Lady Audley's Secret Part 68

"Suppose you read 'em first," said Mr. Marks, "and ask me questions about them afterwards."

The first paper which Robert Audley had unfolded contained the following lines, written in that cramped, yet scrawling hand which was so strange to him:

"MY DEAR FRIEND--I write to you in such utter confusion of mind as perhaps no man ever before suffered. I cannot tell you what has happened to me, I can only tell you that something has happened which will drive me from England a broken-hearted man, to seek some corner of the earth in which I may live and die unknown and forgotten. I can only ask you to forget me. If your friendship could have done me any good, I would have appealed to it. If your counsel could have been any help to me, I would have confided in you. But neither friendship nor counsel can help me; and all I can say to you is this, G.o.d bless you for the past, and teach you to forget me in the future. G.T."

The second paper was addressed to another person, and its contents were briefer than those of the first.

"HELEN--May G.o.d pity and forgive you for that which you have done to-day, as truly as I do. Rest in peace. You shall never hear of me again; to you and to the world I shall henceforth be that which you wished me to be to-day. You need fear no molestation from me. I leave England never to return.

"G.T."

Robert Audley sat staring at these lines in hopeless bewilderment. They were not in his friend's familiar hand, and yet they purported to be written by him and were signed with his initials.

He looked scrutinizingly at the face of Luke Marks, thinking that perhaps some trick was being played upon him.

"This was not written by George Talboys," he said.

"It was," answered Luke Marks, "it was written by Mr. Talboys, every line of it. He wrote it with his own hand; but it was his left hand, for he couldn't use his right because of his broken arm."

Robert Audley looked up suddenly, and the shadow of suspicion pa.s.sed away from his face.

"I understand," he said, "I understand. Tell me all; tell me how it was that my poor friend was saved."

"I was at work up at Atkinson's farm, last September," said Luke Marks, "helping to stack the last of the corn, and as the nighest way from the farm to mother's cottage was through the meadows at the back of the Court, I used to come that way, and Phoebe used to stand in the garden wall beyond the lime-walk sometimes, to have a chat with me, knowin' my time o' comin' home.

"I don't know what Phoebe was a-doin' upon the evenin' of the seventh o'

September--I rek'lect the date because Farmer Atkinson paid me my wages all of a lump on that day, and I'd had to sign a bit of a receipt for the money he give me--I don't know what she was a-doin', but she warn't at the gate agen the lime-walk, so I went round to the other side o' the gardens and jumped across the dry ditch, for I wanted partic'ler to see her that night, as I was goin' away to work upon a farm beyond Chelmsford the next day. Audley church clock struck nine as I was crossin' the meadows between Atkinson's and the Court, and it must have been about a quarter past nine when I got into the kitchen garden.

"I crossed the garden, and went into the lime-walk; the nighest way to the servants' hall took me through the shrubbery and past the dry well.

It was a dark night, but I knew my way well enough about the old place, and the light in the window of the servants' hall looked red and comfortable through the darkness. I was close against the mouth of the dry well when I heard a sound that made my blood creep. It was a groan--a groan of a man in pain, as was lyin' somewhere hid among the bushes. I warn't afraid of ghosts and I warn't afraid of anythink in a general way, but there was somethin in hearin' this groan as chilled me to the very heart, and for a minute I was struck all of a heap, and didn't know what to do. But I heard the groan again, and then I began to search among the bushes. I found a man lyin' hidden under a lot o'

laurels, and I thought at first he was up to no good, and I was a-goin'

to collar him to take him to the house, when he caught me by the wrist without gettin' up from the ground, but lookin' at me very earnest, as I could see by the way his face was turned toward me in the darkness, and asked me who I was, and what I was, and what I had to do with the folks at the Court.

"There was somethin' in the way he spoke that told me he was a gentleman, though I didn't know him from Adam, and couldn't see his face; and I answered his questions civil.

"'I want to get away from this place,' he said, 'without bein' seen by any livin' creetur, remember that. I've been lyin' here ever since four o'clock to-day, and I'm half dead, but I want to get away without bein'

seen, mind that.'

"I told him that was easy enough, but I began to think my first thoughts of him might have been right enough, after all, and that he couldn't have been up to no good to want to sneak away so precious quiet.

