Classic Audiobook Collection - Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon ~ Full Audiobook [mystery]

Starting point is 00:00:00 dead men's shoes by mary elizabeth bradden chapter one plunged in the depth of helpless poverty a girl woman alone on battersea bridge reading a letter in the december sunset one of those mild autumnal afternoons which hang upon the skirts of winter a girl in years a woman in cares dark brown eyes set in a pale sharply set face mouth rosy and beautiful in form but too firm in its lines to be altogether lovely in a woman a girl whom the passers-by look at interrogatively wondering that so much beauty should go alone and so poorly clad her clothes are not common but shabby a black silk dress that has once been handsome and fashionable a black felt hat trimmed with threadbare velvet a seal-skin jacket one worn bald at the edges and dull with exposure to hard weather. Gloves which indicate that to be gloved at all has cost the wearer a struggle. Boots, whose decay is no less evident than the symmetry of the slender feet they cover. She walks listlessly up and down the pavement of the bridge.

Starting point is 00:01:20 Just the one quiet promenade to be found in this neighbourhood. Reading a letter from home or the place which was her home two years ago. she has seen much of the world during these two years in her own opinion too much for she has seen not the fair and shining fabric in life's loom but the ragged sleeve thereof this is the letter which she reads not once but three times over with deepest attention as she paces up and down the quiet old bridge while the sunset fades from the cold grey river and from that dutch picture of old red roofs and water-side shanty santa on the Middlesex shore, which painters have loved, and which the Thames embankment may perchance have blotted out by this time. Red Castle, December 11, 1860, blank. My dear Sybil, an event has happened which I think likely to exercise a wonderful influence for good upon all our lives. Stephen Trenchard, your mother's brother, the Uncle Stephen you have all talked about

Starting point is 00:02:27 as children, and whose wealth was your poor mother's boast, has returned to England, after nearly thirty years' absence, yellow, wrinkled and withered, and eccentric in manners and habits, but I think not unkindly disposed to any of us. He has taken a house at Redcastle, and is anxious to have his nieces about him, as he calls it. Marion has already exchanged the discomforts and deprivations of a parish doctor's household for the oriental luxuries of lancaster lodge i dare say you remember the house a square stone building with two tall iron gates and two lodges within thirty yards of the hall-door some people will have grandeur at the sacrifice of consistency he seems i mean your uncle stephen to have taken a great fancy to marian i meet her lolling in his brouche trying to look as if she had to look as if she had had been accustomed to ride in a three hundred guinea carriage all her life and really doing it very well jenny has also been to see her uncle but he thought her rough and uncultivated and i fear that with her present deficiency of manners she has little chance of pleasing him i have sent her to miss mercer's as a day scholar since micklemus but as she will talk to the boys going and returning i really think the change is doing her more harm than good i have died with Mr. Trenchard, and can assure you that the splendour of his table is something to remember.

Starting point is 00:04:00 I don't pretend to be a judge of wines, though I could give you a lecture upon tannic acid, alcohol and so on, experienced to my mind being better than theory and my opportunities of the rarest, but I know that after dining with Stephen Trenchard I felt as if my veins ran quicksilver. Well, my dear, I want you to have your chance as well as Marion, and I think the best and wisest course for you will be to beg a month's holiday from your employer, Mrs Hazleton, and come to spend Christmas with your poor old Uncle Robert. No doubt if you do, your rich old Uncle Stephen will ask you to transfer your society to Lancaster Lodge, and then you and Marion will have equal chances. I dare say it will end by his asking one or

Starting point is 00:04:48 or both of you, to live with him and keep his house. He has, I believe, something like a million to leave behind him, and you three girls are his nearest relations and his natural heirs. He has spoken very kindly of your mother. Let me know what Mrs. Hazleton says about a holiday. If a month is too much, you might ask for a fortnight. I should think it most unlikely that you need ever return to her. With such a man as old Trenchard for your uncle, and well, well, you disposed towards you, your teaching days ought to be over. Your affectionate uncle, Robert Faunthorpe. My teaching days, repeats the young woman, bitterly. He little knows that they were the height of luxury compared to what has come after them. The letter is addressed to Miss Formthorpe

Starting point is 00:05:39 at Mrs. Hazeltons, 19 Lothar Street, Eccleston Square. It had been readdressed by a humble friend of Miss Farnthorpe's in the person of Mrs. Hazleton's housemaid, who has enclosed the letter in an envelope directed to Mrs. Stanmore at Mrs. Bonnys, 11 Dixon Street, Chelsea, an address which indicates a descent in the social scale from the semi-Belgravean gentility of Lothar Street, Eccleston Square. And how comes Miss Fornthorpe to be Mrs. Stanmore, while her affectionate uncle, Robert, at faunthorpe remains unaware of a transmutation which must need to have some influence for good or evil on his niece's future career marriage is one of those inadvertences which can hardly go for nothing even in the easiest life so marion is exhibiting herself about red castle in a three hundred guinea barouche says mrs stanmore putting the letter in her pocket while i have hardly shoes to my feet I, who was supposed to be the handsome sister, and the clever sister, and the lucky sister,

Starting point is 00:06:54 and I dare not show my face in Redcastle, not even if half a million of money is to be lost by my absence, to think that Uncle Stephen should choose just this particular time for his return, to think that he should return at all, when Marion and I made up our minds ever so long ago, that he was little better than a myth, and was sure to have married, a beggam without telling anybody, and to die in India, leaving all his money to horrid copper-coloured children, lucky for Marion. Then, after a pause, leaving the bridge and entering the shabby street leading to chain walk, she continues herself communing thus. What shall I say to Uncle Robert?

Starting point is 00:07:34 Suppose he were to come to town and call at Mrs Hazeltons. He may have money now to pay for the journey. It was safe enough before. Poor Uncle Robert never had a spare pound or ever wasted a few. shilling except the shillings he had to pay for summonses because of being behind-hand with the taxes if he should come up to london or if uncle stephen should be in town and call in loather streets more likely that anglo-indians are such active creatures what am i to do thus disjointedly run her thoughts as she walks very quickly now along the narrow shabby street past the fried fish-shop and the pork butchers and the emporium for the second-hand goods from a picture of the holy family after raphael very much framed to a flat iron or a pair of bluchers the greengrocers also coal merchant the cook-shop with its steamed tarnished windows and reeking odour of boiled beef and stick-jaw pudding that reminds me mrs stanmore says to herself as the reek of cooked provisions salute her nostrils there's nothing for dinner she pauses and takes counsel with herself her eye wanders from the cook-shop to the fishmongers thence ranges to the pork butchers her election lies among these cambridge sausages are savoury but dear and mrs bonnie the landlady has a trick of overdoing all things entrusted to her culinary art a pound of cambridge sausages reduced to grounds and grease are hardly worth the shilling they cost boiled beef is expensive and weighs heavy for a cheap relish a zest which shall make bread and bush

Starting point is 00:09:16 supply the place of dinner your fishmonger is your best friend mrs stammore patronises the finny tribe she selects an eightpenny haddock dried and salted from the merchant store and carries it home with her rolled up in brown paper she stops at the cheap bakers for a half-quarton loaf with which the bit over is not unacceptable i wonder what marian would think if she could see me now she asked herself marian who always complained of my pride and called herself the cinderella of the family her cinderella ship never brought her so low as this home bitter mockery of a sweet word she turns out of the shabby street into a street still shabbier narrow dirty and out at elbows yet at its worse not quite so bad as a modern street under the same conditions for the red brick houses are substantial and roomy and the worm-eaten oak and window-frames shut out the wind better than the speculative builders warped and shrunken deal the house which mrs stammore enters is dark and gloomy the wail of a fretful child sounds from the basement as she lets herself in at the street door with a convenient latch-key a glimmer from the kitchen stairs is the only light visible and to this glimmer mrs stammore seems to address herself i've brought home a haddock mrs bonnie will you be kind enough to broil it at six o'clock oh very well answers a querulous voice from unseen depths below you can put the adduck on the window-sill i'll come and fetch it when i've got time but i can't say nothing about it being done by six for my fire's got low after ironing the parlour has gone out to tea this last remark has a reproachful sound as who should say you never spare me trouble by going out visiting mrs stammore deposits the dried fish and ascends the dark old-fashioned staircase smelling of mice whose hurried scamper is audible behind the mouldering wainscot one room the first-floor front comprises mr and mrs stammore's share of number eleven dixon street it is happily a rather large room with three windows provided with old-fashioned window seats the furniture is old like the house

Starting point is 00:11:33 worn and dingy but solid furniture that has served several generations of housekeepers and a ragged regiment of lodgers in the glow of a cheery little fire the dim old room has a homely not unfriendly look the old tent bedstead has been pushed into the most obscure corner there are two arm-chairs with faded chintz covers a sofa large and ponderous there is a round table opposite the wide old fireplace and another table against the the wall, surmounted by a japaned iron tea tray of a bright red ground with a landscape in the middle, a rosewood tea caddy, a pair of blown glass decanters empty, a family Bible, the landladies, a ragged copy of Byron's Don Juan, and two odd duo-decimo volumes of Tom Jones, in brown calf, the lodgers. Mrs. Stammore lights a small paraffin lamp, takes off jacket and hat, and proceeds to prepare the evening meal. She has tea things and tea kettle to her hand in the roomy and mousy old closet behind the fireplace. Such a closet as is only to be found in old houses, large

Starting point is 00:12:45 enough for half a dozen burglars to hide in, or a whole nursery of children to play in, and with all manner of odd corners and shelves, and perchance an inner cupboard lurking mysteriously in its panelled recesses. Mrs Stan Moore fills the kettle and sets out the tea things on the red japan tray and cuts a plate of bread and butter and makes a round of toast deftly enough though a year ago she was about the least handy of her sex in such small domestic offices that stern schoolmistress necessity has taught her many things how young she looks in the ruddy light of the fire as she kneels on the hearthrug toasting that round of bread for the poor meal that is to be dinner tea and supper all in one for mrs bonnie's first floor lodges

Starting point is 00:13:32 how young and how pretty every feature so daintily fashioned eyes so darkly lustrous colouring so delicate young and with much need of love and sympathy of comfort and careful tendons and so uncle stephen has really come home richer than we ever made him in our dreams when we were children and marian is tasting all the pleasures his wealth can buy for her marian whom i pitied so when i left her behind me at redcastle she might pity me now from the depth of her heart if she could see me she might have written to tell me the change in her fortunes selfish thing i suppose it is on account of my not answering her last two letters such stupid letters as they were too full of i hope you are free from cold and i trust you are enjoying the nice autumn weather and uncle robert's rheumatic gout she lapses into deeper meditation looking into a red cavern in the heart of the fire forgetful of the toast which hangs despondently upon the two-penny tin toasting fork shaped like neptune's trident meditation full of room for she has done the most foolish thing a woman can do except one which is to repent too late of her folly and she is fast coming to that ultimate stage of foolishness vain regret for an irrevocable act she is still kneeling in front of the fire absent-minded absorbed when the door opens and a young man comes in slowly heavily like one who brings no gladness with him and has no hope of finding comfort at home he comes quietly to the hearth lays his hand upon sybil's shoulder and addresses her not unkindly but with little warm in his tone. Well, little old woman, brooding over the fire as usual, what's the matter now? Not much more than usual, his wife answers, without looking up. You've had your customary look,

Starting point is 00:15:32 I suppose, she inquires after a pause, during which her husband has taken off his shabby overcoat and flunk himself into one of the armchairs. Yes, the wheel of fortune hasn't turned the other way yet. It revolves persistently, but always like the planets in the same direction. The immutable laws are bad luck or not to be abrogated in my favour. The fellows I wanted to see, but a fly friends of the past, who might lend me a fiver if I could catch them in the right humour, were all out. The situation I applied for has been given to somebody else. They had 139 applicants, the principal told me, and gave the birth to the applicant who dotted his eyes with the nearest approach to mathematical precision. We take a man's handwriting as the physical expression of his mental bias, said

Starting point is 00:16:20 principle and what we want is precision now you know i never dot my eyes at all or if i do the dot is so far from the letter as to make my meaning all the more unintelligible so much for the clerkship the commission agency we saw advertise turns out a do agent required to put down fifty pounds as a guarantee of bona fides i applied for an agency in the wine trade offered to a young gentleman moving in good society and able to push a new brand of shampoo pain but when the wine merchant saw me he asked rather pertinently if i moved in good society in this coat i told him i was a gentleman by birth and education and knew some of the best people in london very likely my dear sir replies the great doctor but you don't visit them we want young men who dress well and look as if they could afford to drink the wine they recommend men who have the appearance of wealth with the unscrupulousness of poverty rather neatly put by our friend the gooseberry for mentor wasn't it and you have done nothing earned nothing are no nearer earning anything than you were yesterday asked sybil without lifting her eyes to his face yet the time was not a year ago when to gaze upon that countenance seemed to her like reading a poem when every turn of the handsome head every sparkle of the dark eyes eyes ever of uncertain hue but always dark was a thing to remember and dream about when to watch him across a crowded room was quiet happiness all sufficing for an exacting love when to hear his voice gay or grave was sweeter than music and now he sits a few paces from her worn out weary dispirited in sore need of comfort and she cannot raise her eyes from moody contemplation of the fire the difference is marked the reason obvious a year ago he was an undeclared lover to-day he is an actual husband then there was not a many-petalled flower which did not suggest the question loves me loves me not now he has loved her and won her and they have essayed to say a on the river of life together, and found the navigation difficult. Aye, hard and bitter as that weedy swamp, through which Sir Samuel Baker's craft,

Starting point is 00:18:39 was toilfully dragged under Afrik's torrid sky. You couldn't give a neater definition of my position, replies Alex Secreton. Otherwise, Stanmore, he has striven to hide his destitution under an assumed name, just as his wife has kept the secret of an imprudent man. marriage by retaining a false address. Either mystery may be discovered at any moment, so various are the accidents of life. Don't consider me frivolous if I remind you that I haven't eaten anything since half-pastate this morning, and the perambulation of stony-hearted London is conducive to an inward craving. I won't call the feeling by so healthy a name as hunger. It's a compound sensation of

Starting point is 00:19:23 sickness and emptiness. Is there anything to eat except bread and butter? It's a very nice thing in its way, but one comes to object to it on the same ground that Louis XIV's confessor took about partridges. Mrs. Bonnie is broiling a haddock, replies Sybil, listlessly. What good Catholics we are, keeping Advent all the week through. We had bloaters yesterday and dried sprats the day before. All our days are ember days. Fish is the cheapest thing I can get, Alex.

Starting point is 00:19:56 No doubt, but it generally entered. tales after expense in the way of an extra half-pint of beer no matter let mrs bonnie bring forth the haddock exclaimed alexis applying himself diligently to the toast which sybil had just buttered she tinkles the bell gently as a polite hint to mrs bonnie she dare not give a peremptory ring as she might for a servant whose wages she paid mrs bonny when letting her lodgings professes to give attendance to her lodgers but that attendance is scanty and yielded as a favour rather than a right. A lodger who wants extra luxuries, such as onion sauce with a shoulder of mutton, or fried liver and bacon for supper, must make things very sweet to Mrs Bonnie. An order for the theatre, or even an occasional tumbler of grog, has a mollifying effect on her disposition. The loan of a newspaper soothes her sensitive mind. The stammoors are too poor to often even these small attentions, and are sometimes backward in the payment

Starting point is 00:20:58 of their rent, and thus receive stinted service, grudgingly given. Sybil pours out the tea languidly, and with the air of a person out of health, she eats a little bread and butter, but without appetite, and when the haddock appears at last, born by a slipshod girl, Mr Stammore has that fish all to himself. Sybil refusing any portion thereof. Alexis contemplates her pityingly, tenderly even, that haggard, sickly loak in the a delicate face touches him poor girl how pale and ill you look no appetite too that's a bad sign i wish i could have brought you home something more tempting than this old finan a bird a sweet bread or something of that kind i could not eat the most exquisite dinner that was ever cooked aleks so you needn't trouble yourself to regret that but i do wish for something very much what is it darling you ought to have every wish gratified just

Starting point is 00:21:58 now. You would, if you had married a rich cheesemonger, or a warfinger, or a packer, or a cotton spinner, or a brass founder. Anything except that lowest animal in the scale of creation, a broken down swell. What is it, Sybil? I want ten pounds, Alex, she answers intently. Her elbow on the table, her chin supported by her hand, her eyes upon his face, attitude and expression, are like earnest. Ten pounds, my dearest. We have been wanting ten pounds ever since our honeymoon. Don't speak of our honeymoon, exclaimed Sybil, fretfully.

