Robert Audley started by an early express for Southampton. The snow lay thick and white upon the pleasant country through which he went; and the young barrister had wrapped himself in so many comforters and railway rugs as to appear a perambulating mass of woollen goods rather than a living member of a learned profession. He looked gloomily out of the misty window, opaque with the breath of himself and an elderly Indian officer, who was his only companion, and watched the fleeting landscape, which had a certain phantomlike appearance in its shroud of snow. He wrapped himself in the vast folds of his railway rug with a peevish shiver, and felt inclined to quarrel with the destiny which compelled him to travel by an early train upon a pitiless winter’s day.
‘Who would have thought that I could have grown so fond of the fellow,’ he muttered, ‘or feel so lonely without him? I’ve a comfortable little fortune in the three per cents; I’m heir-presumptive to my uncle’s title; and I know of a certain dear little girl, who, as I think, would do her best to make me happy; but I declare that I would freely give up all and stand penniless in the world to-morrow, if this mystery could be satisfactorily cleared away, and George Talboys could stand by my side.’
He reached Southampton between eleven and twelve o’clock, and walked across the platform, with the snow drifting in his face, towards the pier and the lower end of the town. The clock of St Michael’s Church was striking twelve as he crossed the quaint old square in which that edifice stands, and groped his way through the narrow streets leading down to the water.
Mr Maldon had established his slovenly household gods in one of those dreary thoroughfares which speculative builders love to raise upon some miserable fragment of waste ground hanging to the skirts of a prosperous town. Brigsome’s Terrace was perhaps one of the most dismal blocks of building that was ever composed of brick and mortar since the first mason plied his trowel and the first architect drew his plan. The builder who had speculated in the ten dreary eight-roomed prison-houses had hung himself behind the parlour door of an adjacent tavern while the carcases were yet unfinished. The man who had bought the brick and mortar skeletons had gone through the Bankruptcy Court while the paper-hangers were still busy in Brigsome’s Terrace, and had whitewashed his ceilings and himself simultaneously. Ill-luck and insolvency clung to the wretched habitations. The bailiff and the broker’s man were as well known as the butcher and the baker to the noisy children who played upon the waste ground in front of the parlour windows. Solvent tenants were disturbed at unhallowed hours by the noise of ghostly furniture vans creeping stealthily away in the moonless night. Insolvent tenants openly defied the collector of the water-rate from their eight-roomed strongholds, and existed for weeks without any visible means of procuring that necessary fluid.
Robert Audley looked about him with a shudder as he turned from the water-side into this poverty-stricken locality. A child’s funeral was leaving one of the houses as he approached, and he thought with a thrill of horror that if the little coffin had held George’s son, he would have been in some measure responsible for the boy’s death.
‘The poor child shall not sleep another night in this wretched hovel,’ he thought, as he knocked at the door of Mr Maldon’s house. ‘He is the legacy of my lost friend, and it shall be my business to secure his safety.’
A slipshod servant girl opened the door and looked at Mr Audley rather suspiciously as she asked him, very much through her nose, what he pleased to want. The door of the little sitting-room was ajar, and Robert could hear the clattering of knives and forks and the childish voice of little George prattling gaily. He told the servant that he had come from London, that he wanted to see Master Talboys, and that he would announce himself; and walking past her, without further ceremony, he opened the door of the parlour. The girl stared at him aghast as he did this; and, as if struck by some sudden conviction, threw her apron over her head and ran out into the snow. She darted across the waste ground, plunged into a narrow alley, and never drew breath till she found herself upon the threshold of a certain tavern called the Coach and Horses, and much affected by Mr Maldon. The lieutenant’s faithful retainer had taken Robert Audley for some new and determined collector of poor’s rates—rejecting that gentleman’s account of himself as an artful fiction devised for the destruction of parochial defaulters—and had hurried off to give her master timely warning of the enemy’s approach.