"'Can you take me to any place where I can get a change of dry clothes,'

he says, 'without half a dozen people knowin' it?'

"He'd got up into a sittin' att.i.tude by this time, and I could see that his right arm hung close by his side, and that he was in pain.

"I pointed to his arm, and asked him what was the matter with it; but he only answered, very quiet like: 'Broken, my lad, broken. Not that that's much,' he says in another tone, speaking to himself like, more than to me. 'There's broken hearts as well as broken limbs, and they're not so easy mended.'

"I told him I could take him to mother's cottage, and that he could dry his clothes there and welcome.

"'Can your mother keep a secret?' he asked.

"'Well, she could keep one well enough if she could remember it,' I told him; 'but you might tell her all the secrets of the Freemasons, and Foresters, and Buffalers and Oddfellers as ever was, to-night: and she'd have forgotten all about 'em to-morrow mornin'.'

"He seemed satisfied with this, and he got himself up by holdin' on to me, for it seemed as if his limbs was cramped, the use of 'em was almost gone. I felt as he came agen me, that his clothes was wet and mucky.

"'You haven't been and fell into the fish-pond, have you, sir?' I asked.

"He made no answer to my question; he didn't seem even to have heard it.

I could see now he was standin' upon his feet that he was a tall, fine-made man, a head and shoulders higher than me.

"'Take me to your mother's cottage,' he said, 'and get me some dry clothes if you can; I'll pay you well for your trouble.'

"I knew that the key was mostly left in the wooden gate in the garden wall, so I led him that way. He could scarcely walk at first, and it was only by leanin' heavily upon my shoulder that he managed to get along. I got him through the gate, leavin' it unlocked behind me, and trustin' to the chance of that not bein' noticed by the under-gardener, who had the care of the key, and was a careless chap enough. I took him across the meadows, and brought him up here, still keepin' away from the village, and in the fields, where there wasn't a creature to see us at that time o' night; and so I got him into the room down-stairs, where mother was a-sittin' over the fire gettin' my bit o' supper ready for me.

"I put the strange chap in a chair agen the fire, and then for the first time I had a good look at him. I never see anybody in such a state before. He was all over green damp and muck, and his hands was scratched and cut to pieces. I got his clothes off him how I could, for he was like a child in my hands, and sat starin' at the fire as helpless as any baby; only givin' a long heavy sigh now and then, as if his heart was a-goin' to bust. At last he dropped into a kind of a doze, a stupid sort of sleep, and began to nod over the fire, so I ran and got a blanket and wrapped him in it, and got him to lie down on the press bedstead in the room under this. I sent mother to bed, and I sat by the fire and watched him, and kep' the fire up till it was just upon daybreak, when he 'woke up all of a sudden with a start, and said he must go, directly this minute.

"I begged him not to think of such a thing and told him he warn't fit to move for ever so long; but he said he must go, and he got up, and though he staggered like, and at first could hardly stand steady two minutes together, he wouldn't be beat, and he got me to dress him in his clothes as I'd dried and cleaned as well as I could while he laid asleep. I did manage it at last, but the clothes was awful spoiled, and he looked a dreadful objeck, with his pale face and a great cut on his forehead that I'd washed and tied up with a handkercher. He could only get his coat on by b.u.t.toning it on round his neck, for he couldn't put a sleeve upon his broken arm. But he held out agen everything, though he groaned every now and then; and what with the scratches and bruises on his hands, and the cut upon his forehead, and his stiff limbs and broken arm, he'd plenty of call to groan; and by the time it was broad daylight he was dressed and ready to go.

"'What's the nearest town to this upon the London road?' he asked me.

"I told him as the nighest town was Brentwood.

"'Very well, then,' he says, 'if you'll go with me to Brentwood, and take me to some surgeon as'll set my arm, I'll give you a five pound note for that and all your other trouble.'

"I told him that I was ready and willin' to do anything as he wanted done; and asked him if I shouldn't go and see if I could borrow a cart from some of the neighbors to drive him over in, for I told him it was a good six miles' walk.

"He shook his head. No, no, no, he said, he didn't want anybody to know anything about him; he'd rather walk it.