Starting point is 00:22:37 It maddens me when I think how you squandered money that might have kept us in comfort for a year. My love, you are so easily maddened, remonstrates Alexis placidly. He has never been seen out of temper. I dare say it was foolish to go the pace quite as fast as we did, but you had never seen Paris, and April in Paris, with the woman one loves, is the nearest approach that I can imagine, to paradise.

Starting point is 00:23:01 You speak as if you had tried it often, say Sybil with a sneer. Bah, child, Amir Fassonne de Baller, do you remember our drives to the cascade? In the balmy spring nights, when the stars were shining on the bois and how we used to sit in the lamplip gardens of the cafe, eating ices and making love. If ever we grow rich, Sybil, we'll go back to Parmy's. paris and have another honeymoon but how about these ten pounds little woman what can you want with ten pounds the young wife rises glides behind her husband's chair and leaning on his shoulder whispers something in his ear as something at which he smiles tenderly sadly and turning in his chair draws the young face so wan and yet so fair down to his lips by jove he exclaims poor little woman i am a brute never to have thought of it you want buy clothes for the poor little beggar who is to make his first appearance upon the stage of life before the innocent lambkins have begun to bleat in the meadows undisputed air to his father's impecuniosity the lower animals have the advantage of us in that respect by and by

Starting point is 00:24:13 the lambkins come into the world amply provided you shall have the money sybil yes if i have to borrow beg rob for it you shall have it somehow even if i were driven to beg of my bitterest foe, I, of Stephen Trenchard himself. His arm is round her, and he feels a start at the name. Don't be frightened, little woman. That's only a figure of speech. I never saw Stephen Trenchard in my life, and as to begging of him, there's nothing more unlikely, since he is, to the best of my knowledge, an inhabitant of the city of palaces, otherwise Calcutta. He might have come back to England, Alex, without your knowing anything about it. suggests Sybil. Aye, that might he have done easily, child,

Starting point is 00:24:59 seeing that he is a very insignificant person in this big busy world, and that I know nothing whatever about him, except that he did me deadly wrong before I was born, and you were taught to hate him, yes, verily. Before I learned my catechism, I learned to hate Stephen Trenchard with a righteous and a godly hate, for was he not the falsest and meanest of men, and the scripture does not forbid us,

Starting point is 00:25:24 to hate falsehood and meanness. If Eve had hated the serpent a little, humanity in general would not have gone wrong. Trenchard was like the serpent, a creature that crawled, a wriggling worm in the guise of a man. He wriggled and wormed himself into the fortune that should have been my father's.

Starting point is 00:25:44 He wriggled and wormed himself into the heart of my father's first love, and he did all this wrong, deliberate wrong, Mark you. Basely conceived, the study of his days and night, with a smiling face, clasping his victim's hand in friendship all the while, so that no thunderbolt falling from the skies could have surprised my father more than the discovery that his arch enemy was there, hiding under the mask of his humble friend.

Starting point is 00:26:11 Alexis has risen and paces the room, fired by this memory of a lesson, learned in earliest boyhood, as deeply as he loved his dead father, so deeply does he hate his father's enemy and betrayer. watches him thoughtful and perplexed. Of all things difficult to impossibility, nothing could seem more so than to reconcile her love and duty to her husband and her desire to win her uncle's fortune. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.org. recording by angela dean dead men's shoes by mary elizabeth brayden chapter two given a ten-pound note which must be had query where to get it

Starting point is 00:27:14 a problem not over-easy of solution for a man who has exhausted the generosity of those few friends who are generous and discovered the hollowness of those numerous acquaintances who not ill-natured in the beaten way of friendship we'll do anything for a friend except open their purse strings. A sharp December morning. The wind has changed in the night from southwest to due east, and there has been a light fall of snow, which is whitening the various and picturesque roofs of Chelsea and hangs on the ragged elm branches on Cheyenne walk. The river is done color, the sky, iron-gray,

Starting point is 00:27:54 as if the atmosphere were heavily charged with snow. Butchers boys, cabmen, and those denizens of the street who seem to get through their daily round of labor with an ample margin of leisure for gossip and standing about at corners, look up at the darkened vault of heaven and opine that there will be a heavy fall of snow before night. This is the cold world which Alexis Sectoran faces, leaving his wife asleep in the old tent bed at No. 11 Dixon Street. She has fallen into slothful habits of late, pleading as her excuse that there is so little to get up for nowadays. Certainly not pleasure or prosperity, not even so much as a new book to read. So does not that ragged old Don Juan, whose bitterest verses Alexis, gloats over in his gloomious moods, constituent with graceless Tom Jones, the entire stock of literature, and Sybil, secretans. reach ten pounds he faces the bitter blast blowing up the river from plumstead and

Starting point is 00:29:02 Woolrich and all the chilly eastern marshes and seeming to concentrate its biting power upon innocent Cheyenne walk he faces the rasping wind moodily puzzling out this insolvable problem where to get ten pounds where to get it that is the only question the how to to get it has been settled from the beginning he must borrow it he has almost reached the lower depth of the hearty and habitual borrower he has but to settle with himself upon whom he shall make his demand for himself he might perchance never have stooped to borrow he would have emigrated rather and lived by the sweat of his brow in some new country where men are equal and poverty less than a crime or his heart failing him he might have flunged himself and his difficulties off Waterloo Bridge, and so made an easy end of them. But with a young and beloved wife dependent on him for daily bread, he has sacrificed pride and independence, manhood,

Starting point is 00:30:09 and honesty even, he sometimes thinks, and for the last six months has lived a wretched hand-to-mouth existence, trying to get employment all the time, and occasionally earning a fortuitous five-pound note, but supporting the burden of life for the most part by the aid of loans obtained from the associates of happier days. He is not a man upon whom so pitiful a position sits lightly, though being gifted by nature with a peculiarly sweet and easy temper. He has a way of taking his troubles placidly, especially in the presence of his wife, and his railings at fate and fortune, though frequent, are philosophical rather than angry or vexed. vindictive. He is a man who, if nature's bounties are to be counted as a heritage, is not

Starting point is 00:30:59 undouered, eminently handsome, of a noble presence, athletic, with a constitution to which illness and disease are unknown, with a voice that can soothe or charm, threaten, or command, an eye that dominates man and the lesser animals alike, a quick, bright intellect, a wondrous power of endurance, that noble quality which in a horse would call stay, which in a man is perhaps the crowning characteristic of manhood. With such gifts as these, Alexis Sectoran could hardly count himself ill-furnished for the battle of life. Unhappily, the old fairy story of the princess's christening gifts repeats itself, more or less, in every man's life. Among the numerous good fairies who were invisible guests at Alexis Sacriton's baptismal feast, two evil fairies slipped in

Starting point is 00:31:54 and awares. Those were poverty and unthrift. I shall have little of this world's goods, said the first, and he shall squander that little, added the second. This baptismal curse has been fulfilled. The only son of a disinherited father, Alexis, has yet escaped the chastening influence of that sharp schoolmaster poverty. His mother's fortune was enough to support father and son in luxurious idleness, and in a happy-go-lucky, easy kind of life in foreign cities where life is cheaper, gayer, and brighter than at home. At 17, his father's influence was sufficient to obtain him a commission in a crack regimen. Father and mother died within a year of each other, and soon after Alexis had put on his appellates, the remnant of his mother's fortune,

Starting point is 00:32:44 the bulk thereof having been anticipated and made away with for year after year as necessity impelled served to keep the young man going in an expensive profession for about five years during which he had the good fortune to see some active service distinguish himself by various displays of reckless daring and obtain a captaincy at the end of the fifth year he had spent the last shilling of his capital and was in debt knowing the impossibility of living on his pay he sold out and for some time about a year and a half contrived to live upon the proceeds of his commission having thus sacrificed his military career to the necessities of eighteen months idleness and to that miserable condition of a noble profession which makes it impossible that a gentleman should live by his sword alexis reviews the ranks of his acquaintances as he walks london words he has exhausted the bounty of his easy going and in some cases open-handed brother officers no hope of help there his foreign education has left him without school friends near at hand honest max or jovial fritz of heidelberg might advance him a thaller or a handful of gostian were they within reach but their normal state is in pecuniosity there is but one source left undrained even in this depth of destitution he has not yet appealed to his mother's soul surviving sister his aunt louisa co-erris with his mother of a rich manchester manufacturer and more fortunately married than his mother aunt louisa is the wife of dudley gorsuch barrister in large practice and member of glassford in the potteries a self-made man self-important and worshipping rank and

Starting point is 00:34:38 Mammon, as the Ammonites worshiped Malick. On this bleak December morning, it occurs to Alexis that Aunt Louisa, being of his mother's kin, must have some green spot in her nature, some place in her heart accessible to softer feeling, where it but the size of a pins point, and that he, her nephew, destitute and forlorn, ought to be able to find that place. He has dined at her house when he was a dashing young officer, well-dressed. well surrounded has been entertained bounteously by her made much of presented to her friends with some touch of pride being verily a young man for women to be proud of in his prosperous days at that happier time aunt louisa appeared to him worldly but good-natured hospitable benevolent even He is at the bottom of Grosvenor Place by this time and has made up his mind to try Aunt Louisa. Mr. and Miss Gorsuch live in a street out of Grosvenor Place, too expensive a street for Mr. Groszich means,

Starting point is 00:35:44 which are larger in appearance than reality, but a fine house, in a fine neighborhood, is a standing evidence of wealth, and as such is worth all it costs. There are so many things in which prudent, careful people can save money, notably in their meals and the food they give their servants, since these matters appertain to their inner economy of a household and are secrets to the outer world. Miss Gorsuch pinches in all domestic details, even down to scouring paper. Mr. Gorsuch gives three state dinners in the season, supplied by Gunter, banquets of imposing appearance, but washed down with wines that range from half a crown to four and six pence per bottle. Alexis, fully aware of his broken

Starting point is 00:36:26 down appearance is too wise to put forward his relationship as a claim to be admitted, despite the footman's suspicious look. He simply asks to see Mrs. Gorsuch, but he gives his real name Mr. Secretan. He is left in the hall while the footman communicates with his mistress, whose voice is heard in the library at the back of the hall. She can hardly deny herself when I can hear her talking, thinks Alexis. She does not deny herself. The man ushers him into the library, a square apartment with a gloomy outlook and two pompous bookcases containing law books and a few of those classic authors whose works are more largely bought than read. A fire burns frostily and cheerily in the bright steel grate. Mrs. Gorsuch sits at the table

Starting point is 00:37:14 with a row of tradesman's books and a ponderous plated inkstand before her. She has been trying to reconcile discrepancies between the butcher's account of meat delivery. and her own idea of the meat that ought to have been consumed. Three pounds of rump steak sit heavily upon her soul. She cannot see how those three pounds of butcher's meat can have been honestly eaten, and she is haunted by the image of an all-devouring policeman, or those bloodsuckers the cook's relatives. She is a little dried-up-looking woman,

Starting point is 00:37:49 with stiff bands of light auburn hair, pepper-castard with gray, a brown merino gown, a pinched-looking lace cap, and a double-eyed glass attached to a chain which glitters in the rosy light of the fire, as she turns to look at her visitor, glass in hand. Alex, she exclaims, good heavens, what a change! She saw him last as a guest at one of her state dinners, elegant, prosperous-looking, with the easy, self-assured air of a man certain of success in life. she sees him now reduced to the lowest ebb in the tide of man's existence he comes to her as a beggar mendiancy in writing on his face yes there's a marked decadence from the young man about town is there not he replies you see the brand which destitution stamps upon her children i have fallen very low in the world since i used to come to your swell parties you are very kind to me in those days aunt miss gorsuch wincees no one knowing so well what is coming so kind that i have made up by mind to sue for a small kindness to-day it goes against the grain but before we talk about kindness alexis perhaps you will be good enough to explain how you have sunk to this absolutely disreputable condition asks miss gorsuch looking at her nephew's boots

Starting point is 00:39:13 the easiest thing in the world answers alexis with agreeable recklessness i have spent all my money and have not yet acquired the knack of earning more he seized dimly that there is little to be hoped from this flesh and blood of his, and that placid despair, which is his normal condition, enables him to take things easily. Earning, echoes Aunt Louisa with a bitter sneer, It isn't in any of your race to earn the bread they eat. My father made his fortune by honest industry. Your father thought he honored our family

Starting point is 00:39:46 when he exchanged his landless gentility from my sister's 30,000 pounds. poor maud. It was a lackless day that brought him across her path. Reserve your pity, Aunt Louisa. My mother's married life was a happy one. I can bear witness to that. Happy, exclaims Miss Gorsuch contemptuously. Was she in society? This question she evidently considers unanswerable. Alexis respects her opinion and makes no reply. Can you compare her position with mine? Certainly not. You have a handsome house, in a fashionable street, a bishop for your right-hand neighbor, an earl on your left. You have

Starting point is 00:40:28 the orthodox establishment of a lady and all the cares that accompany it. My mother lived a roving life in some of the loveliest places of this earth, and she had no servant, but the maid who waited on her when she was well and nursed her when she was ill, and loved her dearly always. My mother's society consisted of few friends who were faithful to her through all changes of fortune those do not count of course no she was not in society but perhaps when you and she compare notes as to your earthly experiences in a wiser world you may find that the balance has been more evenly adjusted than you can suppose now miss gorsuch has hardly heard him her mind is troubled by a grave doubt i hope you did not tell the butler that you are my nephew she says anxiously i had too much discretion for that and now aunt not wishing to intrude myself or my boots he has perceived her uneasy glances at those patched offenders against the decencies of life upon you longer than is absolutely necessary i will come to the point will you lend me or give me ten pounds if fate is against me you may call it a gift but if fortune favour me it shall be repaid tenfold i needn't tell you how badly i want money

Starting point is 00:41:50 My appearance testifies to my necessities, but it is not for myself that I am a beggar. It is for my wife soon to become a mother. What? Almost shrieks Miss Gorsuch? Married? Without income or profession. You have linked yourself to some unhappy creature. Yes, we have taken the liberty to unite our destitution.

Starting point is 00:42:12 If the worst comes to the worst, the same pan of charcoal that serves for one will accommodate the other. Your impiety shocks but does not surprise me, says Miss Gorsuch. Such sinful imprudence could hardly be found in a man of religious principles. No, prudence and piety generally go in double harness. Well, aunt, I have my answer. You won't lend or give me the money? In the first place I have not such a sum to lend. Mr. Gorsuch's position demands the expenditures of our income.

