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

stood near the gateway, waiting for him to stand aside and let her pass him.

“I don’t know what has come to your cousin, my dear Alicia,” said my lady. “He is so absentminded and eccentric as to be quite beyond my comprehension.”

“Indeed,” exclaimed Miss Audley; “and yet I should imagine, from the length of your tête-a-tête, that you had made some effort to understand him.”

“Oh, yes,” said Robert, quietly, “my lady and I understand each other very well; but as it is growing late I will wish you good evening, ladies. I shall sleep tonight at Mount Stanning, as I have some business to attend to up there, and I will come down and see my uncle tomorrow.”

“What, Robert,” cried Alicia, “you surely won’t go away without seeing papa?”

“Yes, my dear,” answered the young man. “I am a little disturbed by some disagreeable business in which I am very much concerned, and I would rather not see my uncle. Good night, Alicia. I will come or write tomorrow.”

He pressed his cousin’s hand, bowed to Lady Audley, and walked away under the black shadows of the archway, and out into the quiet avenue beyond the Court.

My lady and Alicia stood watching him until he was out of sight.

“What in goodness’ name is the matter with my Cousin Robert?” exclaimed Miss Audley, impatiently, as the barrister disappeared. “What does he mean by these absurd goings-on? Some disagreeable business that disturbs him, indeed! I suppose the unhappy creature has had a brief forced upon him by some evil-starred attorney, and is sinking into a state of imbecility from a dim consciousness of his own incompetence.”

“Have you ever studied your cousin’s character, Alicia?” asked my lady, very seriously, after a pause.

“Studied his character! No, Lady Audley. Why should I study his character?” said Alicia. “There is very little study required to convince anybody that he is a lazy, selfish Sybarite, who cares for nothing in the world except his own ease and comfort.”

“But have you never thought him eccentric?”

“Eccentric!” repeated Alicia, pursing up her red lips and shrugging up her shoulders. “Well, yes⁠—I believe that is the excuse generally made for such people. I suppose Bob is eccentric.”

“I have never heard you speak of his father and mother,” said my lady, thoughtfully. “Do you remember them?”

“I never saw his mother. She was a Miss Dalrymple, a very dashing girl, who ran away with my uncle, and lost a very handsome fortune in consequence. She died at Nice when poor Bob was five years old.”

“Did you ever hear anything particular about her?”

“How do you mean ‘particular?’ ” asked Alicia.

“Did you ever hear that she was eccentric⁠—what people call ‘odd?’ ”

“Oh, no,” said Alicia, laughing. “My aunt was a very reasonable woman, I believe, though she did marry for love. But you must remember that she died before I was born, and I have not, therefore, felt very much curiosity about her.”

“But you recollect your uncle, I suppose.”

“My Uncle Robert?” said Alicia. “Oh, yes, I remember him very well, indeed.”

“Was he eccentric⁠—I mean to say, peculiar in his habits, like your cousin?”

“Yes, I believe Robert inherits all his absurdities from his father. My uncle expressed the same indifference for his fellow-creatures as my cousin, but as he was a good husband, an affectionate father, and a kind master, nobody ever challenged his opinions.”

“But he was eccentric?”

“Yes; I suppose he was generally thought a little eccentric.”

“Ah,” said my lady, gravely, “I thought as much. Do you know, Alicia, that madness is more often transmitted from father to daughter, and from mother to daughter than from mother to son? Your cousin, Robert Audley, is a very handsome young man, and I believe, a very good-hearted young man, but he must be watched, Alicia, for he is mad!”

“Mad!” cried Miss Audley, indignantly; “you are dreaming, my lady, or⁠—or⁠—you are trying to frighten me,” added the young lady, with considerable alarm.

“I only wish to put you on your guard, Alicia,” answered my lady. “Mr. Audley may be as you say, merely eccentric; but he has talked to me this evening in a manner that has filled me with absolute terror, and I believe that he is going mad. I shall speak very seriously to Sir Michael this very night.”

“Speak to papa,” exclaimed Alicia; “you surely won’t distress papa by suggesting such a possibility!”

“I shall only put him on his guard, my dear Alicia.”

“But he’ll never believe you,” said Miss Audley; “he will laugh at such an idea.”

“No, Alicia; he will believe anything that I tell him,” answered my lady, with a quiet smile.

XXX Preparing the Ground

Lady Audley went from the garden to the library, a pleasant, oak-paneled, homely apartment in which Sir Michael liked to sit reading or writing, or arranging the business of his estate with his steward, a stalwart countryman, half agriculturalist, half lawyer, who rented a small farm a few miles from the Court.

The baronet was seated in a capacious easy-chair near the hearth. The bright blaze of the fire rose and fell, flashing now upon the polished carvings of the black-oak bookcase, now upon the gold and scarlet bindings of the books; sometimes glimmering upon the Athenian helmet of a marble Pallas, sometimes lighting up the forehead of Sir Robert Peel.

The lamp upon the reading-table had not yet been lighted, and Sir Michael sat in the firelight waiting for the coming of his young wife.

It is impossible for me ever to tell the purity of his generous love⁠—it is impossible to describe that affection which was as tender as the love of a young mother for her first born, as brave and chivalrous as the heroic passion of a Bayard for his liege mistress.

The door opened while he was thinking of this fondly-loved wife, and looking up, the baronet saw the slender form standing in the doorway.

“Why, my darling!” he exclaimed, as my lady closed the door behind her, and came toward his chair, “I have been thinking of you and