When Robert entered the sitting-room he was surprised to find little George seated opposite to a woman who was doing the honours of a shabby repast, spread upon a dirty table-cloth, and flanked by a pewter beer measure. The woman rose as Robert entered, and curtsied very humbly to the young barrister. She looked about fifty years of age, and was dressed in rusty widow’s weeds. Her complexion was insipidly fair, and the two smooth bands of hair beneath her cap were of that sunless flaxen hue which generally accompanies pink cheeks and white eyelashes. She had been a rustic beauty perhaps in her time, but her features, although tolerably regular in their shape, had a mean pinched look, as if they had been made too small for her face. This defect was peculiarly noticeable in her mouth, which was an obvious misfit for the set of teeth it contained. She smiled as she curtsied to Mr Robert Audley, and her smile, which laid bare the greater part of this set of square, hungry-looking teeth, by no means added to the beauty of her personal appearance.
‘Mr Maldon is not at home, sir,’ she said, with insinuating civility; ‘but if it’s for the water-rate, he requested me to say that——’
She was interrupted by little George Talboys, who scrambled down from the high chair upon which he had been perched, and ran to Robert Audley.
‘I know you,’ he said; ‘you came to Ventnor with the big gentleman, and you came here once, and you gave me some money, and I gave it to granpa to take care of, and granpa kept it, and he always does.’
Robert Audley took the boy in his arms, and carried him to a little table in the window.
‘Stand there, Georgey,’ he said; ‘I want to have a good look at you.’
He turned the boy’s face to the light, and pushed the brown curls off his forehead with both hands.
‘You’re growing more like your father every day, Georgey; and you’re growing quite a man, too,’ he said; ‘would you like to go to school?’
‘Oh, yes, please, I should like it very much,’ the boy answered, eagerly. ‘I went to school at Miss Pevins’s once—day-school, you know—round the corner in the next street; but I caught the measles, and granpa wouldn’t let me go any more, for fear I should catch the measles again; and granpa won’t let me play with the little boys in the street, because they’re rude boys; he said blackguard boys; but he said I mustn’t say blackguard boys, because it’s naughty. He says damn and devil, but he says he may because he’s old. I shall say damn and devil when I’m old; and I should like to go to school, please, and I can go to-day, if you like; Mrs Plowson will get my frocks ready, won’t you, Mrs Plowson?’
‘Certainly, Master Georgey, if your grandpapa wishes it,’ the woman answered, looking rather uneasily at Mr Robert Audley.
‘What on earth is the matter with this woman?’ thought Robert, as he turned from the boy to the fair-haired widow, who was edging herself slowly towards the table upon which little George Talboys stood talking to his guardian. ‘Does she still take me for a tax-collector with inimical intentions towards these wretched goods and chattels; or can the cause of her fidgety manner lie deeper still? That’s scarcely likely though; for whatever secrets Lieutenant Maldon may have, it’s not very probable that this woman has any knowledge of them.’
Mrs Plowson had edged herself close to the little table by this time, and was making a stealthy descent upon the boy, when Robert turned sharply round.
‘What are you going to do with the child?’ he said.
‘I was only going to take him away to wash his pretty face, sir, and smooth his hair,’ answered the woman, in the same insinuating tone in which she had spoken of the water-rate. ‘You don’t se
e him to any advantage, sir, while his precious face is dirty. I won’t be five minutes making him as neat as a new pin.’
She had her long thin arms about the boy as she spoke, and she was evidently going to carry him off bodily, when Robert stopped her.
‘I’d rather see him as he is, thank you,’ he said. ‘My time in Southampton isn’t very long, and I want to hear all that the little man can tell me.’
The little man crept closer to Robert, and looked confidingly into the barrister’s grey eyes.
‘I like you very much,’ he said. ‘I was frightened of you when you came before, because I was shy. I am not shy now—I am nearly six years old.’
Robert patted the boy’s head encouragingly, but he was not looking at little George; he was watching the fair-haired widow, who had moved to the window, and was looking out at the patch of waste ground.
‘You’re rather fidgety about some one, ma’am, I’m afraid,’ said Robert.
She coloured violently as the barrister made this remark, and answered him in a confused manner.