Starting point is 00:42:45 We are never in debt with a shudder. but we have never anything to spare i have had to strain every nerve in order to pay our annual contribution to the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts and you have nothing left for a starving nephew at home even if i were in a position to advance you this money which i repeat i am not i cannot see that your condition would be materially improved by the loan where would you be when the money is spent exactly where i am now The money is not for myself, but for my wife. I should not touch a sixpence of it. Who was this unfortunate young woman when you married her? Will you lend me ten pounds? asked Alexis, ignoring the question. Sadly, to be pitied, poor creature, whoever she is,

Starting point is 00:43:37 some young person of inferior position, I dare say. Will you lend me ten pounds? I have already told you that I have no such sum at my disposal, Alexis, replies Mrs. Gorsuch, and then hesitantly, reluctantly, extracting a coin from a plathoric-looking Russia-leather purse, she adds, If half a sovereign will be of some small assistance, it won't, answered her nephew abruptly. I dare say I could make as much in a day by sweeping and crossing,

Starting point is 00:44:09 and I shouldn't feel myself so degraded as if I took the money from you. Goodbye, aunt. he has opened the door before he concludes and Aunt Louisa endures agonies for the rest of the day fearful that the butler or man of all work heard that last address remorse for her treatment of her nephew troubles her not at all he cannot say that I sent him away empty-handed she reflects I offered him half a sovereign

Starting point is 00:44:37 End of Chapter 2 Recording by Angela Dean Chapter 3 of Dead Men's shoes. This is the Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Angela Dean. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braden, Chapter 3. Alexis Secretan turns his back upon the solemn responsibilities of Tubel Street,

Starting point is 00:45:20 Gospiner place, sick with anger and despair. He is angry with himself rather than with his aunt. He lodes himself for having invited such humiliation. I ought to have known her better, he muses, a woman who gives showy dinners and cheap wines, and talks of her friend the Duchess of Lansend, or the Countess of Johnny O'Grote, a woman whose name appears in the subscription list of all the Orthodox charities, just under the nobility, and who never keeps a servant six months, and yet she is my mother's sister, of the same race. My mother, whose nature was all kindness, and with whom to give was as natural as to breathe. He stands at Hyde Park Corner, indifferent to the east wind and the falling snow, fine, small snowflakes that lie unmelted

Starting point is 00:46:14 where they fall. Now which way shall I turn myself in search of a friendly soul, he asks. He turns south-westward, perhaps to escape that biting easterly blast, and walks toward Brompton listlessly, hopelessly, walking fast to keep himself warm, but with no settled purpose. Pass the bell in Horn's Tavern, he stops and looks up at one of the houses in the high road, a house with a front garden or railed enclosure which courtesy calls a garden a snowy parallelogram in which flourishes four melancholy bushes like dwarf cypresses in a graveyard the house is neat and bright-looking and a bill in the parlor window announces that apartments are to be let within alexis opens the gate as if familiar with its structure goes up to the door hesitantly knocks and asks to see Mr. Plodin. He is ushered forthwith into the back parlor where a man of about his own age, pale and thoughtful-looking, sits by an indifferent fire painting a map. A pile of unpainted maps and

Starting point is 00:47:26 battered old tin paint boxes and brushes lie on the table before him. The thin white hand travels dexterously, rapidly over the paper leaving a delicate line of color behind it. The The map painter looks up at Alexis, brush in hand, surveys him from head to foot, wonderingly, then drops the brush full of color on the map. Captain Secretan, he exclaims, is it possible? It is true at any rate, answers Alexis, holding out his hand which the other grasps affectionately. Theoretically impossible, perhaps, but absolutely true. just wash off that splash of cobalt dick i shouldn't like you to spoil one of your maps on my account i'm so glad to see you says richard plodin dabbing the map with a sponge rather nervously i was afraid you'd quite forgotten me and that we should never see you here again either as a lodger or a friend however here you are and i'm heartily glad to see you poking the dingy little fire vigorously and then holding out his hand again to alexus

Starting point is 00:48:38 But I'm afraid things haven't been going so well for you as they ought. You look for, interjects Alexis. You're not far out. Poverty and smallpox are unmistakable diseases. You can see them in a man's face. Before you say another kind word to me, Dick, I must tell you the truth, the naked, unpleasant truth. I come to you as a beggar, knowing how harm. you work for every shilling you earn. Knowing what a good fellow you are, good son, good friend, good Christian, I am mean enough to come here and ask you to help me. The worthless drone appeals

Starting point is 00:49:22 to the honest, independent bee. So far as I can help you, replies Mr. Plodin, with undiminished kindliness, I am at your service. You were a profitable lodger to my mother and a kind friend to me, it isn't many gentlemen in your position who would have condescended to associate with a lame invalid who gets his living by painting maps. I know those evenings when you used to come and smoke your pipe down here were some of the happiest in my life. He walks about the room as he speaks, drags a chair to the fireside for Alexis, takes a loaf of bread, a bottle of anchovies, a pat of butter, and a bottle of ginger wine out of the chiffonier. spreads a napkin and arranges this temperate refreshment on one side of the table pushing his maps and color box to the other he walks lame but is active and hardy notwithstanding

Starting point is 00:50:20 do you suppose i should have spent many evenings with you if i had not found your company pleasant dick says alexis lightly i found that you had read more and thought more than any fellow of my acquaintance and it was refreshing to me to hear your idea is upon all manners of subjects. Then I flattered myself that you liked me and were pleased with my talk of the gay world, above all, about that stage that you love so well and see so little of. Do you remember how we used to discuss the actors of the day, Dick, and settle how Shakespeare ought to be interpreted? Do you think I can ever forget, says Richard Plodin? I have not so many friends that I can afford to forget one who was first to tell me I had a mind. Do you know, Captain Sectorton, that I've had the impertinence to write a book since then? Do peg into those anchovies, Captain.

Starting point is 00:51:15 And don't mind cutting the knobs off the loaf. I like crumb as well as crust. A book dick? An essay on the genius of Shakespeare? Nothing quite so ambitious or so unlikely to sell. A geography for schools on a new system. It is not published yet, but I have reason to believe that it will be, and that I should make a little money by it, so you may have less compunction in borrowing a pound or two. Dear old Dick, exclaimed Alexis, who had been doing ample justice to the anchovies and bread and

Starting point is 00:51:47 butter and warming himself with a glass of ginger wine. Unhappily, it is not a question of a pound or two. I want ten pounds. Richard Plodin's countenance falls. It is not that he would measure his friendship, but ten pounds is an awful sum. if i can ever repay it i will and with interest at a more than a sureous rate but it is almost a mockery to talk of repayment in my present condition richard limps to the chiffonier without a word takes out a little japaned cash-box unlocks it and extracts therefrom a five-pound note and five sovereigns I had the money ready for the Christmas rent, he says, but you are welcome to it. We shall be able to rub along without it, I dare say. What pinching and deprivation this rubbing along process would cost,

Starting point is 00:52:42 Alexis can pretty well guess, for he has seen how the widow Plodin and her son live at the best of times. He takes the money with a faltering hand and turns away his face to hide the tears that disfigure it, the first that he has shed since he wept for his mother's death. Presently he grows cheerful again, resumes his seat, finishes his luncheon, and then tells Richard Plodin the story of his decadence, an unvarnished tale which his humble friend hears with deepest interest. If you could put me in the way of earning a few shillings a week by any kind of labor, however humble, you would be doing me a greater favor than you have.

Starting point is 00:53:24 have done me this day, and yet, knowing your circumstances as I do, I feel as if you had given me ten years of your life instead of ten pounds. Richard Plodin promises he will turn the matter over in his mind and see what he can do, and so the two young men part as firm friends, as in the days when Miss Clodon's first-floor lodger, the dashing young captain, was the object of her son's affectionate admiration, his ideal of all that is noble and splendid in manhood. End of Chapter 3. Recording by Angela Dean. Chapter 4 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 00:54:15 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 4 had the chance been with us that has not been. Alexis speeds homeward joyously, elate as if he had conquered fortune. He has borrowed money from a social inferior, and yet does not feel humiliated. That interview with Richard Plowden had cheered him wondrously. The patient, gentle soul, working at monotonous taskwork in a gloomy back parlour,

Starting point is 00:54:48 with no outlook save blank wall and cistern, working uncomplainingly, nay even cheerfully, has read him a lesson. There must be work for a strong healthy fellow like himself, when a cripple in a back room can earn his living. Alexis begins to think he has tried life at the wrong end, that in striving for some shabby genteel reduced gentleman's occupation, he has overlooked those lollier and less sophisticated avocations which offer themselves to every honest man.

Starting point is 00:55:19 We'll emigrate as soon as the little woman is strong enough for a sea voyage, he tells himself, and I'll turn shepherd on the Australian Downs. Sybil receives him with an eager look, full of questioning. She is sitting on the hearthrug as he comes into the room in her favourite attitude, looking into the fire, her ruffled hair golden in the ruddy light, her eyes heavy with thought or care. His elated aspect tells her that he has been successful.

Starting point is 00:55:47 She rises and runs to him, trembling with anxiety. Have you got the money? Yes, Sybil. Of all my friends, the one who could least afford to lose it was the only one to lend it. Here it is, little one. You must make it go a long way, for it has cost me so humiliation. It was lent grudgingly, then. No, but it was refused heartlessly by the wrong person before I hit upon the right one.

Starting point is 00:56:15 Make the most of it, my love, now you've got it. His wife takes the little parcel of money from his hand, slowly, looking downward and without a word. you are pleased little woman it was very good of you to try so hard she answers in her low voice she begins to busy herself about her husband's dinner without another word this evening she gives him half a pound of rumped steak an unwonted feast at which his soul rejoices i am faring sumptuously to-day he says as she sits opposite to him pouring out the tea with the listless absent air which he takes for physical languor I have had a superb luncheon already. All that evening, Sybil is unwontedly silent, and Alexis, not caring to describe his interview with Mrs. Gorsuch, had not much to tell her after he has related Richard Plowden's generosity.

Starting point is 00:57:11 He has recourse to the tattered leaves of Don Juan, and sits sniggering over his favourite passages, and feeling as if he and the poet were both outside the human race generally and could afford to ridicule and despise it. he salis forth early next morning despite the snow which now closed the land as a garment and goes straight to brompton to have another cheery talk with dick plowden and to inquire whether that backpile a philosopher has hit upon any method by which he alexis may earn his daily bread richard is hopeful he has an uncle engaged in a large shipping agent's office an uncle who would have obtained employment for richard himself had richard's legs been more serviceable in active life to this uncle mr sampson plowden dick writes a long letter setting forth his friend's capacities and desire for employment and armed with his recommendation alexis speeds to the officers of messrs keel and screw in a narrow alley out of fenchurch street he sees samson plowden an active little elderly man who asks if he can write a good hand and if he is quick at accounts alexis asks for a sheet of paper and writes a few lines in a clerk-like hand taking care to dot his eyes this time and then volunteers to solve any arithmetical puzzle that mr plowden

Starting point is 00:58:33 well i'll take your word and dicks as to the book-keeping replies mr plowden we employ a good many clerks and sometimes have to send one to australia which makes a vacancy the next time this occurs you shall hear of it the junior clerks are in my department and it's in my province to engage or dismiss them i'll bear you in mind mr stanmore if you could send me to australia hazards alexis glowing with hope it would suit me admirably well well that would be a matter involving much consideration however you shall hear from me at the first opportunity this is not much but it is something for mr plowden looks like a man who means what he says and dick has given him a high character for integrity and kindness of heart alexis plodged homoads cheered and sustained by sorrows pole star hope he lets himself in at number eleven dickson street the door being on the latch and goes upstairs, prepared to find Sybil in a brighter frame of mind than usual, busy at her needlework most likely, the lamp burning, the hearth swept, the evening meal set out with neatness which lends its charm even to poverty. The room looks curiously blank and dreary as he enters it.

Starting point is 00:59:50 The fire has gone out, cheerless sight, with that white world outside and the thermometer below freezing point. There is no tea tray, no white cloth on the table, no lamp burning. The dusk is just light enough to show him that the room is empty, and that no preparation has been made for his refreshment. He goes back to the landing and calls over the balusters to his landlady. Has my wife been out long, Mrs. Bonnie? She went out just before dinner time, screams a voice from below.

Starting point is 01:00:21 Dinner time with Mrs. Bonnie means one o'clock. She has gone to buy things, I dare say, thinks Alexis. Gone to London, most likely. She ought to have been home by half-past four. though, if she went as early as one. Did she leave any message, Mrs. Bonny? he asked, calling over the ballisters again. No, replied the landlady curtly. She didn't leave no message, but she took a carpet bag. A carpet bag, repeats Alexis, with a puzzled air, as he goes back to the blank cold room.

Starting point is 01:00:52 What could she want with a carpet bag? To bring the things home, perhaps, foolish little thing, as if a parcel wasn't lighter to carry than a carpet bag. He gropes for wood and coals in the bottom of the roomy cupboard and lights a fire, patiently, toilfully, not unskillfully, with hands which have learned many officers unknown to the elegant Captain Secretan. He is dispirited by his wife's absence, but not angry. That placid, easy temper of his is full of tenderness and indulgence for the little woman, whose brief married life has been so full of care,

Starting point is 01:01:27 who approaches the mystery of maternity under such sorrowful conditions. He lights his fire, brings out a loaf, a starveling slice of cheese, and some small beer in a bottle, and sits by the hearth to eat his meal in the firelight. As he eats and drinks, his eyes wander thoughtfully around the firelit room, jets of flame flashing and twinkling on the wainscote. Not a bad old room by any means, he thinks, if one had just enough money to live in it comfortably. He fancies that in Samson Plowden's friendship, he has found the clue that shall extricate him from the maze of adversity. How happy Sibyl and he might be in this humble old room,

Starting point is 01:02:10 were he but employed as clerk at Messrs. Keel and screws, with a salary of, say, 30 shillings a week. Not an ambitious desire, surely, in a young man whose family history set forth with some flourish in Burke's landed gentry. I shall have something pleasant to tell the little woman when she comes home, at any rate, thinks Alexis, as he sips the flat four-pery. the ale, put carefully away after last night's supper.

Starting point is 01:02:36 A pert little flame spurts out of a knob of coal just at this moment, brightening the whole room, and Sacriton's eye, wandering idly as he muses, is attracted by a spot of white upon the sideboard. A letter by Jove, he exclaims, who the deuce can have written to me when not a mortal knows my address? He rises, listlessly, apprehending no advantage from the letter, lights the lamp and goes over to the sideboard. The letter is from his wife.

Starting point is 01:03:06 Dear Alexis, The misery of the last few months has opened my eyes to the sad truth that it would have been far better for both of us had we never met, or had we been wise enough to defer our marriage till we had some settled means of living. What am I but a burden to you? How many situations there are in which you could get your living were you alone and unfettered, while I could at least return to the dull drudgery of ten, teaching, and escape the pinch of absolute poverty.

Starting point is 01:03:35 Do not think me cold-hearted, dear Alexis, when I tell you that I am weary of our continual struggle, and that I have resolved to end it by an act which may provoke your indignation, but which, I feel assured, will result in your advantage. I set you free from the burden of a wife, whom you have found it too bitter a task to support. You have rarely uttered a complaint, but I have seen despair in your face often enough to learn that it has settled in your heart. Without me, you may begin the world afresh. Apart from you, I shall have opportunities of prosperity as Miss Fawnthorpe,

Starting point is 01:04:11 which I could never have as Mrs. Secretan. If my lot changes and fortune smiles as I dare to hope it will, you shall hear of me. And even if you blame me for a separation, which your anger may call a desertion, I believe at least that in severance as in union, I shall be ever your true and loyal wife, Sybil. Alexis reads and re-reads this letter,

Starting point is 01:04:37 like a man who has lost the power of understanding his mother tongue, and pause over familiar words, as though they were the hieroglyphics of an Assyrian inscription. So cold, so heartless, so deliberate, his heart sickens at the thought of such cruelty. In all his adversity, with starvation staring him in the face, he has thought of his wife as part of himself, has never considered the responsibility of providing for her

Starting point is 01:05:04 as doubling the difficulty of existence, has never for a moment remembered that life might be easier to him without her. He has been sorry for her, has thought of her deprivations, her endurance, but of the burden upon himself, never. All hopes and dreams of a happier future have centred themselves in her,

Starting point is 01:05:25 to win a brighter home for her, to surround her with comfort has been his one ambition. Reckless as his marriage was, he has never repented it. Fettered hand and foot, as he has found himself by that ill-considered act, he has never wished the tire loosened. He stands with the letter in his hand, repeating the words to himself incredulously. It must be a jest, a trick, to test his love, anything but the base and bitter truth. He puts the letter in his pocket at last, goes downstairs,

Starting point is 01:05:58 and penetrates the sacred domain of Mrs. Bonnie, namely the front kitchen, which is at once the parlour or living room, where Mr. Bonnie, employed as a railway porter, tastes the sweets of domestic leisure, and the apartment in which Mrs. Bonnie cooks for her lodges. The back kitchen makes a cheerful bedroom, and in summertime, when Mr. Bonnie trains Scarlet runners over the window,

Starting point is 01:06:21 enjoys a rustic outlook. Alexis is received somewhat coldly by Mrs. Bonnie, that lady being intent upon frying sausages for the railway porter's evening repast, and resenting all intrusion upon her private domain on principle. He questions her closely as to the mode and manner of his wife's departure, but she can tell him no more than she has told him already. Mrs. Stanmore went out between twelve and one o'clock, carrying a small carpet bag. I shouldn't have known anything about it if I hadn't happened to meet her as I was fetching of the dinner-beer,

Starting point is 01:06:54 our Mary-Anne being washing, and no one else to fetch her. it did she say nothing to you not a word she just gives me a nod in her off-hand way and walks on that is all alexis goes upstairs again heavily slowly and paces the deserted room by and by he pauses before a rickety old chest of jaws with brass handles and locks opens a jaw and finds it empty it is the jaw that contained his wife's poor remains of a wardrobe that had never been richly furnished a few undergarments, a collar or two, and so on. These she has evidently taken with her. Nothing could have been more deliberate than her departure. Presently a curious idea occurs to him, improbable, but it takes a strong hold upon him nevertheless.

Starting point is 01:07:45 Has she gone to make away with herself? And is this heartless letter of hers a tender device to save him the pain of knowing that she had been driven by despair to suicide? This seems to him more likely, more natural, than that the wife he loves can desert him, can, with coldest calculation, barter love and truth against the chances of prosperity. What those chances are he knows not. He is so ignorant of his wife's family and surroundings, as not to know that Sybil Fornthorpe is the niece of Stephen Trenchard.

Starting point is 01:08:19 Why he is thus unenlightened is a question that can only be answered by retrospect, and will be best answered in Sybil's own words. End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braden.

