Lady Audley's Secret Part 10

A pleasant journey to town."

The chestnut mare cantered briskly through the lane, and Miss Audley was out of sight before those two big, bright tears that stood in her eyes for one moment, before her pride sent them, back again, rose from her angry heart.

"To have only one cousin in the world," she cried, pa.s.sionately, "my nearest relation after papa, and for him to care about as much for me as he would for a dog!"

By the merest of accidents, however, Robert and his friend did not go by the 10.50 express on the following morning, for the young barrister awoke with such a splitting headache, that he asked George to send him a cup of the strongest green tea that had ever been made at the Sun, and to be furthermore so good as to defer their journey until the next day.

Of course George a.s.sented, and Robert Audley spent the forenoon in a darkened room with a five-days'-old Chelmsford paper to entertain himself withal.

"It's nothing but the cigars, George," he said, repeatedly. "Get me out of the place without my seeing the landlord; for if that man and I meet there will be bloodshed."

Fortunately for the peace of Audley, it happened to be market-day at Chelmsford; and the worthy landlord had ridden off in his chaise-cart to purchase supplies for his house--among other things, perhaps, a fresh stock of those very cigars which had been so fatal in their effect upon Robert.

The young men spent a dull, dawdling, stupid, unprofitable day; and toward dusk Mr. Audley proposed that they should stroll down to the Court, and ask Alicia to take them over the house.

"It will kill a couple of hours, you know, George: and it seems a great pity to drag you away from Audley without having shown you the old place, which, I give you my honor, is very well worth seeing."

The sun was low in the skies as they took a short cut through the meadows, and crossed a stile into the avenue leading to the archway--a lurid, heavy-looking, ominous sunset, and a deathly stillness in the air, which frightened the birds that had a mind to sing, and left the field open to a few captious frogs croaking in the ditches. Still as the atmosphere was, the leaves rustled with that sinister, s.h.i.+vering motion which proceeds from no outer cause, but is rather an instinctive shudder of the frail branches, prescient of a coming storm. That stupid clock, which knew no middle course, and always skipped from one hour to the other, pointed to seven as the young men pa.s.sed under the archway; but, for all that, it was nearer eight.

They found Alicia in the lime-walk, wandering listlessly up and down under the black shadow of the trees, from which every now and then a withered leaf flapped slowly to the ground.

Strange to say, George Talboys, who very seldom observed anything, took particular notice of this place.

"It ought to be an avenue in a churchyard," he said. "How peacefully the dead might sleep under this somber shade! I wish the churchyard at Ventnor was like this."

They walked on to the ruined well; and Alicia told them some old legend connected with the spot--some gloomy story, such as those always attached to an old house, as if the past were one dark page of sorrow and crime.

"We want to see the house before it is dark, Alicia," said Robert.

"Then we must be quick." she answered. "Come."

She led the way through an open French window, modernized a few years before, into the library, and thence to the hall.

In the hall they pa.s.sed my lady's pale-faced maid, who looked furtively under her white eyelashes at the two young men.

They were going up-stairs, when Alicia turned and spoke to the girl.

"After we have been in the drawing-room, I should like to show these gentlemen Lady Audley's rooms. Are they in good order, Phoebe?"

"Yes, miss; but the door of the anteroom is locked, and I fancy that my lady has taken the key to London."

"Taken the key! Impossible!" cried Alicia.

"Indeed, miss, I think she has. I cannot find it, and it always used to be in the door."

"I declare," said Alicia, impatiently, "that is not at all unlike my lady to have taken this silly freak into her head. I dare say she was afraid we should go into her rooms, and pry about among her pretty dresses, and meddle with her jewelry. It is very provoking, for the best pictures in the house are in that antechamber. There is her own portrait, too, unfinished but wonderfully like."

"Her portrait!" exclaimed Robert Audley. "I would give anything to see it, for I have only an imperfect notion of her face. Is there no other way of getting into the room, Alicia?"

"Another way?"

"Yes; is there any door, leading through some of the other rooms, by which we can contrive to get into hers?"

His cousin shook her head, and conducted them into a corridor where there were some family portraits. She showed them a tapestried chamber, the large figures upon the faded canvas looking threatening in the dusky light.

"That fellow with the battle-ax looks as if he wanted to split George's head open," said Mr. Audley, pointing to a fierce warrior, whose uplifted arm appeared above George Talboys' dark hair.

