"Kiss me, Phoebe," she said, as the girl arranged the curtains. "I hear Sir Michael"s step in the anteroom; you will meet him as you go out, and you may as well tell him that you are going up by the first train to-morrow morning to get my dress from Madam Frederick for the dinner at Morton Abbey."
It was late the next morning when Lady Audley went down to breakfast--past ten o"clock. While she was sipping her coffee a servant brought her a sealed packet, and a book for her to sign.
"A telegraphic message!" she cried; for the convenient word telegram had not yet been invented. "What can be the matter?"
She looked up at her husband with wide-open, terrified eyes, and seemed half afraid to break the seal. The envelope was addressed to Miss Lucy Graham, at Mr. Dawson"s, and had been sent on from the village.
"Read it, my darling," he said, "and do not be alarmed; it may be nothing of any importance."
It came from a Mrs. Vincent, the schoolmistress with whom she had lived before entering Mr. Dawson"s family. The lady was dangerously ill, and implored her old pupil to go and see her.
"Poor soul! she always meant to leave me her money," said Lucy, with a mournful smile. "She has never heard of the change in my fortunes. Dear Sir Michael, I must go to her."
"To be sure you must, dearest. If she was kind to my poor girl in her adversity, she has a claim upon her prosperity that shall never be forgotten. Put on your bonnet, Lucy; we shall be in time to catch the express."
"You will go with me?"
"Of course, my darling. Do you suppose I would let you go alone?"
"I was sure you would go with me," she said, thoughtfully.
"Does your friend send any address?"
"No; but she always lived at Crescent Villa, West Brompton; and no doubt she lives there still."
There was only time for Lady Audley to hurry on her bonnet and shawl before she heard the carriage drive round to the door, and Sir Michael calling to her at the foot of the staircase.
Her suite of rooms, as I have said, opened one out of another, and terminated in an octagon antechamber hung with oil-paintings. Even in her haste she paused deliberately at the door of this room, double-locked it, and dropped the key into her pocket. This door once locked cut off all access to my lady"s apartments.
CHAPTER VIII.
BEFORE THE STORM.
So the dinner at Audley Court was postponed, and Miss Alicia had to wait still longer for an introduction to the handsome young widower, Mr.
George Talboys.
I am afraid, if the real truth is to be told, there was, perhaps, something of affectation in the anxiety this young lady expressed to make George"s acquaintance; but if poor Alicia for a moment calculated upon arousing any latent spark of jealousy lurking in her cousin"s breast by this exhibition of interest, she was not so well acquainted with Robert Audley"s disposition as she might have been. Indolent, handsome, and indifferent, the young barrister took life as altogether too absurd a mistake for any one event in its foolish course to be for a moment considered seriously by a sensible man.
His pretty, gipsy-faced cousin might have been over head and ears in love with him; and she might have told him so, in some charming, roundabout, womanly fashion, a hundred times a day for all the three hundred and sixty-five days in the year; but unless she had waited for some privileged 29th of February, and walked straight up to him, saying, "Robert, please will you marry me?" I very much doubt if he would ever have discovered the state of her feelings.
Again, had he been in love with her himself, I fancy that the tender pa.s.sion would, with him, have been so vague and feeble a sentiment that he might have gone down to his grave with a dim sense of some uneasy sensation which might be love or indigestion, and with, beyond this, no knowledge whatever of his state.
So it was not the least use, my poor Alicia, to ride about the lanes around Audley during those three days which the two young men spent in Ess.e.x; it was wasted trouble to wear that pretty cavalier hat and plume, and to be always, by the most singular of chances, meeting Robert and his friend. The black curls (nothing like Lady Audley"s feathery ringlets, but heavy cl.u.s.tering locks, that clung about your slender brown throat), the red and pouting lips, the nose inclined to be _retrousse_, the dark complexion, with its bright crimson flush, always ready to glance up like a signal light in a dusky sky, when you came suddenly upon your apathetic cousin--all this coquettish _espiegle_, brunette beauty was thrown away upon the dull eyes of Robert Audley, and you might as well have taken your rest in the cool drawing-room at the Court, instead of working your pretty mare to death under the hot September sun.
Now fishing, except to the devoted disciple of Izaak Walton, is not the most lively of occupations; therefore, it is scarcely, perhaps, to be wondered that on the day after Lady Audley"s departure, the two young men (one of whom was disabled by that heart wound which he bore so quietly, from really taking pleasure in anything, and the other of whom looked upon almost all pleasure as a negative kind of trouble) began to grow weary of the shade of the willows overhanging the winding streams about Audley.