Starting point is 01:08:51 Chapter 5. Sybil Formthorpe's Diary Laotha Street, November 14, 1860 Blank. I suppose to keep a diary is about as foolish a thing as anyone can do, waste of time in the present and self-abasement in the future. I dare say I shall hate myself when I read over these pages in years to come and see what a stupid creature I was at 19 years of age. However, I am driven to scribble about myself and my feelings for want of anything better to do in the long, lonely evenings

Starting point is 01:09:23 when the children are gone to bed, and Mrs Hazleton is out, and I have the dreary schoolroom all to. to myself. I used to read any novel I could find lying about downstairs and bring it up here for an evening till Mrs Hazleton found me out and forbade it. Novels, my dear Miss Fawnthorpe, she preached, are the worst possible reading for a young woman in your position, enervating the mind, weakening the logical faculty, which in your brain, I regret to say, is sorely deficient. I felt inclined to ask her why she reads novels if they are so injurious. She has a

Starting point is 01:09:59 of reading one's thoughts, and answered my objection before I could give it expression. For the head of a household, we must always have some portion of care and anxiety, novel reading is an innocent relaxation, but the instructor of use should employ her leisure in widening her circle of knowledge. The books in the study bookcase are quite at your service, Miss Faunthorpe, whenever you like to avail yourself of them. And then she sailed out of the room to go to a dinner party, dressed in her own velvet and old Brussels lace, and looking very handsome for an old woman. She must be five and forty at the least.

Starting point is 01:10:38 Perhaps I ought not to complain of my bondage, for I might be worse off than I am. Mrs Hazleton is fond of preaching, but she is not unkind to me. She has no grown-up daughters, and whenever she has company, I am asked down to the drawing-room to play and sing, and make myself generally useful, and as she has a good deal of company, this happens tolerably often. Luckily, music is my strong point. When Mrs. Hazleton is in a good humour, she takes me for a drive in the park,

Starting point is 01:11:08 and I see the world and hear what is going on. I go to a fashionable church with the children on Sundays and Saints' days, and am altogether much better off than in my Uncle Robert's poverty-stricken household in dull old Red Castle, where I knew no one worth knowing, and where life is only another name for vegetation. I am sure the cabbages in Uncle's wretched kitchen garden

Starting point is 01:11:31 Had quite as much enjoyment of life as Marion and I More indeed, for they had sunshine and perpetual idleness And bees and butterflies buzzing and skimming about them While we had old house linen to patch and darn And the tradesman's books to puzzle over And Jenny to teach and mend for and scold and puddings to make And buttons to sew on from January to December I think there never was such a man as a man

Starting point is 01:11:57 Uncle Robert for wrenching the buttons of his shirts and pushing his toes through his socks. So, at the worst, though I have to grind French, Italian and German verbs in a mill all the week through, and listen to those wretched children strumming Corkbrenner's exercises three hours a day, I am better off than Marion. I have £40 a year to spend upon clothes, and I see a great many nice people. Mrs Hazleton boasts that she only knows the best people. I am no tough hunter, my dear, she tells me, when she is in one of her expansive moods. You will see very few titles in my card basket, but the people I know belong to some of the best families in England. December 3rd. Such a tiresome, dreary week.

Starting point is 01:12:44 Mrs Hazleton has dined out four evenings out of six, and now on the fifth she has taken off the children to see the new actor at the haymarket. I am sorry there won't be room for you in the box, Miss Fawnthorpe, she said, with her chilly politeness, after I had been toiling for an hour, helping moisten the children's maid, to tie Lucinda's ribbons and brush Laura's hair, and so on a tucker for Magdalene. So here I am at half-past seven o'clock, my hearth swept and by fire made up, a solitary as an old maid with a small annuity. I have been down to the study and chosen a couple of volumes, the best I could find in a dry-ed's dust collection of antiquities, the citizen of the world, and a volume of the spectator.

Starting point is 01:13:27 But I don't feel equal to reading either. It suits my present humour better to scribble my complaints against fortune in this ridiculous book of mine. What a lucky woman Mrs Hazleton is, married to a wealthy Indian judge, and left a widow six years ago with an ample fortune, too old to care about marrying again, but not too old to be admired and made much of by her friends. their children young enough to be kept in the schoolroom for the next four years. Impossible to imagine a more independent position. What a contrast between her fate and mine. I have never known what it is to have my own way.

Starting point is 01:14:04 And yet when I was a child, I thought I had only to be grown up in order to taste all the sweets of life. Perhaps that was because of the nonsense people talked about my good looks. I can fancy no greater misfortune for a girl in my position than to be brought up with the idea of being abusive. When I was a little thing, people were always drawing comparisons between Marion and me to Marion's disadvantage, and before I was twelve I knew quite well that I was the pretty Miss Fawnthorpe. Even old Hester, who never had a civil word for me at the best of times, used to feed my vanity

Starting point is 01:14:38 with her taunts about my pretty face and my uselessness. Handsome is as handsome does, she used to say, by which I knew very well that she thought me handsome. Then came school, and I was set up as a beauty, and courted and petted by one half of the girls, and detested by the other half, and nagged up by Marion, who was set against me by the disagreeable comparisons people were always making between us. What was the consequence of all this? I grew up with the idea that as soon as I left school, some rich young man, handsome and agreeable into the bargain, would fall in love with me at first sight, and that I should be

Starting point is 01:15:16 married in grand style at the parish church, six bridesmaids and ever so many carriages and pairs, before the admiring eyes of all Red Castle. I came home to Uncle Robert's dull red house prepared for conquest. Life would be like a fairy tale. Some fine summer morning, the handsome young prince would appear, and I should be raised at once from Cinderella's obscurity to Cinderella's high fortune. Foolish creature that I was, I used to lay awake at night telling Marion the grand things I would do for her when I was married. Where is the prince to come from, Sib, she asked me once, rather maliciously. You know there are not above three such young men in Redcastle,

Starting point is 01:15:57 young Taylor, the lawyer's son, Mr Lacey, the biscuit manufacturer, and George Pinsford, the coachmaker. Biscuit manufacturer, I exclaimed. Do you suppose I would marry a low tradesman? Aren't they the county families, stupid? Well, here I am, after two weary years home. life with Uncle Robert, who I must say is the dearest old thing in the world. Here I am, nearly twenty, and no nearer finding the Prince of Fairy Law than when I left Miss Worry's establishment

Starting point is 01:16:28 for young ladies at Kilmorden after three years' experience as a pupil teacher. Here I am, a poor drudge of a governess, at just ten pounds a quarter, thankful for being asked down to the drawing-room where my beauty goes for very little. All Mrs. Hazleton's friends have found out by this time that I am only the governess, and have left off asking one another who I am, as they used to do at first with some show of interest. I sing or play, and someone who has been chattering the whole time says languidly, very nice, really, thank you, Miss Fawnfield, and I sit in the angle between the back drawing-room fireplace and the window-curtain for the rest of the evening, watching and listening, with no more part in what is going on than if I were at the theatre. Let me look in the glass and see what

Starting point is 01:17:16 this lauded beauty is, which has brought me so little luck. A small, straight nose, very sharply cut, a short upper lip, under lip are thought too full, teeth good, chin round and dimpled, face the perfect oval, eyes darkest brown, the sort of eyes which I believe are usually called black, hair dark brown with a tinge of gold where it ripples, the colour usually called chestnut, present expression, discontent, and a tendency to ill temper. I have given up that foolish notion of a rich husband, but I sometimes indulge in another daydream,

Starting point is 01:17:52 perhaps just as foolish. What if my rich uncle, Stephen Trenschard, were to come home, take a fancy to me and leave me a fortune? Such things have happened. I remember how my poor mother used to talk of her brother Stephen, the Indian merchant, and of the ship that was coming home to bring her ears in comfort, and which never came. Will the ship come home for me, I wonder, now that my poor mother has been lying ten years in her quiet grave.

Starting point is 01:18:21 December 13th The most wonderful thing has happened, the most unlooked-for, the most extraordinary. My heart beats so fast at the mere thought of it that I am almost breathless as I write these lines. My hand trembles, and the letters look blurred and dim before my eyes. I have seen the son of Philip Sackratan, my uncle Stephen's deadly enemy, the man whom he supplanted in the affections of a weak old father, for surely any father must be weak who would disinherit his son in favour of a dependent, the man from whom he received the injury that lamed him for life. How often have I heard my mother tell the story, always putting her brother's conduct in the most favourable light. He was honest, indefatigable, steady, a favourite clerk in the

Starting point is 01:19:05 firm of Sacrienne brothers, Manchester merchants. He fully deserved the unexpected fortune that came to him, while Philip's dissipation and extravagance were justly rewarded by disinheritance. Yet somehow, in spite of poor Mama's special pleading, my sympathy was always with this unfortunate Mr. Sacritan. He saw his father's wealth pass into the possession of his father's confidential clerk. I once asked Mama what kind of man this Philip's sacriotan was. She told me that she had only seen him once in her life, but that he impressed her as being remarkably handsome and a perfect gentleman. And now I have seen his son, Captain Sacratan. He was at Mrs. Hazleton's party last night. I had no idea who he was till afterwards. He was standing before the

Starting point is 01:19:53 fireplace in the back drawing room, when I went back to my corner after singing Pogier Moore, standing with his back to the fire talking to old Colonel Seisman. He is tall and strong-looking and has to my mind a most beautiful countenance. I never called him. I never called him. man beautiful before, and I dare say I shall laugh at the expression when I read over this stupid diary some day, but I cannot call his face less than beautiful. It is such a noble face, with just the grand look I could fancy in Achilles. I was reading Pope's Iliad to the children this afternoon, and I thought of Captain Sacritan every time Achilles spoke. It seemed to me almost as if I could see him, standing up before me, confronting Agamemnon. He is dark,

Starting point is 01:20:39 with boldly cut features, a good-humoured expression about the mouth, and a somewhat dreamy look in the dark grey eyes. I have seen handsomer faces, but none that ever interested me as deeply. He is a man I should believe in with all my soul if he were my friend, a man I should lean upon as on a rock of defence if he were of my kindred. But he is nothing to me, and I am hardly lightly to see him again. Mrs Hazleton spoke of him at luncheon today as a foolish, young fellow who has sold his commission, and whose future career must be disastrous unless some

Starting point is 01:21:16 distant relations were to die and leave him their property. As a rule, distant relations are not so obliging. She spoke with her reverential tone of his family, which is one of the oldest in Hampshire, although his grandfather was a Manchester merchant, and she informed me that his first cousin once removed is a baronet, Sir Douglas Sucretan, with a large estate in somewhere or other. I wonder whether I shall ever see him again. December 30th. I have seen him again, three, four, five, six, seven times,

Starting point is 01:21:50 three times in Mrs. Hazleton's drawing room, three times in the park, when I was out walking with the children, and once in Desmond Street, when I had gone out alone to post a letter. I dare say it was very wrong and that I should be ashamed of myself when I read over this dreadful diary,

Starting point is 01:22:05 but when Captain Sackleton asked me whether I ever walked in the park with the children, I said yes, and when he asked me what time I said between three and five, and after that, when he asked me if I ever went out alone, I told him yes, sometimes, just before half-past five to post my home letter. How kind he is, how clever, how interesting, and how well we seem to know each other,

Starting point is 01:22:28 that we have only met seven times. There is evidently no association for him in the name of Fawnthorpe. This is only natural, as my mother did not marry till some years after her brother's quarrel with Philip Sacritan. how much i regret now that i did not learn the exact particulars of that quarrel i have only a vague idea of the circumstances but from what my mother told me i know that although philip sacrotan was the sufferer my uncle stephen was as vindictive as if he also had been injured perhaps the injurer is sometimes more angry than the injured my mother always declared that her brother was innocent of guile or wrongdoing from first to last but now i know mr secretan's son's son's son's I feel still more inclined to side with my uncle's enemy. He, Captain Sacritan, has told me the history of his life.

Starting point is 01:23:19 His careless, happy youth spent abroad, with a father and mother whom he idolised. He was educated at Heidelberg, came from Heidelberg to Woolwich, to an army tutor, joined his regiment at 20, and sold out after five years' service a few months ago. He has now all the world before him, he says, and has only to choose a career. He is energetic and clever

Starting point is 01:23:42 and could hardly miss success in anything he may attempt. How changed our walks seem, now that there is always the chance of meeting him. As I see him coming to meet us along the wintry avenue, the familiar scene seems to grow beautiful, the sun shines brighter, the birds break out into singing. They may have been singing before, perhaps, and I are too absorbed to hear them, but it seems as if they began a glad chorus at his coming.

Starting point is 01:24:08 I did not think that winter afternoons could be so beautiful, the calm still air, the blue-gray sky, the black tracery of the tall elm trees against the yellow sunset. He told me yesterday that his father would have been a rich man, but for the treachery of a friend whom he had loved and trusted. A cold, sick feeling came over me, just as if the treachery had been mine, and I had suddenly come face to face with my victim. The only lesson my father ever taught me was to revile that man's name and to carry my hatred of him to the grave.

Starting point is 01:24:44 An evil lesson for a kind-hearted man to teach, he'll say, but for all that, I don't believe there ever be to kinder heart than my father's. I can easily believe this. Kindness and sweet temper are Captain Sacritan's chief characteristics, a bright good humour which cheers one like sunshine, a way of looking at life on the pleasantest side, which would inspire hopefulness in the most dismal mind. I know how low-spirited, discontented and wretched I was growing

Starting point is 01:25:14 just before I knew him, and how changed and brightened life seems to me now. The children dote upon him, and are as pleased as I am to meet him in our walks. He talks to them about all their small pleasures, and is able to interest himself in their ideas much better than I, who spend my life with them. sometimes he paces up and down the broad walk with the three girls hanging about him telling the mud of the fairy tales we all know so well and he has a way of giving a new charm and interest to the old stories

Starting point is 01:25:44 while his little touches of modern slang come in here and there with the funniest effect and set us off laughing till the tree-tops seemed to shake with our laughter how odd that we should meet you again to-day captain sacri-tan cried magdalen the day before yesterday when we found him at the entrance of the broad walk "'Not at all, Lord, if you insist on coming this way, little one,' he said. "'This is my afternoon constitutional. "'But if you very much object, I'll take the other side of the park.' "'Oh, no, no, please, come always!' shouted the three, "'and then they asked for Cinderella, Captain Sacritans modernised Cinderella, "'whose ball-dress was made in New Bond Street, "'and whose cruel stepmother had a box on the second tier at Covent Garden.

Starting point is 01:26:29 "'It was yesterday afternoon that I met him in Desmond Street, a dreary, drizzling afternoon, which made me think the sooner the year came to an end, the better. I had been feeling rather depressed and disheartened all the morning. The children had all gone to a morning performance of the pantomime at Jury Lane, and I had the day to myself, as Mrs. Hazleton graciously informed me. I don't think leisure is an unalloyed good for those who have few pleasant thoughts to brighten their solitude. I sat mending my clothes and thinking about Captain Sacrament. my thoughts were not happy ones i was shocked to find what a hold this stranger had taken upon my mind and how difficult it was for me to think of any one else or to imagine my life without him yet i knew that he was nothing and never could be anything to me

Starting point is 01:27:18 poor but proud and of good birth moving in what mrs hazleton calls the best society he will naturally select a woman of fortune for his wife he is handsome agreeable has many gifts which distinguish him from the common right of young men, and will have no difficulty in making an advantageous marriage. Of an obscure little pauper like me, he would never think seriously for a moment, unless his thoughts were dishonourable, and I know him and trust him well enough already to wager my life against that. What has he to do with me, then, or I with him? Absolutely nothing. We are only fooling each other by this friendship, which is so sweet to me, and which must needs have some charm for him, since he takes the trouble to cultivated. Better for both of us, that we should see each other no more, or only upon the public stage of Mrs. Hazleton's drawing-room. I will tell him so, seriously and honestly, the next time

Starting point is 01:28:13 we are alone together for a minute or two, while the three girls march on before us. This doesn't often happen, for I think Lucinda is more deeply in love with the captain than, What was I going to write? Then a girl of twelve ought to be. This is the lecture which I read myself yesterday. while I worked at that tiresome mending. All my Christmas quarter salary will go for a black silk dress, as I must have one good and fashionably made gown to wear downstairs. I wanted so much to have sent Uncle Robert a little present,

Starting point is 01:28:46 and I should have liked to buy Marianna winter hat, but that is out of the question. Shall I have my dress made with flounces or a trained skirt? It was dark when I went out to post my letter, dark and wet and uncomfortable, and I was nothing farther from my thoughts than the idea of meeting Captain Sacrotan between Lather Street and the post office, though I am bound to confess that the captain himself was not very far from my thoughts. I had posted my letter and was coming away from the office

Starting point is 01:29:15 when a tall man, looking very big in a great rough overcoat, crossed the road and came towards me. I knew him in a moment, but a strange, shy feeling came over me, and I walked on ever so fast, pretending not to know him. The street is quiet and lonely, and I heard his footsteps hurrying off to me. Do you always walk like a sporting pedestrian when you are alone, Miss Fonsorp, he asked, coming by my side.

