Lady Audley's Secret Part 24

"No," answered Robert Audley, with wonderful distinctness, and addressing his words to Luke Marks, but fixing his eyes upon Phoebe's anxious face. "What, indeed, is a hundred pounds to a man possessed of the power which you hold, or rather which your wife holds, over the person in question."

"Phoebe's face, at all times almost colorless, seemed scarcely capable of growing paler; but as her eyelids drooped under Robert Audley's searching glance, a visible change came over the pallid hues of her complexion.

"A quarter to twelve," said Robert, looking at his watch.

"Late hours for such a quiet village as Mount Stanning. Good-night, my worthy host. Good-night, Mrs. Marks. You needn't send me my shaving water till nine o'clock to-morrow morning."

CHAPTER XVIII.

ROBERT RECEIVES A VISITOR WHOM HE HAD SCARCELY EXPECTED.

Eleven o'clock struck the next morning, and found Mr. Robert Audley still lounging over the well ordered little breakfast table, with one of his dogs at each side of his arm-chair, regarding him with watchful eyes and opened mouths, awaiting the expected morsel of ham or toast. Robert had a county paper on his knees, and made a feeble effort now and then to read the first page, which was filled with advertis.e.m.e.nts of farming stock, quack medicines, and other interesting matter.

The weather had changed, and the snow, which had for the last few days been looming blackly in the frosty sky, fell in great feathery flakes against the windows, and lay piled in the little bit of garden-ground without.

The long, lonely road leading toward Audley seemed untrodden by a footstep, as Robert Audley looked out at the wintry landscape.

"Lively," he said, "for a man used to the fascinations of Temple Bar."

As he watched the snow-flakes falling every moment thicker and faster upon the lonely road, he was surprised by seeing a brougham driving slowly up the hill.

"I wonder what unhappy wretch has too restless a spirit to stop at home on such a morning as this," he muttered, as he returned to the arm-chair by the fire.

He had only reseated himself a few moments when Phoebe Marks entered the room to announce Lady Audley.

"Lady Audley! Pray beg her to come in," said Robert; and then, as Phoebe left the room to usher in this unexpected visitor, he muttered between his teeth--"A false move, my lady, and one I never looked for from you."

Lucy Audley was radiant on this cold and snowy January morning. Other people's noses are rudely a.s.sailed by the sharp fingers of the grim ice-king, but not my lady's; other people's lips turn pale and blue with the chilling influence of the bitter weather, but my lady's pretty little rosebud of a mouth retained its brightest coloring and cheeriest freshness.

She was wrapped in the very sables which Robert Audley had brought from Russia, and carried a m.u.f.f that the young man thought seemed almost as big as herself.

She looked a childish, helpless, babyfied little creature; and Robert looked down upon her with some touch of pity in his eyes, as she came up to the hearth by which he was standing, and warmed her tiny gloved hands at the blaze.

"What a morning, Mr. Audley!" she said, "what a morning!"

"Yes, indeed! Why did you come out in such weather?"

"Because I wished to see you--particularly."

"Indeed!"

"Yes," said my lady, with an air of considerable embarra.s.sment, playing with the b.u.t.ton of her glove, and almost wrenching it off in her restlessness--"yes, Mr. Audley, I felt that you had not been well treated; that--that you had, in short, reason to complain; and that an apology was due to you."

"I do not wish for any apology, Lady Audley."

"But you are ent.i.tled to one," answered my lady, quietly. "Why, my dear Robert, should we be so ceremonious toward each other? You were very comfortable at Audley; we were very glad to have you there; but, my dear, silly husband must needs take it into his foolish head that it is dangerous for his poor little wife's peace of mind to have a nephew of eight or nine and twenty smoking his cigars in her boudoir, and, behold!

our pleasant little family circle is broken up."

Lucy Audley spoke with that peculiar childish vivacity which seemed so natural to her, Robert looking down almost sadly at her bright, animated face.

"Lady Audley," he said, "Heaven forbid that either you or I should ever bring grief or dishonor upon my uncle's generous heart! Better, perhaps, that I should be out of the house--better, perhaps, that I had never entered it!"

My lady had been looking at the fire while her nephew spoke, but at his last words she lifted her head suddenly, and looked him full in the face with a wondering expression--an earnest, questioning gaze, whose full meaning the young barrister understood.

"Oh, pray do not be alarmed, Lady Audley," he said, gravely. "You have no sentimental nonsense, no silly infatuation, borrowed from Balzac or Dumas _fils_, to fear from me. The benchers of the Inner Temple will tell you that Robert Audley is troubled with none of the epidemics whose outward signs are turn-down collars and Byronic neckties. I say that I wish I had never entered my uncle's house during the last year; but I say it with a far more solemn meaning than any sentimental one."

My lady shrugged her shoulders.

"If you insist on talking in enigmas, Mr. Audley," she said, "you must forgive a poor little woman if she declines to answer them."

Robert made no reply to this speech.

"But tell me," said my lady, with an entire change of tone, "what could have induced you to come up to this dismal place?"

"Curiosity."

"Curiosity?"

"Yes; I felt an interest in that bull-necked man, with the dark-red hair and wicked gray eyes. A dangerous man, my lady--a man in whose power I should not like to be."

A sudden change came over Lady Audley's face; the pretty, roseate flush faded out from her cheeks, and left them waxen white, and angry flashes lightened in her blue eyes.

"What have I done to you, Robert Audley," she cried, pa.s.sionately--"what have I done to you that you should hate me so?"

He answered her very gravely:

"I had a friend, Lady Audley, whom I loved very dearly, and since I have lost him I fear that my feelings toward other people are strangely embittered."

"You mean the Mr. Talboys who went to Australia?"

"Yes, I mean the Mr. Talboys who I was told set out for Liverpool with the idea of going to Australia."

"And you do not believe in his having sailed for Australia?"

"I do not."

"But why not?"

"Forgive me, Lady Audley, if I decline to answer that question."

"As you please," she said, carelessly.

"A week after my friend disappeared," continued Robert, "I posted an advertis.e.m.e.nt to the Sydney and Melbourne papers, calling upon him if he was in either city when the advertis.e.m.e.nt appeared, to write and tell me of his whereabouts, and also calling on any one who had met him, either in the colonies or on the voyage out, to give me any information respecting him. George Talboys left Ess.e.x, or disappeared from Ess.e.x, on the 6th of September last. I ought to receive some answer to this advertis.e.m.e.nt by the end of this month. To-day is the 27th; the time draws very near."