"He did walk it; and he walked like a good 'un, too; though I know as every step he took o' them six miles he took in pain; but he held out as he'd held out before; I never see such a chap to hold out in all my blessed life. He had to stop sometimes and lean agen a gateway to get his breath; but he held out still, till at last we got into Brentwood, and then he says, 'Take me to the nighest surgeon's,' and I waited while he had his arm set in splints, which took a precious long time. The surgeon wanted him to stay in Brentwood till he was better, but he said it warn't to be heard on, he must get up to London without a minute's loss of time; so the surgeon made him as comfortable as he could, considering and tied up his arm in a sling."

Robert Audley started. A circ.u.mstance connected with his visit to Liverpool dashed suddenly back upon his memory. He remembered the clerk who had called him back to say there was a pa.s.senger who took his berth on board the _Victoria Regia_ within an hour or so of the vessel's sailing; a young man with his arm in a sling, who had called himself by some common name, which Robert had forgotten.

"When his arm was dressed," continued Luke, "he says to the surgeon, 'Can you give me a pencil to write something before I go away?' The surgeon smiles and shakes his head: 'You'll never be able to write with that there hand to-day,' he says, pointin' to the arm as had just been dressed. 'P'raps not,' the young chap answers, quiet enough, 'but I can write with the other,' 'Can't I write it for you?' says the surgeon.

'No, thank you,' answers the other; 'what I've got to write is private.

If you can give me a couple of envelopes, I'll be obliged to you.'

"With that the surgeon goes to fetch the envelopes, and the young chap takes a pocket-book out of his coat pocket with his left hand; the cover was wet and dirty, but the inside was clean enough, and he tears out a couple of leaves and begins to write upon 'em as you see; and he writes dreadful awk'ard with his left hand, and he writes slow, but he contrives to finish what you see, and then he puts the two bits o'

writin' into the envelopes as the surgeon brings him, and he seals 'em up, and he puts a pencil cross upon one of 'em, and nothing on the other: and then he pays the surgeon for his trouble, and the surgeon says, ain't there nothin' more he can do for him, and can't he persuade him to stay in Brentwood till his arm's better; but he says no, no, it ain't possible; and then he says to me, 'Come along o' me to the railway station, and I'll give you what I've promised.'

"So I went to the station with him. We was in time to catch the train as stops at Brentwood at half after eight, and we had five minutes to spare. So he takes me into a corner of the platform, and he says, 'I wants you to deliver these here letters for me,' which I told him I was willin'. 'Very well, then,' he says; 'look here; you know Audley Court?'

'Yes,' I says, 'I ought to, for my sweetheart lives lady's maid there.'

'Whose lady's maid?' he says. So I tells him, 'My lady's, the new lady what was governess at Mr. Dawson's.' 'Very well, then,' he says; 'this here letter with the cross upon the envelope is for Lady Audley, but you're to be sure to give it into her own hands; and remember to take care as n.o.body sees you give it.' I promises to do this, and he hands me the first letter. And then he says, 'Do you know Mr. Audley, as is nevy to Sir Michael?' and I said, 'Yes, I've heerd tell on him, and I've heerd as he was a reg'lar swell, but affable and free-spoken' (for I heerd 'em tell on you, you know)," Luke added, parenthetically. "'Now look here,' the young chap says, 'you're to give this other letter to Mr. Robert Audley, whose a-stayin' at the Sun Inn, in the village;' and I tells him it's all right, as I've know'd the Sun ever since I was a baby. So then he gives me the second letter, what's got nothing wrote upon the envelope, and he gives me a five-pound note, accordin' to promise; and then he says, 'Good-day, and thank you for all your trouble,'and he gets into a second-cla.s.s carriage; and the last I sees of him is a face as white as a sheet of writin' paper, and a great patch of stickin'-plaster criss-crossed upon his forehead."

"Poor George! poor George!"

"I went back to Audley, and I went straight to the Sun Inn, and asked for you, meanin' to deliver both letters faithful, so help me G.o.d! then; but the landlord told me as you'd started off that mornin' for London, and he didn't know when you'd come back, and he didn't know the name o'

the place where you lived in London, though he said he thought it was in one o' them law courts, such as Westminster Hall or Doctors' Commons, or somethin' like that. So what was I to do? I couldn't send a letter by post, not knowin' where to direct to, and I couldn't give it into your own hands, and I'd been told partickler not to let anybody else know of it; so I'd nothing to do but to wait and see if you come back, and bide my time for givin' of it to you.