Starting point is 01:29:43 I started a little at the sound of his voice, although I knew so well that he was there. Yesterday was one of my nervous days, I suppose. I said something about its being such a disagreeable evening. Yes, he answered, with his good-tempered laugh. The old year is making himself as obnoxious as he can, in order that we may not regret him. It is rather unpleasant weather. You dislike this drizzling rain, I dare say.

Starting point is 01:30:08 I rather like it, for it reminds me of grass-shooting in the highlands. I was even going to ask you to take a little walk around Ackleston Square before you go back to your schoolroom. I couldn't think of such a thing, I answered sharply, feeling that the proposal was an impertinence. Couldn't you? Then it wasn't right in me to propose it, I said. suppose, he replied placidly. And yet I should be so glad of half an hour's quiet talk with you. It's very nice telling the children fairy stories,

Starting point is 01:30:37 but rather a hindrance to conversation. Well, we'll postpone the walk round the square to with pleasanter weather and you know me better. Do you know I have been thinking of you so much in the last few days? Had he, there must be something sympathetic in our thoughts then, for he has never been out of mine. We had turned into Loudoun Street, by this time, and I was weak enough to be glad that it is such a long street.

Starting point is 01:31:03 I would not have gone three yards out of my way with him if the happiness of my life had depended on it, but there was no harm in letting him walk as far as Mrs. Hazleton's door with me. Yes, I had been thinking about you a good deal, Miss Fawnthorpe, he said, after a pause. I have been thinking what might have happened if I had been a rich man and free to follow my own inclination. This was telling me plainly that he was neither rich nor free. Can you guess what I fancied would have happened in that case? No, indeed. I thought it just possible that I might have been tempted to ask you to be my wife. He waited for my reply, but I was dumb. I felt choking and could not find a word to answer him. What would you have said in that case? Some diabolical counsellor

Starting point is 01:31:51 suggested a flippant answer instead of a serious one. Isn't your question rather like Lord Dungerius, I asked? If you had had a brother, do you think he would have liked cheese? I see, he said, with a disappointed tone. I am not to expect a serious answer to a hypothetical question. I dare say you were right, Miss Fornthorpe. In all life's delicate questions, women are always wiser than men. I thought that he had taken the easiest way of telling me

Starting point is 01:32:18 that his circumstances forbade him to think of marriage. me. In that case, I said to myself, he has no right to weigh me as I come from the post, and I tried to feel very angry with him. So you didn't go home to spend your Christmas holidays, he said presently. Home, do you suppose I could afford to travel to Yorkshire and back for a week's pleasure? Besides, I have no real home. My sisters and I are dependent on my uncle's bounty, and he is only a parish doctor who finds it a hard thing to pay his butcher and baker. I was determined to let him know how poor I am, and how wise he has been in coming to the conclusion that I am no wife for him.

Starting point is 01:32:57 Poor little thing, he said, compassionately, and his pity did me good somehow. It did not gall, as most people's pity does. Poor little girl, he said again, after a few moments' silence, an orphan, and sent out into the world to bear the burden of servitude and all-ill usage that patient merit from the unworthy takes. one would suppose that you could hardly be worse off than you are at present. This was not very cheering, but I said nothing.

Starting point is 01:33:25 We were near Mrs Hazleton's door by this time, and yet we had been walking slowly. Any change would be for the better, one would think, he said musingly. A change that would give this poor little waif, a sworn protector and defender, a husband pledged to toil for her and cherish her. But a poor husband, a man at war with fortune, bar, I'll tell you what it is, Miss Wornthorpe, he burst out suddenly. With your lovely face, you ought to make a brilliant marriage. So I was told when I was sixteen, said I,

Starting point is 01:33:57 but I'm almost twenty, and a fairy prince in the shape of a rich husband hasn't appeared yet. You wouldn't despise an eligible opportunity of exchanging Mrs. Hazleton's schoolroom for a house in Kensington Palace Gardens, I suppose. You have a feminine inclination for fine clothes, servants with powdered heads, carriages and horses, and a box at the opera? i am human and i don't pretend to be superior to the weaknesses of humanity i answered feeling that i was making myself intensely disagreeable he provoked me somehow by his nonchalant manner of discussing my position and prospects luckily we were quite at the door now and i was able to be to retreat before anything still more unpleasant had been said upon either side good afternoon captain sacritan i said it must be good-bye he answered i am going into norfolk to-morrow for a month's shooting i felt as if he had said that he was going to australia but i only answered oh in that case good-bye and so we shook hands again and then he lifted his hat and went away while i gave the bell a good sharp point and i gave the bell a good sharp point and so we shook hands again and then he lifted his hat and went away while i gave the bell a good sharp point

Starting point is 01:35:01 that ensured it's being answered promptly. I don't quite know whether I like him or hate him, but whichever feeling it is, it must be rather strong of its kind, as I cannot get him out of my thoughts. I'm inclined to think that it is hatred. What could be more disagreeable or humiliating than his way of speaking about me before my face as if I had been miles away?

Starting point is 01:35:24 Poor thing, poor little waif, I grow hot and red when I think of it. January 14th The year is just a fuller. fortnight old. There has been snow, but bright clear weather, a blue sky and sunshine. We walk in Kensington Gardens every day, and meet him every day. He makes the three girls run races with their hoops, here being umpire, and during the race he and I are able to talk without restraint. He only stopped four days in Norfolk. He told me that the shooting was very good, but that he was bored to death

Starting point is 01:35:58 after the second day. And yet it was in a pleasant country house that he was staying at, according to his own account. There was to be a ball the very day after he came away, but he did not care to stay for it. Curious man. My black silk dress has come, and is a great success. I dread to see the dressmaker's bill, as I have only reserved a sovereign for the making, and I am afraid she would charge me something nearer three. The dress certainly fits to perfection, and is beautifully finished. The trimming, simply. but of the best quality. At home, Marion and I used to make our own dresses, but after going nearly out of my mind for a week over piping cord and buttonholes, I always felt myself a dowdy at the last.

Starting point is 01:36:42 Mrs Hazleton has a dinner party tomorrow. Captain Sacoton is coming in the evening, and I shall wear my new dress. Have I made up my mind yet whether I like him or hate him? Yes, I do neither. I love him, love him, love him. There it is written at last, foolish old diary, how I shall despise you and myself some day when I read over this wretched page. January 16th, such a delicious party last night. Captain Sacriton was the first person I saw when I slept quietly and at the back drawing-room door. He was watching the door, and those dark eyes brightened at the sight of me. I sang to him, I played to him, I talked to him, the party was all him.

Starting point is 01:37:25 The rest of the people were only the medium through which I saw him, or they were like trees in a landscape and he the living figure in the foreground. I know he likes to talk to me and to hear me sing or play, but I wonder whether he loves me. February 3rd, it has come at last. He has asked me plainly, straightforwardly, anxiously, earnestly, to be his wife. He has told me that he is poor, that he's living just now in the money he got for his commission, he has nothing else but he has youth health and strength some talents and he is willing to work with a wife whom he fondly loved he would have a motive for beginning a new career

Starting point is 01:38:06 i am such a happy-go-lucky fellow he said and his bright cheery way that i can hardly bring myself to put my shoulder to the wheel for my own sake but if i had you to work for pat i should slave like a goliath i don't like to remind him that the philistine soldier was more remarkable for strength than industry he made me say yes and promise whatever he liked how could i resist him when i love him so dearly that the lightest touch of his hand makes me tremble and there seems to be more pathos in his voice than in the tenderest phrase of mozarts he is so straightforward so candid so noble he wanted to take mrs hazleton into his confidence immediately so that i might be married very quietly from her house we have nothing to wait for darling he said unless we were to wait till i have made a fortune which would mean at least half a dozen years of severance just the brightest happiest years of life sacrificed to a sordid scruple an unworthy doubt of providence if you love me civil you will not talk of waiting i should like to be wise and prudent i told him but your impetuosity carries me along like a torrent love is a torrent answered he do not oppose so poor a thing as reason against its sacred might i entreated him to say nothing to mrs hazelton an idea had occurred to me which made me hesitate even with my lover's hand clasping mine as to the wisdom of yielding to his prayer i remembered a strange fact which had slipped out of my mind lately i remembered a strange fact which had slipped out of my mind lately i remembered that that Alexis Sackrotan is the natural inheritor of his father's hatred, the natural enemy of my rich uncle Stephen Trenchard,

Starting point is 01:39:47 the uncle from whom I have been taught to expect a fortune. If I marry Captain Sackleton, I surrender all hope of favour from my uncle. I begged Alex, he has taught me to call him, Alex, to say nothing to Mrs. Saisleton yet a while. I want a time to think. After all, this hope of fortune from my uncle Stephen may be only a dream, vain is that idea of a rich husband with which I used to delude myself when I was a schoolgirl. On the other hand, I have the knowledge from my poor mother, that my uncle was a very rich man

Starting point is 01:40:18 twenty years ago. I have the knowledge from his last letter to my uncle Robert, and closing a £20 bank bill as a present for Marion and me, and that he has never married and has no intention of marrying, that he looks forward to returning to his native country in a few years, and making the acquaintance of his nieces. Too good a chance, all this, surely, to be thrown away. It would be rather a bitter thing for me to see Marion chosen for her uncle's heiress while I was left a pauper. What am I to do? How am I to choose between Alexis and the possibility of a large fortune? Prudent suggests that I should only pledge myself to Alexis on condition that our marriage shall be deferred for some years. We are both young,

Starting point is 01:41:02 we can afford to wait a few years, and yet have a good deal of the brightness of life before us. my uncle stephen is an old man older no doubt at his age than men who have spent their lives in europe whether i am to inherit any portion of his wealth is a question that must be decided in a few years i must tell alex that he must wait if his love is real and earnest it cannot be lessened by time february fifth i have told him my decision vain hopeless the talk of reason with a man whose inclination is his only law he tells me that if i really cared for him i could not propose dreary years of separation my statement that i have rich relatives who may leave me money if i marry to please them and are sure to leave me nothing if i marry without their consent fell on ears obfellee's obfellate obstinately deaf to reason. Love like this is worse than a torrent. It's a maelstrom. Prudence, reason, worldly wisdom, are mere straws in a whirlpool. I must see him no more. February 7th. I have seen him again. Poor Alex, he looks so unhappy. How sweet to know that I have such power over him. I, to whom he seemed such a far-off creature two months ago,

Starting point is 01:42:16 is the chance of fortune worth such a love as this? February 8th. Stephen Trenchard may live to be as old as old pa and leave his money to the asylum for idiots, after I have sacrificed youth and love and altered his sweetest in life to this sordid hope of fortune. February 9th, a hopelessly wet day. I have seen him walk up and down the street three times in the rain. I know his dear umbrella. February 11th, in the broad walk again yesterday. It is all settled. I am to give Mrs. Hazleton a month's notice tomorrow. Our agreement is a. month's notice on either side, in the event of my proving inefficient, she said, not in the event of my not liking the situation, oh dear, no, of course not.

Starting point is 01:43:01 I am so agitated that I can hardly write. This day-month, I am to have my boxes packed and go quietly away in a cab at ten o'clock in the morning, drive to the station, and deposit my luggage, and then meet Alexis, with whom I shall drive back to the quietest little church in Ecclestonia, where we are to be married. No witnesses but the pew-opener and the clerk, no announcement in the times. The secret of our marriage kept from everybody who knows us, at the outset at any rate, so that if Stephen Trenchard dies in India, a likely thing after all,

Starting point is 01:43:33 I may still inherit my share of his fortune. Dear old Uncle Robert is such an easy-going man that as long as I tell him I am comfortably situated with my employer, he will never put himself out of the way to know more. He has not an acquaintance in London whom he could ask to call upon me at Mrs Hazeltons. There is no such isolation as poverty. I have arranged with Jane Diamond, the under housemaid, about my letters.

Starting point is 01:43:59 She will receive any that come to Lour the Street for me and post any that I send her to be posted. I have given her quite a heap of things, the weeding out of my wardrobe, and made her my friend for life. March 11th. Tomorrow is to be my wedding day. A fearful day on which hangs all my life to come.

Starting point is 01:44:20 Will the future be blessed or accursed for tomorrow's vows? I wish Marion and Uncle Robert could have been with me. It would all have seemed more real. I remember my foolish fancies, my castles in the air, the grand wedding at which I used to see myself figuring as chief performer, my white satin dress and Brussels flounces, the carriages, the favours, the crowd, Mendelssohn's wedding march, the joyous peal of bells.

Starting point is 01:44:47 Those bells are sounding in my ears tonight. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Before noon tomorrow, I shall have ceased to be Sybil Fornthorpe. My name will be Sybil secretan. Name of all others most abhorrent to my uncle, Stephen Trenchard. End of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Librevox recording.

Starting point is 01:45:13 All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Lena Emsley Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Chapter 6 The Elite of Redcastle Redcastle is a country town. It is not a manufacturing town or a seaport or a garrison town or a settlement in any manner designed to be of wide and general use to society. It exists for itself alone,

Starting point is 01:45:46 and is exclusive to a fault. It is on the high road to nowhere, I raise it from the map of England tomorrow, and nobody but its own inhabitants would be the worse off for its evanishment. It produces nothing but elderly people with limited incomes and scandal. For the cultivation of this last article,

Starting point is 01:46:06 Red Castle is like a mushroom bed in a cellar, a dark corner of the land in which fungi abound and flourish. It is not a bad town in which to enjoy a brief spy, of repose from the turmoil and bustle of the industrial and commercial world, the world of labour and pleasure, profit, loss, and pain. Not a bad old town in which to dream away a joyless, painless old age, but to live in Red Castle, to bound one's hopes within its brick and mortar confines, to regulate one's life by its petty proprieties and narrow creed, heaven pity that wretch to whom destiny flings the lot of life-long bondage in Red Castle.

Starting point is 01:46:47 It is a clean old town. Scarcely in laborious Holland, where the servant-maid scrub the chimney-pots and pipe-clay the gutters, would you find a cleaner? A rainy day which makes mud and slush in busier places, only washes down and renovates Red Castle. The one wide street, with its massive old brick houses, square and strong and substantial, the historic gateway, which divides the one street into two, below bar and above bar, and the fine old coach and horses inn, where seldom coaches or horses are seen to stop, the inn which save for the mildest indulgence in billiards and brandy and soda among the youth of the town, seems to exist rather as a part and parcel of Redcastle,

Starting point is 01:47:33 an institution essential to the honour and glory of the town, than for any commercial purpose, since it appears morally impossible, that the establishment can be self-supporting. All these are the pink of cleanliness. The pretty little Minster, more architecturally perfect than many a grander feign, looks as if it were kept under a glass shade. The marketplace presents on off days

Starting point is 01:47:59 a broad expanse of spotless pavement, blinking and smiling up at the sun. The Turnpike Road on which Red Castle lies is one of the best in Yorkshire. The narrow lanes and by-street. leading up to that broad stretch of common land known as Red Castle Woods, apparently for the sole reason that it is barren of anything taller than a hazel bush, are innocent of mud or smoke.

Starting point is 01:48:24 The scanty suburbs of the town present a sprinkling of smallish houses, for the most part uninteresting of aspect, but all scrupulously clean. Those modern edifices, the Wesleyan Chapel, the Independent Chapel, and that Masonic Temple, the Athena Lodge, are of whitest tree-stone, with shining windows, and hearth-stone steps embellishing their classic porticoes. Redcastle, producing nothing and offering no attraction to visitors,

Starting point is 01:48:54 is naturally not a wealthy settlement. The rich inhabitants of Redcastle can be counted on the fingers of a single hand. Yet there is perhaps no town in England in which respect for wealth is more deeply implanted in the human mind, it is a saying of the profane that tuppence-haepenie will not consort with tuppence in redcastle but this is not a true saying for more than it worships wealth does red castle worship appearances and if a with tuppence can put on the semblance of threpanes he shall assuredly be held higher than c who lacks the art to obtain as much out of tuppence-haepenie the elite of red castle that is to say persons of fixed income or established professional earnings ranging from 8 to 1,800 per annum, live within a narrow circle. The houses immediately below bar and the houses immediately above bar shelter the aristocracy of the town.