‘I was looking for Mr Maldon, sir,’ she said; ‘he’ll be so disappointed if he doesn’t see you.’
‘You know who I am, then?’
‘No, sir, but——’
The boy interrupted her by dragging a little jewelled watch from his bosom and showing it to Robert.
‘This is the watch the pretty lady gave me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got it now—but I haven’t had it long, because the jeweller who cleans it is an idle man, granpa says, and always keeps it such a long time; and granpa says it will have to be cleaned again, because of the taxes. He always takes it to be cleaned when there’s taxes—but he says, if he were to lose it, the pretty lady would give me another. Do you know the pretty lady?’
‘No, Georgey; but tell me all about her.’
Mrs Plowson made another descent upon the boy. She was armed with a pocket-handkerchief this time, and displayed great anxiety about the state of little George’s nose, but Robert warded off the dreaded weapon, and drew the child away from his tormentor.
‘The boy will do very well, ma’am,’ he said, ‘if you’ll be good enough to let him alone for five minutes. Now, Georgey, suppose you sit on my knee, and tell me all about the pretty lady.’
The child clambered from the table on to Mr Audley’s knees, assisting his descent by a very unceremonious manipulation of his guardian’s coat collar.
‘I’ll tell you all about the pretty lady,’ he said, ‘because I like you very much. Grandpa told me not to tell anybody, but I’ll tell you, you know, because I like you, and because you’re going to take me to school. The pretty lady came here one night—long ago—oh, so long ago,’ said the boy, shaking his head, with a face whose solemnity was expressive of some prodigious lapse of time. ‘She came when I was not nearly so big as I am now—and she came at night—after I’d gone to bed, and she came up into my room, and sat upon the bed, and cried—and she left the watch under my pillow, and she——Why do you make faces at me, Mrs Plowson? I may tell this gentleman,’ Georgey added, suddenly addressing the widow, who was standing behind Robert’s shoulder.
Mrs Plowson mumbled some confused apology to the effect that she was afraid Master George was troublesome.
‘Suppose you wait till I say so, ma’am, before you stop the little fellow’s mouth,’ said Robert Audley, sharply. ‘A suspicious person might think, from your manner, that Mr Maldon and you had some conspiracy between you, and that you were afraid of what the boy’s talk may let slip.’
He rose from his chair, and looked full at Mrs Plowson as he said this. The fair-haired widow’s face was as white as her cap when she tried to answer him, and her pale lips were so dry that she was obliged to wet them with her tongue before the words would come.
The little boy relieved her embarrassment.
‘Don’t be cross, Mrs Plowson,’ he said. ‘Mrs Plowson is very kind to me. Mrs Plowson is Matilda’s mother. You didn’t know Matilda. Poor Matilda was always crying; she was ill, she——’
The boy was stopped by the sudden appearance of Mr Maldon, who stood on the threshold of the parlour-door, staring at Robert Audley with a half-drunken, half-terrified aspect, scarcely consistent with the dignity of a retired naval officer. The servant girl, breathless and panting, stood close behind her master. Early in the day though it was, the old man’s speech was thick and confused, as he addressed himself fiercely to Mrs Plowson.
‘You’re a prett’ creature to call yoursel’ sensible woman!’ he said. ‘Why don’t you take th’ chile ’way, er wash ’s face? D’yer want to ruin me? D’yer want to ’stroy me? Take th’ chile ’way! Mr Audley, sir, I’m ver’ glad to see yer; ver ’appy to ’ceive yer in m’ humbl’ ’bode,’ the old man added, with tipsy politeness, dropping into a chair as he spoke, and trying to look steadily at his unexpected visitor.
‘Whatever this man’s secrets are,’ thought Robert, as Mrs Plowson hustled little George Talboys out of the room, ‘that woman has no unimportant share of them. Whatever the mystery may be, it grows darker and thicker at every step; but I try in vain to draw back or to stop short upon the road, for a stronger hand than my own is pointing the way to my lost friend’s unknown grave.’