"Figtree Court is not gay in the long vacation," said Robert, reflectively: "but I think, upon the whole, it"s better than this; at any rate, it"s near a tobacconist"s," he added, puffing resignedly at an execrable cigar procured from the landlord of the Sun Inn.
George Talboys, who had only consented to the Ess.e.x expedition in pa.s.sive submission to his friend, was by no means inclined to object to their immediate return to London. "I shall be glad to get back, Bob," he said, "for I want to take a run down to Southampton; I haven"t seen the little one for upward of a month."
He always spoke of his son as "the little one;" always spoke of him mournfully rather than hopefully. He accounted for this by saying that he had a fancy that the child would never learn to love him; and worse even than this fancy, a dim presentiment that he would not live to see his little Georgey reach manhood.
"I"m not a romantic man, Bob," he would say sometimes, "and I never read a line of poetry in my life that was any more to me than so many words and so much jingle; but a feeling has come over me, since my wife"s death, that I am like a man standing upon a long, low sh.o.r.e, with hideous cliffs frowning down upon him from behind, and the rising tide crawling slowly but surely about his feet. It seems to grow nearer and nearer every day, that black, pitiless tide; not rushing upon me with a great noise and a mighty impetus, but crawling, creeping, stealing, gliding toward me, ready to close in above my head when I am least prepared for the end."
Robert Audley stared at his friend in silent amazement; and, after a pause of profound deliberation, said solemnly, "George Talboys, I could understand this if you had been eating heavy suppers. Cold pork, now, especially if underdone, might produce this sort of thing. You want change of air, my dear boy; you want the refreshing breezes of Figtree Court, and the soothing air of Fleet street. Or, stay," he added, suddenly, "I have it! You"ve been smoking our friend the landlord"s cigars; that accounts for everything."
They met Alicia Audley on her mare about half an hour after they had come to the determination of leaving Ess.e.x early the next morning. The young lady was very much surprised and disappointed at hearing her cousin"s determination, and for that very reason pretended to take the matter with supreme indifference.
"You are very soon tired of Audley, Robert," she said, carelessly; "but of course you have no friends here, except your relations at the Court; while in London, no doubt, you have the most delightful society and--"
"I get good tobacco," murmured Robert, interrupting his cousin. "Audley is the dearest old place, but when a man has to smoke dried cabbage leaves, you know, Alicia--"
"Then you are really going to-morrow morning?"
"Positively--by the express train that leaves at 10.50."
"Then Lady Audley will lose an introduction to Mr. Talboys, and Mr.
Talboys will lose the chance of seeing the prettiest woman in Ess.e.x."
"Really--" stammered George.
"The prettiest woman in Ess.e.x would have a poor chance of getting much admiration out of my friend, George Talboys," said Robert. "His heart is at Southampton, where he has a curly-headed little urchin, about as high as his knee, who calls him "the big gentleman," and asks him for sugar-plums."
"I am going to write to my step-mother by to-night"s post," said Alicia.
"She asked me particularly in her letter how long you were going to stop, and whether there was any chance of her being back in time to receive you."
Miss Audley took a letter from the pocket of her riding-jacket as she spoke--a pretty, fairy-like note, written on shining paper of a peculiar creamy hue.
"She says in her postcript, "Be sure you answer my question about Mr.
Audley and his friend, you volatile, forgetful Alicia!""
"What a pretty hand she writes!" said Robert, as his cousin folded the note.
"Yes, it is pretty, is it not? Look at it, Robert."
She put the letter into his hand, and he contemplated it lazily for a few minutes, while Alicia patted the graceful neck of her chestnut mare, which was anxious to be off once more.
"Presently, Atalanta, presently. Give me back my note, Bob."
"It is the prettiest, most coquettish little hand I ever saw. Do you know, Alicia, I have no great belief in those fellows who ask you for thirteen postage stamps, and offer to tell you what you have never been able to find out yourself; but upon my word I think that if I had never seen your aunt, I should know what she was like by this slip of paper.
Yes, here it all is--the feathery, gold-shot, flaxen curls, the penciled eyebrows, the tiny, straight nose, the winning, childish smile; all to be guessed in these few graceful up-strokes and down-strokes. George, look here!"
But absent-minded and gloomy George Talboys had strolled away along the margin of the ditch, and stood striking the bulrushes with his cane, half a dozen paces away from Robert and Alicia.
"Nevermind," said the young lady, impatiently; for she by no means relished this long disquisition upon my lady"s note. "Give me the letter, and let me go; it"s past eight, and I must answer it by to-night"s post. Come, Atalanta! Good-by, Robert--good-by, Mr. Talboys.