Lady Audley's Secret Part 3

"It ain't put any color into your cheeks, my girl," he said, glancing up at her from under his lowering eyebrows; "you're every bit as white as you was when you went away."

"But they say traveling makes people genteel, Luke. I've been on the Continent with my lady, through all manner of curious places; and you know, when I was a child, Squire Horton's daughters taught me to speak a little French, and I found it so nice to be able to talk to the people abroad."

"Genteel!" cried Luke Marks, with a hoa.r.s.e laugh; "who wants you to be genteel, I wonder? Not me, for one; when you're my wife you won't have overmuch time for gentility, my girl. French, too! Dang me, Phoebe, I suppose when we've saved money enough between us to buy a bit of a farm, you'll be _parleyvooing_ to the cows?"

She bit her lip as her lover spoke, and looked away. He went on cutting and chopping at a rude handle he was fashioning to the stake, whistling softly to himself all the while, and not once looking at his cousin.

For some time they were silent, but by-and-by she said, with her face still turned away from her companion:

"What a fine thing it is for Miss Graham that was, to travel with her maid and her courier, and her chariot and four, and a husband that thinks there isn't one spot upon all the earth that's good enough for her to set her foot upon!"

"Ay, it is a fine thing, Phoebe, to have lots of money," answered Luke, "and I hope you'll be warned by that, my la.s.s, to save up your wages agin we get married."

"Why, what was she in Mr. Dawson's house only three months ago?"

continued the girl, as if she had not heard her cousin's speech. "What was she but a servant like me? Taking wages and working for them as hard, or harder, than I did. You should have seen her shabby clothes, Luke--worn and patched, and darned and turned and twisted, yet always looking nice upon her, somehow. She gives me more as lady's-maid here than ever she got from Mr. Dawson then. Why, I've seen her come out of the parlor with a few sovereigns and a little silver in her hand, that master had just given her for her quarter's salary; and now look at her!"

"Never you mind her," said Luke; "take care of yourself, Phoebe; that's all you've got to do. What should you say to a public-house for you and me, by-and-by, my girl? There's a deal of money to be made out of a public-house."

The girl still sat with her face averted from her lover, her hands hanging listlessly in her lap, and her pale gray eyes fixed upon the last low streak of crimson dying out behind the trunks of the trees.

"You should see the inside of the house, Luke," she said; "it's a tumbledown looking place enough outside; but you should see my lady's rooms--all pictures and gilding, and great looking-gla.s.ses that stretch from the ceiling to the floor. Painted ceilings, too, that cost hundreds of pounds, the housekeeper told her, and all done for her."

"She's a lucky one," muttered Luke, with lazy indifference.

"You should have seen her while we were abroad, with a crowd of gentlemen hanging about her; Sir Michael not jealous of them, only proud to see her so much admired. You should have heard her laugh and talk with them; throwing all their compliments and fine speeches back at them, as it were, as if they had been pelting her with roses. She set everybody mad about her, wherever she went. Her singing, her playing, her painting, her dancing, her beautiful smile, and sunshiny ringlets!

She was always the talk of a place, as long as we stayed in it."

"Is she at home to-night?"

"No; she has gone out with Sir Michael to a dinner party at the Beeches.

They've seven or eight miles to drive, and they won't be back till after eleven."

"Then I'll tell you what, Phoebe, if the inside of the house is so mighty fine, I should like to have a look at it."

"You shall, then. Mrs. Barton, the housekeeper, knows you by sight, and she can't object to my showing you some of the best rooms."

It was almost dark when the cousins left the shrubbery and walked slowly to the house. The door by which they entered led into the servants'

hall, on one side of which was the housekeeper's room. Phoebe Marks stopped for a moment to ask the housekeeper if she might take her cousin through some of the rooms, and having received permission to do so, lighted a candle at the lamp in the hall, and beckoned to Luke to follow her into the other part of the house.

The long, black oak corridors were dim in the ghostly twilight--the light carried by Phoebe looking only a poor speck in the broad pa.s.sages through which the girl led her cousin. Luke looked suspiciously over his shoulder now and then, half-frightened by the creaking of his own hob-nailed boots.

