The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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      Chapter 5

       The Headstone at Ventnor.

       Table of Contents

      Yes, there it was in black and white —“Helen Talboys, aged 22.”

      When George told the governess on board the Argus that if he heard any evil tidings of his wife he should drop down dead, he spoke in perfect good faith; and yet, here were the worst tidings that could come to him, and he sat rigid, white and helpless, staring stupidly at the shocked face of his friend.

      The suddenness of the blow had stunned him. In this strange and bewildered state of mind he began to wonder what had happened, and why it was that one line in the Times newspaper could have so horrible an effect upon him.

      Then by degrees even this vague consciousness of his misfortune faded slowly out of his mind, succeeded by a painful consciousness of external things.

      The hot August sunshine, the dusty window-panes and shabby-painted blinds, a file of fly-blown play-bills fastened to the wall, the black and empty fire-places, a bald-headed old man nodding over the Morning Advertizer, the slip-shod waiter folding a tumbled table-cloth, and Robert Audley’s handsome face looking at him full of compassionate alarm — he knew that all these things took gigantic proportions, and then, one by one, melted into dark blots and swam before his eyes, He knew that there was a great noise, as of half a dozen furious steam-engines tearing and grinding in his ears, and he knew nothing more — except that somebody or something fell heavily to the ground.

      He opened his eyes upon the dusky evening in a cool and shaded room, the silence only broken by the rumbling of wheels at a distance.

      He looked about him wonderingly, but half indifferently. His old friend, Robert Audley, was seated by his side smoking. George was lying on a low iron bedstead opposite to an open window, in which there was a stand of flowers and two or three birds in cages.

      “You don’t mind the pipe, do you, George?” his friend asked, quietly.

      “No.”

      He lay for some time looking at the flowers and the birds; one canary was singing a shrill hymn to the setting sun.

      “Do the birds annoy you, George? Shall I take them out of the room?”

      “No; I like to hear them sing.”

      Robert Audley knocked the ashes out of his pipe, laid the precious meerschaum tenderly upon the mantelpiece, and going into the next room, returned presently with a cup of strong tea.

      “Take this, George,” he said, as he placed the cup on a little table close to George’s pillow; “it will do your head good.”

      The young man did not answer, but looked slowly round the room, and then at his friend’s grave face.

      “Bob,” he said, “where are we?”

      “In my chambers, dear boy, in the Temple. You have no lodgings of your own, so you may as well stay with me while you’re in town.”

      George passed his hand once or twice across his forehead, and then, in a hesitating manner, said, quietly:

      “That newspaper this morning, Bob; what was it?”

      “Never mind just now, old boy; drink some tea.”

      “Yes, yes,” cried George, impatiently, raising himself upon the bed, and staring about him with hollow eyes. “I remember all about it. Helen! my Helen! my wife, my darling, my only love! Dead, dead!”

      “George,” said Robert Audley, laying his hand gently upon the young man’s arm, “you must remember that the person whose name you saw in the paper may not be your wife. There may have been some other Helen Talboys.”

      “No, no!” he cried; “the age corresponds with hers, and Talboys is such an uncommon name.”

      “It may be a misprint for Talbot.”

      “No, no, no; my wife is dead!”

      He shook off Robert’s restraining hand, and rising from the bed, walked straight to the door.

      “Where are you going?” exclaimed his friend.

      “To Ventnor, to see her grave.”

      “Not to-night, George, not to-night. I will go with you myself by the first train to-morrow.”

      Robert led him back to the bed, and gently forced him to lie down again. He then gave him an opiate, which had been left for him by the medical man whom they had called in at the coffee-house in Bridge street, when George fainted.

      So George Talboys fell into a heavy slumber, and dreamed that he went to Ventnor, to find his wife alive and happy, but wrinkled, old, and gray, and to find his son grown into a young man.

      Early the next morning he was seated opposite to Robert Audley in the first-class carriage of an express, whirling through the pretty open country toward Portsmouth.