows I was never born to be the avenger of guilt or the persecutor of the guilty. I only wish to do my duty. I will give her one more warning, a full and fair one, and then⁠—”

His thoughts wandered away to that gloomy prospect in which he saw no gleam of brightness to relieve the dull, black obscurity that encompassed the future, shutting in his pathway on every side, and spreading a dense curtain around and about him, which Hope was powerless to penetrate. He was forever haunted by the vision of his uncle’s anguish, forever tortured by the thought of that ruin and desolation which, being brought about by his instrumentality, would seem in a manner his handiwork. But amid all, and through all, Clara Talboys, with an imperious gesture, beckoned him onward to her brother’s unknown grave.

“Shall I go down to Southampton,” he thought, “and endeavor to discover the history of the woman who died at Ventnor? Shall I work underground, bribing the paltry assistants in that foul conspiracy, until I find my way to the thrice guilty principal? No! not till I have tried other means of discovering the truth. Shall I go to that miserable old man, and charge him with his share in the shameful trick which I believe to have been played upon my poor friend? No; I will not torture that terror-stricken wretch as I tortured him a few weeks ago. I will go straight to that arch-conspirator, and will tear away the beautiful veil under which she hides her wickedness, and will wring from her the secret of my friend’s fate, and banish her forever from the house which her presence has polluted.”

He started early the next morning for Essex, and reached Audley before eleven o’clock.

Early as it was, my lady was out. She had driven to Chelmsford upon a shopping expedition with her stepdaughter. She had several calls to make in the neighborhood of the town, and was not likely to return until dinnertime. Sir Michael’s health was very much improved, and he would come downstairs in the afternoon. Would Mr. Audley go to