Starting point is 01:49:51 Below bar, grave old red brick houses of the early Georgian period, roomy and comfortable within, respectable of aspect without. Above bar, houses of a more modern date, stone facades, French windows, porches, verandas, larger gardens and ostentatious stabling, rarely used, save for the accommodation of a pony chaise, like one of Falstaff's buck baskets. Within this charmed circle, in the largest of the stone-fronted houses above bar, resides Colonel Stormont, who enjoys the privileges of retirement and half-pay, cheered by the society of his wife and family,

Starting point is 01:50:31 the family consisting of a grown-up son and two grown-up daughters, who, of various views upon other questions, are at one in the opinion that Redcastle was called into being for their especial behoof, and who regulate their conduct by that idea. Colonel and Mrs. Stormont take the lead in Redcastle Society. Their names are at the head of the croquet and archery club, which blackballs everyone who is suspected of having once had a cousin connected with trade. They are chief patrons of the Assize and Masonic Balls. they sanctify the more chaste and classic of the red castle concerts with their august presents or at least mrs stormont allows her name to grace the list of patronesses and add a lustre to the programme of the evening's harmony

Starting point is 01:51:17 If St. Cecilia had come back to life again, she could hardly have been in more requests among the concert givers than Mrs. Stormont, who scarcely knows Mozart from Offenbach or Beethoven from Brinley Richards. To offend Colonel or Mrs. Stormont would be to be at war with Red Castle, and it is doubtful if anyone so unfortunately placed could continue to reside in the town. He would be obliged to depart, exiled by that awful ban, like Ovid from Rome. or Dante from Florence. In the large stucco-fronted house with the Norman turret resides Mr Marlin's Spike, the great shipbuilder of Cramston-on-Tiber. Mr. and Mrs. Spike live with some splendour,

Starting point is 01:52:02 but a self-contained kind of life, not conducive to wide popularity. They receive very little company. Their names grace the subscription list of no local charity. They patronise no local entertainment, they attend no Masonic or benevolent hall. They are negatively great, and will be remembered when they are dead

Starting point is 01:52:23 for the many noble deeds they have not done. After the Stormonts and the Marlon spikes come the professional classes below bar. Mr. Jusen, the chief local solicitor and vestry clerk, Dr. Mitzend, an elderly man of some distinction, being one of the army surgeons who endured and ameliorated the miseries of the Crimean War. Mr Grotian, the banker, Mr. Farah, the curate, and a few others whom it is needless to particularise.

Starting point is 01:52:52 On the outskirts of the town reside three or four gentlemen who derive their income from houses or lands are more rustic in their bearing and attire than the inhabitants of the citadel, and in a general way give themselves airs, as affecting to belong to the county families. A far off in the various fastnesses, isolated, inaccessible, unapproachable, unapproaching, live the county families. A few of them are on visiting terms with the Stormonts, Dr Mitzin and the clergy of Red Castle, but they regard the town otherwise as a depot for groceries and draperies

Starting point is 01:53:27 and a centre of radicalism for the lower classes. Their big family landows with tall, slab-sided horses and brass harness, pervade the street on fine afternoons. Their sons trot briskly through the quiet town on hunting mornings in well-worn pink. They turn out occasionally for a concert and take care to testify by loud talk and laughter among themselves and a supercilious contemplation of the rest of the audience through eyeglasses that they hold themselves as creatures apart from the townspeople. Within ten miles of Redcastle is that thriving seaport,

Starting point is 01:54:04 cramston on Tiber, famous for shipbuilding, rope-making, linseed crushing, sugar-baking, and general exportation and importation. Cramston has noisy, bustling streets, miles of keys, labyrinths of docks, drawbridges that arrest the pedestrian at every turn, so intersected as the land by narrow inlets of water. Cramston has very little society, in the Red Castle sense of that word, but it has commercial activity,

Starting point is 01:54:34 the vigorously throbbing pulse of active and useful life, name and place and power in the world. The word of Cramston, branded on bail or packing case, is familiar in Buenos Aires or Sierra Leone, in Pernambuco or Timbuktu, while a name of Red Castle is hardly known out of the post office or British Gazetteer. Among the elite of Red Castle, the archons, the equestrian order, Robert Faunthorpe, surgeon and parish doctor, has no place.

Starting point is 01:55:07 the elite give him good day when they meet him trudging toilfully above or below bar or trotting meekly along one of the lanes on his unkempt pony. Good, easy-going little man ever ready to help the helpless to whom he ministers, often squeezing a shilling or a sixpence out of his ill-furnished purse, where he feels that drugs alone are of no avail. Kindly gentlemen, though he is, the elite of Redcastle cannot recognise him as a member of their order. He lives in a shabby red house at the fag end of town,

Starting point is 01:55:40 grooms his pony, digs in the garden, keeps one old woman servant of eccentric aspect. He takes snuff inordinately, perhaps it is his only consolation, and the normal shabbiness of his clothes is enhanced by the process. His existence is altogether unorthodox. He is beyond the pale. True that he has reared three orphan nieces,

Starting point is 01:56:06 the children of a brother who died penniless ten years ago, and it is hardly to be supposed that this act of benevolence has not cost him as much as the maintenance of a groom and gardener. But Redcastle cannot recognise these small charities. They judge a man as they judge his house, by the front which he presents to the world. They would recognise the groom and gardener as elements of social status. They smile gently at the idea of the three orphan nieces

Starting point is 01:56:34 as a harmless eccentricity of that eccentric little man, Dr. Fawnthorpe. Happily, Robert Fornthorpe, M-R-C-S and Doctor by courtesy, is of all men the last to regret that social heaven to which he is never ascended. He sees Colonel and Mrs. Stormont, Dr. Mitzin and Mr. and Mrs. Grotian revolving in their orbits as he sees the planets and envied them no more. The idea that they do him any unkindness by not inviting him to, their dinner parties, by not extending the hand of friendship to his fatherless nieces, never enters his mind. He is so simple-minded a little man that he is content to go his way

Starting point is 01:57:15 and let others go theirs. An eccentric, evidently, as Red Castle O' Pines. End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Recording by Lina Emsley Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 7 Drifting into Haven It is a soft, calm evening early in April,

Starting point is 01:58:00 and Dr. Faunthorpe's shabby old house is as much brightened by the western sunlight as it can be brightened by anything less than the three coats of paint for which its wormeet and woodwork has been languishing for the last twenty years. There has not been a five-pound note expended upon the repair or the beautification of Robert Faunthorpe's house within the memory of the oldest inhabitant of Red Castle. It is scrupulously clean, and that is the best that can be said of it. There is a small garden in front,

Starting point is 01:58:31 where flourish those homely perennials which demand little care and no artificial nutriment, Lopins, Canterbury Bells, Flags, London Pride, Polyanthuses, primroses, and wallflowers. Behind the house there is a long strip of ground where the surgeon cultivates cabbages and potatoes, leeks and pot herbs, leaving only two narrow borders for floriculture.

Starting point is 01:58:56 Happily, there are ancient rose bushes in these neglected borders, rose bushes from which Beauty's father might have gathered those large, red, cup-shaped cabbage roses that grow in a child's picture of, book. The borders are edged with box, tall and thick, box that has been growing for a century. The low red walls, crumbling into hollows where the birds have pecked at the brickwork, crowned with dragon's mouth, stone crop and house-leak, would be delicious in the picture, and are not unlovely in reality. At the bottom of this long, narrow garden, there is a patch of

Starting point is 01:59:29 ground set apart for the benefit of scrub the pony, upon which grow purple-flowered tares, three crops in a twelve-month sometimes. Within, the house has a certain air of homely comfort. The shabby old furniture has that well-worn look, which in some wise endears goods and chattels to their owners. Beeswax and labour have done their best to brighten and beautify the ancient mahogany bureaus, the clumsy walnut-wood bedsteads and tables,

Starting point is 01:59:58 made at a time when walnut-wood was almost as cheap as deal. Cracked old jars and bottles of common blue delph adorned, a tall, narrow wooden mantelpieces. Curtains of watered marine, once crimson but faded to a tawny brown, drape the deeply recessed windows of parlour and surgery. The rooms are spacious but low, the ceilings sustained by massive beams painted black. The walls are for the most part panelled, and the panelling has been painted a dingy pink or a dirty drab.

Starting point is 02:00:30 To keep this panelling spotless as the old servant's anxious care, and much house flannel and soft soap are expended thereupon to Dr. Faunthorpe's aggravation, that good, easy man having no passion for cleanliness in the abstract. A wide stone passage leads from the front door to the half-glass door opening into the back garden, thus letting light and air through the old house. A clumsy mahogany-framed barometer, a row of hat-pegs, and a faded map of England are the only furniture of this passage, or hall as a modern house-agent. would call it. A roomy, solid old staircase with shallow treads and ponderous balusters leads to the upper

Starting point is 02:01:12 chambers, which are numerous and of fair size. To the right of the front door is the parlour. On the left the surgery. Behind the surgery is the best parlour. Behind the everyday parlour is the large stone-paved kitchen. For this house, with its acre of garden, Dr. Faunthorpe pays 20 pounds a year, so there is some saving of house rent in residence at Red Castle, if your soul aspires not after any higher state than comfortable vegetation, and you are content to inhabit the inferior end of town. Dr. Faunthorpe paces his front garden on this calm April evening, smoking his pipe. He is a smoker as well as a snuffer,

Starting point is 02:01:53 and finds solace in tobacco after his daily round. This is his hour of rest and leisure. true that it may be broken in upon at any moment by some sudden call for his services, but his regular daily labour, his measured grind at life's mill, is over. He prefers the small front garden for his evening pipe to the larger ground at the back, first because he is to the fore if wanted, and secondly because his house being on the high road, it is just possible that something may go by, vehicle or passenger,

Starting point is 02:02:26 to the enlivenment of his leisure. He is meditative and silent, but not alone. His niece, Marion, a tall girl with wavy light hair and a pre-raphalite figure, stands in a listless attitude by the gate. His niece Jenny, an overgrown girl of twelve, with a very short frock and stalwart legs, encased in brown worsted stockings, is watering the flowers, and making as much mess as it is possible to make in the operation. Just look what puddles you are making in the path, stupid!

Starting point is 02:02:59 exclaims the elder sister, peevishly regarding the efforts of her junior. "'I do wish you would leave things alone. You're always up to some mischief or other.' "'I suppose I shouldn't be mischievous if I let the primroses die for want of water,' remonstrates the junior in no wise abashed. "'That's what you'd do with your laziness and fine lady ways. You were bad enough before you went to stay with Uncle Stephen, but you're ever so much worse now. I'm sure I wish he'd kept you there instead of sending you back like a bad penny. "'Uncle Robert and I were as jolly as sand-boys while you were away.'

Starting point is 02:03:31 "'The young person sets down her water-pot "'and delivers this diatribe with arms akimbo like Madame Anjo's daughter.' "'Marian shudders.' "'Sand-boys! What an expression for a young lady!' she ejaculates. "'Pray, where's the harm in sand-boys?' "'demands the incorrigible Jenny. "'They're more respectable than you, as far as I can see, "'for they get their own living.'

Starting point is 02:03:55 "'My dear!' remonstrates uncle robert mildly that is not the way to address your elder sister why does she come and loaf about here then with her stuck-upishness why doesn't she go and be a governess like sybil if she heard what hester says of her she'd be ashamed of herself my love you have no right to quote hester hester is an impertinent mischief-making creature exclaims marian and as to your sister going out as a governess my dear continues uncle robert Robert mildly. With her expectations, it would be about the most foolish thing she could do. "'Expectations? Dead men's shoes!' exclaims the terrible child, twirling the watering-can so that its last drops sprinkle Marion's pretty blue dress. I should hate myself if I was mean enough to calculate upon what anyone would leave me. "'Quite right of you,' says Marion, with a supercilious laugh, that sneering schoolgirl laugh, which we all remember to

Starting point is 02:04:57 have been crushed by occasionally in our youth. But certainly no one is likely to leave you money. I dare say not with you in the way, answers the irrepressible Jenny. They'd feel they were doing an act of charity bestowing their fortune on you, for it would be the same as leaving it to the asylum for idiots. One simpleton provided for, at any rate. With this, the imp swings round upon her heels as on a pivot, brandishes the watering pot as a savage his club,

Starting point is 02:05:25 and gallops into the house. Jane Fornthorpe never walks. She has the action of an unbroken colt, and seems, when in motion, to have as many legs as that animal. When she comes downstairs, there is a sound as of a sack of coals flung from the upper story.

Starting point is 02:05:43 How the old house sustains itself under her youthful vigour is a mystery to the parish doctor. I'd run after her and give her a good box on the ears, says Marian viciously, if I didn't want to see the omnibus go by. The omnibus is a stunted, covered vehicle like a carrier's cart, garnished with glazed windows,

Starting point is 02:06:04 which plies between the station and the outskirts of Redcastle, and it is nearly time for this conveyance to pass with its evening freight. There are sometimes as many as five people arrive by the six o'clock train from Cramston. Nay, the Cramston train sometimes brings that rare bird, a passenger from London. It's a pity you ever sent that child to a day school, Uncle Robert. "'Marian remarks presently, "'wiping the water-spots staintily from her dress. "'She was bad enough before,

Starting point is 02:06:34 "'but now she's simply intolerable. "'My love, I couldn't affording school, "'and I was obliged to send her somewhere,' "'replies the surgeon in his long-suffering way. "'At home she was learning only to dig potatoes and to whistle, "'neither of which pursuits "'is an attractive accomplishment in a young lady. "'The child is not bad at bottom.'

Starting point is 02:06:56 "'Perhaps not,' answers Marion snappishly. "'But the bottom must be a long way down. "'I've never come to it yet.' "'She is very warm-hearted. "'Yes, if warmth of heart consists in rushing at one like an avalanche, "'hugging one round the neck like a bear, "'and rumbling one's collar atrociously "'without the faintest provocation.

Starting point is 02:07:18 "'She is not of an idle disposition,' "'remonstrates the uncle. "'I found her cleaning the back kitchen windows at half-past six this morning. No one had asked her to do it. Of course not. That's just the reason she did it. If you would take a little more pains with her, Marion, suggests Dr. Faunthorpe, timidly. "'Pains? I might take agonies, and without the least effect. Didn't I begin to teach her music?' "'Yes, my dear, but you didn't go on.' "'Well, you just try to teach her anything, Uncle Robert. Just try, that's all,' says Marion, with awful

Starting point is 02:07:55 significance, and then breaks out with a sigh. Oh dear, is this precious old omnibus never coming? It is rather late, my dear, but as it isn't going to bring us anyone we care about, we needn't worry ourselves about it. It would be something to look at just for a minute, if you only knew what a difference there is between the lookout down here and above bar. There, there's almost always something going by. Mrs. Stormont's basket carriage, or Master Grotian's pony, or the butcher's cart. Ah, my dear, I'm afraid that long visit to your uncle Trenchard has spoiled you for my quiet home. No, it hasn't, Uncle, answers the girl, with a little gush of feeling in the midst of her petulance, just strong enough to show the better side of her nature. No, it hasn't, but this is

Starting point is 02:08:46 home and that isn't. I should always feel that if I spent the rest of my life with Uncle Stephen, of all the old fidgets. Well, I suppose I oughtn't to say anything. against him, for he has been very kind to me in his way. He has given me a good deal of money from first to last, though I must say he doled it out stingily, as if he liked the money better than me. And it is nice, staying at his house. One feels oneself somebody. Only think of the stormants and the Grotians and the Marlin spikes calling on him before he had been three weeks in Redcastle, while you've lived here thirty years and they've never called upon you. People at this end of the town are not visited, my dear, replies the doctor mildly, as one who bows to the mysterious ways of

Starting point is 02:09:29 providence, and questions not. I dare say the elite of Red Castle called upon your uncle out of kindness, he being a stranger. He being a millionaire, uncle, that's what you mean. Very much they'd have called upon him if he'd been a stranger who wanted to get his living. Think of the stormonts giving a dinner party on purpose for him, and inviting me, after ignoring me for the last four years, staring me. staring me in the face after church for two hundred Sundays, and taking no more interest in me than if I were a stone cherub on a tablet in the Minster, and now all of a sudden being so fond of me,

Starting point is 02:10:04 it's too ridiculous. If I was as worldly as they are, I'd take a little more pains not to show it. The world is worldly, my love, replies Uncle Robert with his resigned air. You can hardly expect it to be otherwise. For my part, I am very glad to think that the story, once have taken notice of you, and that you've been invited out with Mr. Trenchard. It may lead to your making a good marriage, though you needn't set your mind upon that now, as it is tolerably certain your uncle will leave you an independence.

Starting point is 02:10:36 I only wish Sibyl were at home to have her share of good fortune. It's her own fault if she isn't, says Marion. Say rather her conscientiousness, my dear. She doesn't like to leave Mrs. Hazleton in a difficulty about her children, and very right too. But I hope Mrs. Hazleton will suit herself with a new governess very soon, and let Sybil come home.

