“Get rid of him, dear boy! Oh, no, no! But for his own sake, my dear sir, for his own sake, you know.”
“I think for his own sake he’d much better stay in England and look after his son,” said Robert.
“But I tell you I can’t,” cried George; “every inch of this accursed ground is hateful to me—I want to run out of it as I would out of a graveyard. I’ll go back to town tonight, get that business about the money settled early tomorrow morning, and start for Liverpool without a moment’s delay. I shall be better when I’ve put half the world between me and her grave.”
Before he left the house he stole out to the landlady, and asked some more questions about his dead wife.
“Were they poor?” he asked, “were they pinched for money while she was ill?”
“Oh, no!” the woman answered; “though the captain dresses shabby, he has always plenty of sovereigns in his purse. The poor lady wanted for nothing.”
George was relieved at this, though it puzzled him to know where the drunken half-pay lieutenant could have contrived to find money for all the expenses of his daughter’s illness.
But he was too thoroughly broken down by the calamity which had befallen him to be able to think much of anything, so he asked no further questions, but walked with his father-in-law and Robert Audley down to the boat by which they were to cross to Portsmouth.
The old man bade Robert a very ceremonious adieu.
“You did not introduce me to your friend, by the by, my dear boy,” he said. George stared at him, muttered something indistinct, and ran down the ladder to the boat before Mr. Maldon could repeat his request. The steamer sped away through the sunset, and the outline of the island melted in the horizon as they neared the opposite shore.
“To think,” said George, “that two nights ago, at this time, I was steaming into Liverpool, full of the hope of clasping her to my heart, and tonight I am going away from her grave!”
The document which appointed Robert Audley as guardian to little George Talboys was drawn up in a solicitor’s office the next morning.
“It’s a great responsibility,” exclaimed Robert; “I, guardian to anybody or anything! I, who never in my life could take care of myself!”
“I trust in your noble heart, Bob,” said George. “I know you will take care of my poor orphan boy, and see that he is well used by his grandfather. I shall only draw enough from Georgey’s fortune to take me back to Sydney, and then begin my old work again.”
But it seemed as if George was destined to be himself the guardian of his son; for when he reached Liverpool, he found that a vessel had just sailed, and that there would not be another for a month; so he returned to London, and once more threw himself upon Robert Audley’s hospitality.
The barrister received him with open arms; he gave him the room with the birds and flowers, and had a bed put up in his dressing-room for himself. Grief is so selfish that George did not know the sacrifices his friend made for his comfort. He only knew that for him the sun was darkened, and the business of life done. He sat all day long smoking cigars, and staring at the flowers and canaries, chafing for the time to pass that he might be far out at sea.
But just as the hour was drawing near for the sailing of the vessel, Robert Audley came in one day, full of a great scheme.
A friend of his, another of those barristers whose last thought is of a brief, was going to St. Petersburg to spend the winter, and wanted Robert to accompany him. Robert would only go on condition that George went too.
For a long time the young man resisted; but when he found that Robert was, in a quiet way, thoroughly determined upon not going without him, he gave in, and consented to join the party. What did it matter? he said. One place was the same to him as another; anywhere out of England; what did he care where?
This was not a very cheerful way of looking at things, but Robert Audley was quite satisfied with having won his consent.
The three young men started under very favorable circumstances, carrying letters of introduction to the most influential inhabitants of the Russian capital.
Before leaving England, Robert wrote to his cousin Alicia, telling her of his intended departure with his old friend George Talboys, whom he had lately met for the first time after a lapse of years, and who had just lost his wife.
Alicia’s reply came by return post, and ran thus:
“My Dear Robert—How cruel of you to run away to that horrid St. Petersburg before the hunting season! I have heard that people lose their noses in that disagreeable climate, and as yours is rather a long one, I should advise you to return before the very severe weather sets in. What sort of person is this Mr. Talboys? If he is very agreeable you may bring him to the Court as soon as you return from your travels. Lady Audley tells me to request you to secure her a set of sables. You are not to consider the price, but to be sure that they are the handsomest that can be obtained. Papa is perfectly absurd about his new wife, and she and I cannot get on together at all; not that she is disagreeable to me, for, as far as that goes, she makes herself agreeable to everyone; but she is so irretrievably childish and silly.
VII
After a Year
The first year of George Talboys’ widowhood passed away, the deep band of crepe about his hat grew brown and dusty, and as the last burning day of another