CHAPTER III
LITTLE GEORGEY LEAVES HIS OLD HOME
‘I AM going to take your grandson away with me, Mr Maldon,’ Robert said, gravely, as Mrs Plowson retired with her young charge.
The old man’s drunken imbecility was slowly clearing away, like the heavy mists of a London fog, through which the feeble sunshine struggles dimly to appear. The very uncertain radiance of Lieutenant Maldon’s intellect took a considerable time in piercing the hazy vapours of rum-and-water; but the flickering light at last faintly glimmered athwart the clouds, and the old man screwed his poor wits to the sticking-point.
‘Yes, yes,’ he said, feebly; ‘take the boy away from his poor old grandfather. I always thought so.’
‘You always thought that I should take him away?’ asked Robert, scrutinising the half-drunken countenance with a searching glance. ‘Why did you think so, Mr Maldon?’
The fogs of intoxication got the better of the light of sobriety for a moment, and the lieutenant answered vaguely:
‘Thought so?—’cause I thought so.’
Meeting the young barrister’s impatient frown, he made another effort, and the light glimmered again.
‘Because I thought you or his father would fetch ’m away.’
‘When I was last in this house, Mr Maldon, you told me that George Talboys had sailed for Australia.’
‘Yes, yes—I know, I know,’ the old man answered, confusedly, shuffling his scanty limp grey hairs with his two wandering hands—‘I know; but he might have come back—mightn’t he? He was restless, and—and—queer in his mind, perhaps, sometimes. He might have come back.’
He repeated this two or three times, in feeble, muttering tones; groping about on the littered mantel-piece for a dirty-looking clay-pipe, and filling and lighting it with hands that trembled violently.
Robert Audley watched those poor withered, tremulous fingers dropping shreds of tobacco upon the hearth-rug, and scarcely able to kindle a lucifer* for their unsteadiness. Then walking once or twice up and down the little room, he left the old man to take a few puffs from the great consoler.
Presently he turned suddenly upon the half-pay lieutenant with a dark solemnity in his handsome face.
‘Mr Maldon,’ he said, slowly, watching the effect of every syllable as he spoke, ‘George Talboys never sailed for Australia—that I know. More than this, he never came to Southampton; and the lie you told me on the 8th of last September was dictated to you by the telegraphic message which you received on that day.’
The dirty clay-pipe dropped from the tremulous hand, and shivered against the iron fender, but the old man made no effort to find a fresh one; he sat trembling in every limb, and looking, Heaven knows how piteously, at Robert Audley.
; ‘The lie was dictated to you, and you repeated your lesson. But you no more saw George Talboys here on the 7th of September than I see him in this room now. You thought you had burnt the telegraphic message, but you had only burnt a part of it—the remainder is in my possession.’
Lieutenant Maldon was quite sober now.
‘What have I done?’ he murmured, helplessly. ‘O, my God! what have I done?’
‘At two o’clock on the 7th of September last,’ continued the pitiless, accusing voice, ‘George Talboys was seen, alive and well, at a house in Essex.’
Robert paused to see the effect of these words. They had produced no change in the old man. He still sat trembling from head to foot, and staring with the fixed and stolid gaze of some helpless wretch, whose every sense is gradually becoming numbed by terror.
‘At two o’clock on that day,’ repeated Robert Audley, ‘my poor friend was seen, alive and well, at ——, at the house of which I speak. From that hour to this I have never been able to hear that he has been seen by any living creature. I have taken such steps as must have resulted in procuring the information of his whereabouts, were he alive. I have done this patiently and carefully—at first, even hopefully. Now I know that he is dead.’
Robert Audley had been prepared to witness some considerable agitation in the old man’s manner, but he was not prepared for the terrible anguish, the ghastly terror, which convulsed Mr Maldon’s haggard face as he uttered the last word.
‘No, no, no, no,’ reiterated the lieutenant, in a shrill, half screaming voice; ‘no no! For God’s sake, don’t say that! Don’t think it—don’t let me think it—don’t let me dream of it! Not dead—anything but dead! Hiding away, perhaps—bribed to keep out of the way, perhaps; but not dead—not dead—not dead!’
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