Starting point is 02:11:00 Mr. Trenchard has asked for her so often, and it really seems flying in the face of Providence for her to be out of the way. If she wasn't as stupid, she wouldn't be at Mrs. Hazleton's beck and call, says Marion, and then exclaims shrilly. Here's the omnibus, and lots of people inside. Why, there's someone nodding to us?

Starting point is 02:11:20 a lady in a grey hat, and, I declare the bus is stopping. Why, it's Sybil! The blundering vehicle stops before Dr. Faunthorpe's gate. A shabby carpet-bag, only a carpet-bag, is handed down from the roof, and in the next instant Sybil is in the homely little garden, sobbing hysterically on her uncle's shoulder. He presses her to his breast tenderly, and looks in the pale, wan face. Why, my darling, how ill you look, how changed, how thin. I have had so much hard work, Uncle, she answers faintly. But thank God, I am home at last.

Starting point is 02:12:04 End of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Libra Box recording. All Libravox recordings are on the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. by adrian stroate turks and caicos islands dead men's shoes by mary elizabeth bradden chapter eight the return of the prodigal home at last cries the wanderer with glad thankfulness this is a night of rejoicing in dr faunthorpe's modest dwelling the prodigal daughter has returned and the fatted calf or at least so much of him as a cutlet fried as only hester can fry of your cutlet is served up in her honour how cheery and homely the common parlour with its shabby old furniture dimly illuminated by two composite candles which leave the panelled corners in densest shadow seems to those tired eyes

Starting point is 02:13:14 it is so nice to be at home again uncle says sybil lovingly as she draws her chair a little nearer the doctors at supper-time what an old dear hester is and how deliciously she cooks if you're so fond of home i wonder you stay away so long, remarks Marion, who cannot help being occasionally disagreeable in her petty way. There was nothing large-minded about Marion, Sybil used to complain. She would never commit a big sin, but would forfeit heaven by a multitude of infinitesimal faults. Marion's faults like the anemical in a glass of water, remarked Sybil on another occasion, too minute to be seen without a microscope, but making the water unwholesome all the same. I had to stop away to suit other people's convenience, replies the prodigal, looking downward as she squeezes lemon juice upon her cutlet. How altered you must be, says that odious Marion. Other people's convenience used to be the last thing you thought about.

Starting point is 02:14:13 When is your luggage coming? My luggage? I brought it with me. I mean the rest of your luggage. The omnibus man brought in nothing but a carpet bag. That is my luggage, answers civil, colouring to the root of the. of her hair, it is the first tinge of red that has warmed her delicate cheek since her arrival. I gave one of Mrs. Hazleton's servants that horrid old, heavy trunk of mine. But your dresses, your linen, you can't get that all into a carpet bag, cries Marion, almost in a shriek, to be without a variety of clothes as the last calamity she can conceive among the miseries of humanity. I have not one dress besides this. You can't have any notion how one's dresses wear out in a schoolroom, mischievous romping girls pulling one about

Starting point is 02:14:58 all day long, ink spilt in every direction, candle grease on all the tables, cups of tea perpetually turned over. I was determined to buy nothing during the last quarter, so I wore my old dresses till they were almost in rags, and gave them to my favourite housemaid when I came away. I dare say it was an excellent plan, says Marion shrugging her thin shoulders, but you won't be in a condition to make a very good appearance in Redcastle to do new things. People will expect you to bring down the London fashions too. They come out on the 1st of March, don't they? What a pity fate made your gentleman's daughter, Marion, replies Sybil with a cold sneer.

Starting point is 02:15:38 You had made such a capital milliner. Your soul would have been in your work. Dr. Formthorpe sits back in his chair, reposeful, after that little bit of hot supper, which is not an everyday luxury. The small snappings and snappes. gnarlings of his nieces hardly discompose him. He is used to their sisterly talk. He is glad to have his handsome niece at home again, seated close to his chair, with all those familiar winning ways which have won her the first place in his heart.

Starting point is 02:16:06 Small gushings of loving speech, tender little smiles, gentle touches of a white fluttering hand, graces of manner, which may mean very little, but are very sweet. Petty, Circy and arts which have beguiled honest men to ruin and death before today. "'My darling,' he says presently as the dark brown eyes smile upon him, "'brightening in the candlelight, I am so glad you've come back. "'It wasn't wise to stay away so long at the risk of vexing your uncle trenchered. "'But I'll say no more about that. "'You are here and all is well.

Starting point is 02:16:38 "'You must go and see him tomorrow.' "'How can she?' exclaimed Marion. "'In that gown?' "'Pointing contemptuously to civil shabby alpaca, "'an alpaca which has seen much service cockled by the rain, and frayed at the edges of the cuffs, and with that shrunken and dwindled appearance, that ill-used garments are apt to assume. For sure, what does her gown matter? You can lend her a gown. You have gowns enough and to spare. None that will fit Sybil, replies Marion, who prides herself on her superior height.

Starting point is 02:17:11 She's welcome to wear one, but it'll be two inches on the ground. Can't she run a tuck or cut a bit off? argues Uncle Robert. I shall have to give you a to-y-a-time. my love he adds contemplating his elder niece anxiously you're looking so fagged and mourn i'm at home with you uncle robert that is the best tonic for me replies the girl fondly she is fond of him to-night the shabby old home which she abandoned in sheer discontent two years ago seems very dear to her just now it is a haven for a storm-beaten soul you'll have a better home than this my pet i hope for the greater part of your time answers the doctor cheerily i've no doubt that your uncle trenchard will ask you to stay with him as he did marian she was quite three months at lancaster lodge and is to go back again by-and-by i look upon her as little more than a visitor here but she is kind enough to make the best of her old uncle robert's humdrum house it's a great relief to be here for a change uncle answers marian i felt like a foe a foe fine lady at uncle trenches, but I feel my own mistress here. If it wasn't for that tyrannical old Hester, your house would be Liberty Hall, and I can forgive even Hester when she's in good

Starting point is 02:18:28 humour and makes hot cakes for breakfast. An hour later, and Uncle Robert has smoked his after-suffer pipe, and the girls are in their bedroom the old room which Sybil knows so well, with its ridiculous flowered paper, low ceiling and high-painted dado, and curious brass safety bolts upon the door, as if burglars were a contingency to be provided against in that humble dwelling. How well she remembers, the long, narrow chimney piece, the basket shaped great with its wide hobbs, the open-work brass fender and painted four-post bedstead, drab and green with skimpy dimity valence, and two starveling curtains. The rickety-diel dressing-table, with streaky-looking glass which used to reflect a fair girl's face wondering at its own beauty.

Starting point is 02:19:16 The tall mahoganyed wardrobe that never was opened without threatening to topple over and wreck destruction on its violator. The scanty strips of bedside carpet dull in colour and perplexing in pattern. How often has she poured and puzzled over those interwoven scrolls in sheer idleness of thought? All things are unchanged. There are the wretched old ornaments on the mantelpiece, the pasteboard spillboxes, adorned with faded gold paper, ancient works of art by fingers that had long been dust, the little black wedge-wood vases, urn-shaped funereal. The hand screens with lithographs of Dr. Syntax pasted thereupon,

Starting point is 02:20:00 and more paper gilding, the two black profile miniatures of dead and forgotten relatives. It seems a dear old room somehow to Sybil tonight, for it brings back the feelings of her innocent girlish days, when life, if it had few pleasures, had no cares. Now life means perplexity. Existence is an entanglement from which only some happy turn of fortune can extricate her. She sits in her old place on the window seat and loosens the long twisted roll of rich brown hair,

Starting point is 02:20:34 which falls over her bare shoulders like shining drapery. Goodness! cries Marion. How skinny your shoulders have grown! have they said sybil coolly glancing downwards at the white neck and arms in which the bones are too sharply defined for beauty then we shall look more like sisters when we wear low dresses your shoulders were always skinny marian is silenced for the moment and proceeds with the destruction of that elaborate edifice of hair and hair-pads which she constructs with infinite pains every morning even though no one outside her own small family circle is likely to be gratified by the sight thereof. Marion's hair has been washed and doctored to the fashionable pre-raphalite colour.

Starting point is 02:21:22 It is thick and fluffy and short, only just covering the points of her bony shoulders, and standing out round her head like an exaggerated nimbus. It is not bad hair altogether, and Marion thinks at one of her strong points, like her pre-raphalite figure, her low, narrow foot, 18-inch waist, arched eyebrows, white teeth and other small graces, some of which are the praiseworthy result of patient training. Do let me see your pretty things, Sybil. The younger sister exclaims presently,

Starting point is 02:21:55 twisting one of her yellow tresses in and out of a hairpin. The elder looks up, startled out of profound reverie. What pretty things? Well, you must have something to show me, presents, things you have bought out of your salary. I'm sure I should have a lot to show out of 40 pounds a year for two years, glove boxes, seal-skin purses, card cases, neckties, lace, gloves and so on. I daze say that, carpet bag, it's bursting with them. It is doing nothing of the kind. I found that

Starting point is 02:22:27 there was as much as I could do to dress myself decently for Mrs. Hazleton's parties and pay my laundress. Evening dresses are so unprofitable. They must be, if you have nothing to show out of 80 pounds. I never thought you could bring yourself to wear such a dress as that alpaca thing, adds Marion, pointing contemptuously to Sybil's shabby gown hanging on a peg upon the door. I expected to see you come home quite a woman of fashion. People who teach unruly children have to take them out walking in all weathers, have not much chance of being fashionably dressed, answers Sybil wearily. Perhaps if you could contrive to put dress out of your mind

Starting point is 02:23:09 for five minutes or so, Marion, we might have a little rational conversation. Oh, very well. Of course, I know what an inferior mind mine is. You used to tell me so often enough. But you are once rather fond of talking about dress, and I thought perhaps, if you've nothing to show me, you might like to see my dresses, not homemade. Miss Islet has made every one, and a pretty price she has charged me. Marion wrenches open the refactory door of that wardrobe and displays three calico shrouded garments, hanging in a row like sheeted ghosts. One by one she brings forth these treasures, whisking off their covering and displaying each one to Sybil with a dexterous toil of her arm. A bronze-brown silk? A pale grey with elaborate ruchings of satin? A black silk, which stands on end for very richness of fabric.

Starting point is 02:24:06 she exclaimed swelling with pride i wore the grey new at colonel stormonts at colonel stormonts is the world coming to an end or what convulsion of nature brought you and the stormonts together i was asked to dinner with uncle trenchard and uncle trenchard gave you the money to buy those dresses of course yes he said well my dear i suppose you'll want a new gown and then he gave a heavy sigh and took a bank-note out of an old fact Russian red pocket book, and then he looked at the notes so long that I was afraid he was going to change his mind. Then he gave another sigh, deeper than the first, and handed me the note, a 10-pound note. I tried to kiss him the first time, but it didn't seem to like that, for he gave me a little peevish push and said, There, my dear, that'll do. Funny old man!

Starting point is 02:24:58 How many 10-pound notes is he given you? Four altogether. He always sighs just in the same way, as if every note was a little bit. a wrench. He's inordinately rich, of course, but it seems to hurt him so to part with his money, that I can't help thinking of that dreadful story of Douglas Gerald's, the man made of money, and fancying that Uncle Trenchard is unrolling a bit of himself when he gives away a banknote. It's only such people who get inordinately rich, replies Sybil plaiting her long, thick hair into one massive tail for the night. And how did you get on with Uncle Trenchard, upon the whole?

Starting point is 02:25:36 oh very well indeed it was so nice driving about in his new barouche with a lovely pair of chestnuts and feeling oneself looked up to by all red castle and i had a splendid bedroom and dressing-room and we died at half-past seven every day with two men waiting upon us i used to feel afraid of them just at first especially the butler who looks the image of mr groshen the banker and that took away from the grandeur but i soon got accustomed to them and learned to speak to them in an off-hand way just like mrs stormont marian says civil earnestly do you think uncle trenchard intends to leave us his money well i should think he must leave it to us or to hospitals and if we can't manage to please him we must please him marian and wind ourselves into this withered old heart somehow it would be ridiculous abominable shameful for the money to be left to hospitals when we want it so badly it's no use to enjoy the luxuries of this house to take a ten-pound note from him now and then that kind of a kind of money to be left to hospital when we want it so badly it's no use to enjoy the luxuries of this house to take a ten-pound note from him now and then that kind of thing will only make poverty seem worse to us afterwards we must have his fortune her eyes dilate and brighten her lips tremble faintly as she leaves off speaking and then her face changes in a moment and tears run down her wan cheeks gracious sybil cries marian rushing to her with a bottle of odour cologne and a towel and dabbing her forehead with the perfume i declare you're quite hysterical of course we must have his money if we can get it what has the fidgety old thing come home to england for except to make our acquaintance and leave us his fortune he is as good as said so ever so many times barry and sisterly attentions check that hysterical attack of sybil's and the two girls lie down side by side affectionately after a brief formula in the way of evening prayer deep in the chill spring night sybil's head tosses restlessly on the pillow and the sleeper's lips murmur sorrowfully in troubled dreams

Starting point is 02:27:38 Alex, Alex, don't be so cruel, Alex, forgive, you know, your sake. Yes, yes, as much as for my own. So pleads the sinners vexed soul, self-excusing, self-accusing, even in dreams. End of Chapter 8, read by Adrian Stroet, Turks and Caicos Islands. Dead Men's Shoes. This is Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 02:28:30 Recording by Adrian Strohett, Turks and Caicos Islands. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 9. Uncle Trenchard. Stephen Trenchard paces his smooth gravel walk in the April sunshine after Tiffon, looking at the sparrows and blackbirds and thrushes disporting blithely on his velvet lawn or hopping away into the shadow of evergreens great masses of laurel and lorustinus rhododendron and bay which surround the smooth expanse of grass in a semicircular sweep very perfect is the order of mr trenchard's garden not a yellow leaf on the laurels not a daisy peeping pertly silver white from the lawn not a branch that grows awry in the kitchen garden yonder far away behind the shrubbery, the fan-shaped fruit trees look like geometrical patterns on the yellow brick walls. The apples and pears are all wired into exactest growth, and not a twig is allowed its own way.

Starting point is 02:29:31 Mr. Trenchard is in his garden by six o'clock every morning, and his severe eye interrogates the smallest sprig of ground cell, and rebukes the very slugs that vie with him in early rising. Mr. Trenchard is not a master to be trifled with, and his gardeners' number, it for every shilling he expends he will have twelve pennyworth of labour nay thirteen or fourteen pennyworth if he can get it woe be to the wretch who tries to put him off with eleven pence halfpenny worth of industry i've had to work for my money says mr trenchard and i expect value for my money from other people he walks briskly up and down looking to the right and left with an eye bright and quick as a bird's a small black eye which looks the blacker for its white and lashes. He is of middle height, very thin, very yellow. He is sharply cut features, nose thin, pointed and aggressive looking, lips also thin and of a disagreeable pallid hue. Eyebrows, iron grey, thick and bushy, brow narrow. Perceptive ridge strongly marked, upper head, receding. Hair, thick,

Starting point is 02:30:39 short, and iron grey like the eyebrows, brushed into two sharp points, like a terrier's ears. mr trenchard wears nankeen waistcoat and trousers very loose for his lean limbs and a glossy black frock-coat also loose a black satin scarf and a gold pin and high shirt collars a double gold eye-glass dangles on his breast a glass which he wears for show rather than use but which intensifies the severity of his countenance when he reproves his gardeners or lectures his butler he is a man who has toiled early and late until the other day when he took it into his head to give up his counting-house to a junior partner and come back to england and enjoy the evening of his life at his ease he has been a man of one idea all his days and the single object of his existence has been the accumulation of money the process of money-making the honour and homage which the world renders the reputed mid and air these have been so sweet to him that the question of money-making the honour and homage which the world renders the reputed mid and air these have been so sweet to him that the question of the question of the question of money-money what he is to do with his wealth has rarely presented itself seriously to his mind. On his 69th birthday, he awoke suddenly to the consciousness that whatever personal enjoyment he meant to have out of his wealth must be obtained within the next 10, 12 or 15 years.