"It's a mortal dull place, Phoebe," he said, as they emerged from a pa.s.sage into the princ.i.p.al hall, which was not yet lighted; "I've heard tell of a murder that was done here in old times."

"There are murders enough in these times, as to that, Luke," answered the girl, ascending the staircase, followed by the young man.

She led the way through a great drawing-room, rich in satin and ormolu, buhl and inlaid cabinets, bronzes, cameos, statuettes, and trinkets, that glistened in the dusky light; then through a morning room, hung with proof engravings of valuable pictures; through this into an ante-chamber, where she stopped, holding the light above her head.

The young man stared about him, open-mouthed and open-eyed.

"It's a rare fine place," he said, "and must have cost a heap of money."

"Look at the pictures on the walls," said Phoebe, glancing at the panels of the octagonal chamber, which were hung with Claudes and Poussins, Wouvermans and Cuyps. "I've heard that those alone are worth a fortune.

This is the entrance to my lady's apartments, Miss Graham that was." She lifted a heavy green cloth curtain which hung across a doorway, and led the astonished countryman into a fairy-like boudoir, and thence to a dressing-room, in which the open doors of a wardrobe and a heap of dresses flung about a sofa showed that it still remained exactly as its occupants had left it.

"I've got all these things to put away before my lady comes home, Luke; you might sit down here while I do it, I shan't be long."

Her cousin looked around in gawky embarra.s.sment, bewildered by the splendor of the room; and after some deliberation selected the most substantial of the chairs, on the extreme edge of which he carefully seated himself.

"I wish I could show you the jewels, Luke," said the girl; "but I can't, for she always keeps the keys herself; that's the case on the dressing-table there."

"What, _that?_" cried Luke, staring at the ma.s.sive walnut-wood and bra.s.s inlaid casket. "Why, that's big enough to hold every bit of clothes I've got!"

"And it's as full as it can be of diamonds, rubies, pearls and emeralds," answered Phoebe, busy as she spoke in folding the rustling silk dresses, and laying them one by one upon the shelves of the wardrobe. As she was shaking out the flounces of the last, a jingling sound caught her ear, and she put her hand into the pocket.

"I declare!" she exclaimed, "my lady has left her keys in her pocket for once in a way; I can show you the jewelry, if you like, Luke."

"Well, I may as well have a look at it, my girl," he said, rising from his chair and holding the light while his cousin unlocked the casket. He uttered a cry of wonder when he saw the ornaments glittering on white satin cushions. He wanted to handle the delicate jewels; to pull them about, and find out their mercantile value. Perhaps a pang of longing and envy shot through his heart as he thought how he would have liked to have taken one of them.

"Why, one of those diamond things would set us up in life, Phoebe, he said, turning a bracelet over and over in his big red hands.

"Put it down, Luke! Put it down directly!" cried the girl, with a look of terror; "how can you speak about such things?"

He laid the bracelet in its place with a reluctant sigh, and then continued his examination of the casket.

"What's this?" he asked presently, pointing to a bra.s.s k.n.o.b in the frame-work of the box.

He pushed it as he spoke, and a secret drawer, lined with purple velvet, flew out of the casket.

"Look ye here!" cried Luke, pleased at his discovery.

Phoebe Marks threw down the dress she had been folding, and went over to the toilette table.

"Why, I never saw this before," she said; "I wonder what there is in it?"

There was not much in it; neither gold nor gems; only a baby's little worsted shoe rolled up in a piece of paper, and a tiny lock of pale and silky yellow hair, evidently taken from a baby's head. Phoebe's eyes dilated as she examined the little packet.

"So this is what my lady hides in the secret drawer," she muttered.

"It's queer rubbish to keep in such a place," said Luke, carelessly.

The girl's thin lip curved into a curious smile.

"You will bear me witness where I found this," she said, putting the little parcel into her pocket.

"Why, Phoebe, you're not going to be such a fool as to take that," cried the young man.

"I'd rather have this than the diamond bracelet you would have liked to take," she answered; "you shall have the public house, Luke."