‘Marks, Marks, for Heaven’s sake be calm,’ said Robert, earnestly; ‘what are you talking of? What is it that you could have told?’
‘I’m agoin’ to tell you,’ answered Luke, wiping his dry lips. ‘Give us a drink, mother.’
The old woman poured out some cooling drink into a mug, and carried it to her son.
He drank it in an eager hurry, as if he felt that the brief remainder of his life must be a race with the pitiless pedestrian, Time.
‘Stop where you are,’ he said to his mother, pointing to a chair at the foot of the bed.
The old woman obeyed, and seated herself meekly opposite to Mr Audley. She took out her spectacle case, polished her spectacles, put them on and beamed placidly upon her son, as if she cherished some faint hope that her memory might be assisted by this process.
‘I’ll ask you another question, mother,’ said Luke, ‘and I think it’ll be strange if you can’t answer it. Do you remember when I was at work upon Atkinson’s farm; before I was married, you know, and when I was livin’ down here along of you?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Mrs Marks answered, nodding triumphantly, ‘I remember that, my dear. It were last fall, just about as the apples was bein’ gathered in the orchard across our lane, and about the time as you had your new sprigged wesket. I remember, Luke, I remember.’
Mr Audley wondered where all this was to lead to, and how long he would have to sit by the sick man’s bed hearing a conversation that had no meaning to him.
‘If you remember that much, maybe you’ll remember more, mother,’ said Luke. ‘Can you call to mind my bringing some one home here one night, while Atkinsons was stackin’ the last o’ their corn?’
Once more Mr Audley started violently, and this time he looked up earnestly at the face of the speaker, and listened, with a strange, breathless interest, that he scarcely understood himself, to what Luke Marks was saying.
‘I rek’lect your bringin’ home Phœbe,’ the old woman answered with great animation; ‘I rek’lect your bringin’ Phœbe home to take a cup o’ tea, or a little snack o’ supper, a mort o’ times.’*
‘Bother Phœbe,’ cried Mr Marks, ‘who’s a talkin’ of Phœbe? what’s Phœbe that anybody should go put theirselves out about her? Do you remember my bringin’ home a gentleman arter ten o’clock one September night; a gentleman as was wet through to the skin, and was covered with mud and slush, and green slime and black muck, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, and had his arm broke, and his shoulder swelled up awful; and was such a objeck that nobody would ha’ knowed him? A gentleman as had to have his clothes cut off him in some places, and as sat by the kitchen fire, starin’ at the coals as if he’d gone mad or stupid-like, and didn’t know where he was, or who he was: and as had to be cared for like a baby, and dressed and dried, and washed, and fed with spoonfuls of brandy that had to be forced between his locked teeth, before any life could be got into him? Do you remember that, mother?’
The old woman nodded, and muttered something, to the effect that she remembered all these circumstances most vividly, now that Luke happened to mention them.
Robert Audley uttered a wild cry, and fell down upon his knees by the side of the sick man’s bed.
‘My God!’ he ejaculated. ‘I thank Thee for Thy wondrous mercies. George Talboys is alive!’
‘Wait a bit,’ said Mr Marks, ‘don’t you be too fast. Mother, give us down that tin-box on the shelf over against the chest of drawers, will you?’
The old woman obeyed, and after fumbling amongst broken teacups and milk-jugs, lidless wooden cotton-boxes, and a miscellaneous litter of rags and crockery, produced a tin snuffbox with a sliding lid; a shabby, dirty-looking box enough.
Robert Audley still knelt by the bed-side with his face hidden by his clasped hands. Luke Marks opened the tin box.
‘There ain’t no money in it, more’s the pity,’ he said, ‘or if there had been it wouldn’t have been let stop very long. But there’s summat in it that perhaps you’ll think quite as vallible as money, and that’s what I’m goin’ to give you as a proof that a drunken brute can feel thankful to them as is kind to him.’
He took out two folded papers, which he gave into Robert Audley’s hands.
They were two leaves torn out of a pocket-book, and they were written upon in pencil, and in a hand-writing that was quite strange to Mr Audley. A cramped, stiff and yet scrawling hand, such as some ploughman might have written.
‘I don’t know this writing,’ Robert said, as he eagerly unfolded the first of the two papers. ‘What has this to do with my friend? Why do you show me these?’
‘Suppose you read ’em first,’ said Mr Marks, ‘and ask me questions about ’em 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 of 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, God 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 God 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 scrutinisingly 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 passed away from his face.
‘I understand,’ he said, ‘I understand. Tell me all; tell me how it was that my poor friend was saved.’
He could scarcely realise to himself yet that what he had heard could be true. He could scarcely believe that this friend whom he had so bitterly regretted might still clasp him by the hand in a happy future, when the darkness of the past should have cleared away. He was dazed and bewildered at first, and not able to understand this new hope which had dawned so suddenly upon him.
‘Tell me all,’ he cried, ‘for mercy’s sake tell me everything, and let me try to understand it if I can.’
‘I was at work up at Atkinson’s farm last September,’ said Luke Marks, ‘helpin’ to stack the last o’ the corn, and as the nighest way from the farm to mother’s cottage was through the meadows at the back o’ the Court, I used to come that way; and Phœbe used to stand at the gate in the garden wall beyond the lime-walk, sometimes, to have a chat with me, knowin’ my time o’ comin’ home. Sometimes she wouldn’t be there, and sometimes I’ve leapt the dry moat as parts the kitchen gardens from the meadows alongside of ’em, and have dropped in at the servants’ hall to have a glass of ale or a bit o’ supper, as it might be.
‘I don’t know what Phœbe 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 rece
ipt 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 amongst 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 and 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 towards 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’ attitude by this time, and I could see that his right arm hung loose 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 the secrets of all the Freemasons, and Foresters, and Buffalers, and Odd-fellers* 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 so 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. He didn’t seem to know where he was; he didn’t seem to hear us nor to see us; he only sat starin’ straight before him, with his poor broken arm hanging loose by his side.
‘Thinkin’ he was in a very bad way, I wanted to go and fetch Mr Dawson to him, and I said somethin’ about it to mother. But queer as he seemed in his mind, he looked up quickly, as sharp as possible, and said No, no; nobody was to know of his bein’ there except us two.
‘I asked if I should run and fetch a drop of brandy; and he said, yes, I might do that. It was close upon eleven o’clock when I went into the public-house, and it was strikin’ eleven as I got back home.
‘It was a good thing I’d fetched the brandy, for he was shiverin’ awful, and the edge of the mug rattled against his teeth. I had to force the spirit between ’em, they were so tight locked, before he could drink it. 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 upon 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 that 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 buttoning on it 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 his 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 neighbours 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 it like a good un too; though I know as every step he took o’ them six mile 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 ag
en 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 took him, 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, considerin’, and tied up his arm in a sling.’
Robert Audley started. A circumstance connected with his visit to Liverpool flashed suddenly back upon his memory. He remembered the clerk who had called him back to say that there was a passenger 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 nothin’ 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.”
Lady Audley's Secret (Oxford World's Classics) Page 49