"Come out of this room, Alicia," added the young man, nervously; "I believe it's damp, or else haunted. Indeed, I believe all ghosts to be the result of damp or dyspepsia. You sleep in a damp bed--you awake suddenly in the dead of the night with a cold s.h.i.+ver, and see an old lady in the court costume of George the First's time, sitting at the foot of the bed. The old lady's indigestion, and the cold s.h.i.+ver is a damp sheet."

There were lighted candles in the drawing-room. No new-fangled lamps had ever made their appearance at Audley Court. Sir Michael's rooms were lighted by honest, thick, yellow-looking wax candles, in ma.s.sive silver candlesticks, and in sconces against the walls.

There was very little to see in the drawing-room; and George Talboys soon grew tired of staring at the handsome modern furniture, and at a few pictures of some of the Academicians.

"Isn't there a secret pa.s.sage, or an old oak chest, or something of that kind, somewhere about the place, Alicia?" asked Robert.

"To be sure!" cried Miss Audley, with a vehemence that startled her cousin; "of course. Why didn't I think of it before? How stupid of me, to be sure!"

"Why stupid?"

"Because, if you don't mind crawling upon your hands and knees, you can see my lady's apartments, for that pa.s.sage communicates with her dressing-room. She doesn't know of it herself, I believe. How astonished she'd be if some black-visored burglar, with a dark-lantern, were to rise through the floor some night as she sat before her looking-gla.s.s, having her hair dressed for a party!"

"Shall we try the secret pa.s.sage, George?" asked Mr. Audley.

"Yes, if you wish it."

Alicia led them into the room which had once been her nursery. It was now disused, except on very rare occasions when the house was full of company.

Robert Audley lifted a corner of the carpet, according to his cousin's directions, and disclosed a rudely-cut trap-door in the oak flooring.

"Now listen to me," said Alicia. "You must let yourself down by the hands into the pa.s.sage, which is about four feet high; stoop your head, walk straight along it till you come to a sharp turn which will take you to the left, and at the extreme end of it you will find a short ladder below a trap-door like this, which you will have to unbolt; that door opens into the flooring of my lady's dressing-room, which is only covered with a square Persian carpet that you can easily manage to raise. You understand me?"

"Perfectly."

"Then take the light; Mr. Talboys will follow you. I give you twenty minutes for your inspection of the paintings--that is, about a minute apiece--and at the end of that time I shall expect to see you return."

Robert obeyed her implicitly, and George submissively following his friend, found himself, in five minutes, standing amidst the elegant disorder of Lady Audley's dressing-room.

She had left the house in a hurry on her unlooked-for journey to London, and the whole of her glittering toilette apparatus lay about on the marble dressing-table. The atmosphere of the room was almost oppressive for the rich odors of perfumes in bottles whose gold stoppers had not been replaced. A bunch of hot-house flowers was withering upon a tiny writing-table. Two or three handsome dresses lay in a heap upon the ground, and the open doors of a wardrobe revealed the treasures within.

Jewelry, ivory-backed hair-brushes, and exquisite china were scattered here and there about the apartment. George Talboys saw his bearded face and tall, gaunt figure reflected in the gla.s.s, and wondered to see how out of place he seemed among all these womanly luxuries.

They went from the dressing-room to the boudoir, and through the boudoir into the ante-chamber, in which there were, as Alicia had said, about twenty valuable paintings, besides my lady's portrait.

My lady's portrait stood on an easel, covered with a green baize in the center of the octagonal chamber. It had been a fancy of the artist to paint her standing in this very room, and to make his background a faithful reproduction of the pictured walls. I am afraid the young man belonged to the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, for he had spent a most unconscionable time upon the accessories of this picture--upon my lady's crispy ringlets and the heavy folds of her crimson velvet dress.

The two young men looked at the paintings on the walls first, leaving this unfinished portrait for a _bonne bouche_.

By this time it was dark, the candle carried by Robert only making one nucleus of light as he moved about holding it before the pictures one by one. The broad, bare window looked out upon the pale sky, tinged with the last cold flicker of the twilight. The ivy rustled against the gla.s.s with the same ominous s.h.i.+ver as that which agitated every leaf in the garden, prophetic of the storm that was to come.

"There are our friend's eternal white horses," said Robert, standing beside a Wouvermans. "Nicholas Poussin--Salvator--ha--hum! Now for the portrait."