Starting point is 02:32:00 Even with his vigorous constitution, he could hardly hope to live beyond the age of 85. 40 years in India must take something out of a man, be he never so temperate, and abstemiousness has been one of Stephen Trenchard's virtues. So, at 69 he said to himself, It is time to go back to England. Let the world see what a position I have made for myself and take all the good I can out of life. His 70th birthday has not yet arrived,

Starting point is 02:32:29 and he is built for his soul of the lordly treasure house, or, in other words, he has taken upon lease, decorated and furnished, Lancaster Lodge, one of the best houses in his father's native town of Redcastle. he has hired servants purchased carriages and horses and begun a plain sailing englishman's life on a very liberal scale the result so far has been eminently satisfactory his house to him a kingdom is he rules his servants in-door and outdoor with a rod of iron and fills himself a potentate very pleasant to him is the incense which redcastle offers to his wealth people whose fathers and grandfather snubbed or ignored his father the struggling solicitor bow down and worship the anglo-indian plutocrat he accepts their adoration with supreme coolness and acquired arrogance which his admirers extol as innate aristocracy of mind it has pleased him to permit his niece marian thornthorpe to bask in the sunshine of his favour

Starting point is 02:33:35 she is not handsome enough to charm his eye which is critical in the matter of feminine beauty nor is she clever enough to amuse him but she is rather a pretty thing to have about his house and she does very well for a listener when he is in the humour to tell his prose the old stories of dead and gone Calcutta scandals. She knows how to hold her tongue, when he is inclined to be silent, is salicious for his small comforts, and quiet as a mouse when he takes his after-dinner nap. She behaves gracefully at table, neither eats nor drinks too much, looks stylish when fashionably dressed, moves about the house quietly, and is not altogether deficient intact. He is content, therefore, to tolerate her as a frequent guest, but does not appreciate her warming enough to ask her to take up her permanent abode with him. He has made many inquiries about Sybil, and he's been vexed by her non-appearance.

Starting point is 02:34:28 The Stormonts, the Grotians and other notabilities have praised the absent girl's beauty, having found out all at once that a young person whose existence they never troubled themselves to acknowledge was the loveliest girl in Redcastle. Quite the bell of the place I assure you, Mr. Trenchard, says Mrs. Stormont. indeed remarked stephen trenchy she was invited out very much i suppose well no dear mr trenchard she was too young you know almost a child and then your brother-in-law is so retiring we can never have got him out of his shell if there is one thing in the region of trifles outside the money market which mr trenchard appreciates it is the beauty in woman having heard his eldest niece is enthusiastically praised he is particularly anxious to see her, ever so much the more anxious because her indifference has thwarted him. She must be a queer kind of girl, he tells himself, to hang back from a rich uncle to prefer

Starting point is 02:35:28 drudging as a governess to sponging upon me. Marion is glad enough to take all she can get, and would kneel down and kiss my shoestring if I asked her. Her feelings are transparent enough. This other one must be something out of the common. A wonderful advantage this for Sybil at starting, though it is an advantage she is gained accidentally the great lodge bell clangs out while mr trenchard paces up and down and startles the respectable tranquillity of above bar with its clamour he takes out his watch too early for a ceremonious visit mr trenchard walks round by the side windows of his large square mansion and comes within view of the gate two ladies enter both young and slim both tall but one rather shorter than the other. The taller gives a little eager cry and runs forward to him. The second advances more slowly. Dear Uncle Stephen, cries Marion, pursing up her lips to be kissed, an operation which Uncle Stephen performs with a slightly reluctant air. Sibyl has come home quite unexpectedly. Marion is always

Starting point is 02:36:38 out of breath at the beginning of a visit, a pretty gushing way, which some people call charming, and I thought I might bring her to see you, dear Uncle John. Thought you might bring her? Of course you might bring her. Haven't I been asking to see her since Christmas? So that is Sybil, is it? Looking at the graceful figure, lingering on the sunlit grass a few yards away from him. The bright face is flushed with palest rose. The dark full eyes are looking slyly at him.

Starting point is 02:37:08 The dark brown hair is burnished by the sun. A fair picture of peerless youth. abdage to admire. So that is Sybil. Yes, she is very lovely. Those sycophants haven't exaggerated. Come here, my love. Come to your old uncle, naughty child. Why did you stay away so long? He holds out his lean old arms. He folds her to his breast. He kisses her lovingly, paternally, as he has never yet kissed Marion, despite her affectionate blandishments. Well, I never, Marion exclaims inwardly, standing in. little aloof and feeling that her reign is over.

Starting point is 02:37:52 End of Chapter 9, read by Adrian Stroett, Turks and Caicos Islands. Chapter 10 of Dead Men's Shoes This is the Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Adrian Stroet, Turks and Caicos Islands. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 10, Sybil takes the lead.

Starting point is 02:38:33 The favourable impression which Sybil makes on her Uncle Stephen Trenchard is a fact too obvious for diversity of opinion. Marion reluctantly, sullenly even, admits that truth, with many sneers and innuendos about winning manners and hollow-heartedness. I've never laid myself out to please Uncle Stephen as Sybil lays herself out. murmurs the injured maiden. I can't flatter people with my looks. I haven't Sybil's caressing ways. I can't pretend more affection than I feel,

Starting point is 02:39:07 and I must say that Uncle Stephen's dry little jerky ways of speaking and looking at one are not calculated to develop affection. Thus argues Marion in the easy atmosphere of Uncle Robert's everyday parlour. The girls are seated at supper with Dr. Formthorpe's trifling with morsels of bread and cheese, after having dined with Mr. Trenchard. I did not find him hard or dry, replies Sybil. He seems really kind and affectionate,

Starting point is 02:39:36 and I was grateful for him for his warm welcome. I don't know what you mean by my laying myself out to please him. I remember that he was poor mamma's only brother and our own flesh and blood. The uncle I had heard so much about years ago, and I was naturally touched by our meeting. Ah, says Marion, what an advantage of it is for a woman to be able to be able to be able to be to cry when she likes. How do you manage it, Sib? If the tears came into my eyes today, it was because I am not very strong just now, Marion, answers Sibyl reddening. You are really the most

Starting point is 02:40:10 horrid girl I ever met with. However horrid I am, I am not double-faced, replies the other promptly. I should be ashamed to court Uncle Trenchard if I were you. When I remember the things you've said about him, what things? What are convenient? unique memory yours is. Haven't you said that you despised him for his meanness as a young man? That he won his way in the world by double dealing, by base flattery of his patron? That all your sympathy was with a young man he supplanted, Mr. Secretan. At that name, Sybil flushed crimson, and then grows ashy pale. Ah, I see you do remember, cries Marion triumphantly.

Starting point is 02:40:51 Marion exclaims the mild little surgeon with a rare flash of anger. I will not have your sister teased in this manner. How dare you accuse her of falsehood or hypocrisy? She has as good a right to Stephen Trenchard's favour as you have. Yes, and to his fortune. Let her have it all, cries Marion tempted to go into hysterics, but thinking better of it immediately. She is to go and stay with him and keep house for him.

Starting point is 02:41:17 Directly she can get her things ready, which, considering she came home without a rag, must take some time. She is to pay him a long visit. it. I'm nobody now. My love, you have had your innings, pleads the Pacific doctor. Oh, of course, and just as I've got to understand his ways and know how to please him, I'm pushed aside. My dear, his sense of justice will induce him to distribute his bounty fairly. His sense of justice did not prevent his kissing Sybil more affectionately than he has ever kissed me. mere fancy on your part, I have no doubt, says the doctor.

Starting point is 02:41:57 After this little burst of temper, Marion calms down and is tolerably placable. She even discusses her sister's outfit with some show of interest. Mr. Trenchard has given Sybil five and twenty pounds. I suppose you are pretty well provided with cash, little one, he said, just before she wished him good-night. An independent-minded, young woman, like you, who goes out into the well to get her own living, is sure to have a well-lined purse. Sybil blushed and owned that her purse had no lining at all. Ah, I see, sent help home to the old doctor, muttered, fortunately not loud enough for Marion to hear, or that sharp-tongued young person would inevitably have set him right.

Starting point is 02:42:43 Well, well, very right, very proper. And then the crimson pocket-book was slowly brought forth, and Mr Trenchard sighed a desponding sigh as he opened it, a sigh that was like a funeral gun for his departing bent notes. Sybil went back to the dingy old house at the bottom of the town, richer by five and twenty pounds than when she left it at midday. The girls go out, gaily enough, next morning to Carmichael's, the haberdashery, linen drapery, and silkmercery establishment of Redcastle to supply the void in Sybil's wardrobe.

Starting point is 02:43:20 five and twenty pounds is not much for a young lady of large ideas but sybil schooled in the philosophy of small means makes the most of that sum she spends all her money at carmichels and trusts providence and stephen trenchard for means to pay miss islet for the making up of her dresses and mr corksol the bootmaker for the equipment of her pretty little feet it is astonishing how far away from the thoughts of miss islet and mr corksol seems the notion of payment now that Miss Fornthorpe's rich uncle has returned from the Indies. You are to send the things home to me at Lancaster Lodge, says Sybil, and that seems as good as paying for them. Sybil has asked for a week in which to prepare herself for this important visit, and that week is occupied in the stitching, hemming, sewing, felling, gathering and trimming of underclothing. The fashion of ready-made linen, not having yet vitiated the housewifely habits at Redcastle. the lower middle classes make their own garments laboriously and are proud of their toil the upper classes employ school-children reduced widows or virtuous orphans for the labour and contrive thereby to exercise a good deal of patronage at the very small expenditure

Starting point is 02:44:38 civil revives considerably well this week of preparation she manages to rest a good deal other people taking the chief burden of getting her clothes made on their shoulders she lies on the sofa in the shawl shabby old parlour, staring idly at the whitened yellow spring flowers that brighten the dull brown beds yonder in the family garden, the white pear blossoms tossing gaily in the light April wind, the jonquels peeping over the tall box border, the sward-shaped lily of the valley leaves, cleaving the damp mould in the shadow of the bulging moss-growing wall, summer's harbinger in the shape of a butterfly skimming over the tender rose leaves. A dull old house verily a limited prospect this long strip of walled garden yet sweet and soothing to one who has suffered sweet to lie at rest on the slumberous sofa with no thought or care for the day and with but the vaguest thought of the morrow if uncle trench it leaves me a fortune life will be made so easy sybil muses her arms folded above her head her eyes fixed dreamily on the waving white pearl bloom

Starting point is 02:45:50 i shall have but to call alex back to me and we can be happy together again and taste the sweets of life again as we did in our brief bright honeymoon poverty in love cannot live long together but love with plenty of money that means paradise The fortune dimly veiled, though it is, seems very easy to her just now. She is elated by her uncle's evident admiration of her. She has made just the impression that she would have wished to make upon that fate-disposing relative. To follow up that impression will be simple enough. Has she not been told of her winning ways, of those small fascinations which make a woman powerful for good or evil? Has she not always been her uncle Robert's favourite? Everybody's favourite, without effort on her own part,

Starting point is 02:46:36 while Marion, painfully anxious to please, has been looked on rather as a nuisance, a vivacious non-entity of whom one might easily have too much. Mr Trenchard's carriage calls every afternoon, with its coachman and footman, in respectable Puritan drab liveries, to take the two young ladies for an airing. Mr. Trenchard himself rarely making any use of the equipage, which he keeps rather as an appendage of his state than for pleasure or convenience. it is very agreeable to sybil to drive up the long street with its ascending scale of social importance from the shabby old houses at uncle roberts entered the town to the stately stone mansions above bar very agreeable to pass the elite whom marian has just begun to know and salutes with delighted becks and bows but whom sybil surveys with a stony stare affected to have not the slightest notion who they are

Starting point is 02:47:32 that fordthorpe girl is handsomer than ever says colonel stormont to his wife whom he is driving a pony carriage a size or two larger than a washing-basket she is pretty sure to come in for a tidy share of the old fellow's money i should think what a bad match for frederick frederick is the hope of the stormonts great cricket croquet and athletics fire brigade and volunteer rifle corps a youth with very thin legs and not much body who wears a great cricket croquet and athletics fire brigade and volunteer rifle corps a youth with very thin legs and not much body who wears a cutaway coat that just clears his hips and has never been seen in an overcoat or without a flower in his buttonhole no family says mrs stormont pursing up her lips family be bothered remarks the colonel old trench it is rolling in money what's the good of a family it won't keep a roof over your head or pay the tax gatherer commerce is the thing nowadays if fred doesn't marry a rich woman pretty soon he'll have to go into commerce you ought to take notice of those Fornthorpe girls.

Starting point is 02:48:34 I'll call next week, replies Mrs. Stormont obediently. Sybil's beauty is the talk of the town. Red Castle is suddenly awakened to the consciousness of loveliness that scarcely moved it to admiration two years ago, although the girl's beauty had then the bloom and freshness of unchasing youth. Perhaps she is really lovelier now, sorrow and passion have passed there,

Starting point is 02:48:58 and left the exalted look of an awakened soul, where there was before only girlish innocence, curious and wondering about a world of which it knew nothing. She is eaten with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The mystery of life has been revealed to her. Be sure that Eve's beauty had a deeper meaning after she came out by the fatal gate, where the angel with the flaming sword kept watch and ward. The carriage comes at the week's end to fetch Miss Faunthorpe and her belongings, to the tribulation of her young sister Jenny, who has had so much of Marion lately,

Starting point is 02:49:33 that she is deeply grieved to lose Sybil. It will be ever so much worse for me when you're gone, she says. You do stand up for a fellow sometimes. She'll be sending me upstairs for a handkerchief or her keys three times an hour and making me crimp her hair to my fingers ache and unpick her old dresses. I wish Uncle Trenchard would let me go with you.

Starting point is 02:49:56 I shouldn't cost much or be in the way. And now Uncle Robert says, I'm not to go to school anymore because it makes me vulgar. And Marion is to go on with my education. A nice education it will be. I don't believe she knows when William the Conqueror came over, or who invented potatoes. Sybil tears herself in lamenting damsel, kisses Uncle Robert with a plaintive little look, more expensive of gratitude than many a lengthy oration, and takes her place in the baruch, which becomes her as a frame does a picture and seems as much her attribute as Juno's card to the goddess.

Starting point is 02:50:32 Goodbye poverty, she says to herself as the chestnuts throw up their forelegs as if they were playing cup and ball and dash off towards the bar. It shall go hard with me if my name is not written in Uncle Trenchard's will before long. End of Chapter 10. Read by Adrian Stroet, Turks and Caicos Islands. 11 of dead men's shoes. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Kathy Kirchner. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braden, Chapter 11. The new life at Lancaster Lodge suits Sybil, as if she had been created for no other purpose than to sit at her uncle's table,

Starting point is 02:51:30 pour out his coffee, air his newspapers, play or sing to him in the evenings, and take her own pleasure for the rest of the day. Housekeeping is an easy burden in so well-ordered an establishment. The trained servants perform their duties light for the most part with mechanical precision. The service is too good to be forfeited by scamped work or forgetfulness of the master's wishes. Stephen Trenchard has let his servants understand that he will have fullest value for his money, that there must be no talents stowed away in napkins in his household. He is contrived to inspire them with wholesome fear and is served to the utmost of their power. Sybil is not afflicted with a genius for domestic matters. She remembers with a shudder those

Starting point is 02:52:19 days in Dixon Street when she had to cater for a penniless husband and make nine pence do the work of a shilling. She remembers this weary time and reposes in her low, easy chill. novel in hand, the garden smiling at her through the open French window, horses and carriages at her disposal, luxury around her, all red castle, subjugated, and more or less prostrated at her feet. She keenly remembers the past and deems her present life worthy some sacrifice, more especially, as the present is made still brighter by vague hopes of happiness, and a reconciliation of all life's perplexities in the future. She has her dark moments naturally,

Starting point is 02:53:05 what life is without shadow. There are moments when she thinks of one she has fondly loved, fondly loves still, perhaps, in some sealed chamber of her heart. There are hours in which she wonders with remorseful wonder how he fares whom she so ruthlessly abandoned.

Starting point is 02:53:25 For his future advantage, she tells herself, as Mrs. Secretan, I should have forfeited my uncle's fortune. As Miss Fondthorpe, I may win it and share it with my husband. Established as Stephen Trenchard's favorite niece, Sybil finds herself an object of unbounded interest and admiration with the elite. Mrs. Stormont, although overflowing with kindness, at first shows some disposition to patronize. But finding this eldest Miss Fondthorpe a young woman not amenable to patronage, changes her note, and accepts Mr. Trenchard's niece as one of ourselves, elected and chosen, to sit in the high places of Redcastle. The girl has a wonderful air, argues Mrs. Stormont, when you consider that she is totally without

Starting point is 02:54:18 family. Talking of family, muses the colonel, I hope it's all right about old Trenchard's money, and that he hasn't left any niggers over in Calcutta to whom, he may leave his fortune. My dear Reginald, I'm surprised at you, exclaims the lady with a look of horror. Mr. Trenchard goes to church every Sunday and is altogether a most correct person. We don't know what he may have been in India, though, says the colonel. He may have been a devil worshipper, and danced an exaggerated highland fling at devil dances, or a Muhammadan, or a thug.

Starting point is 02:54:54 He seems to have plenty of money, and that's about all we know. know of him. Notwithstanding which ignorance, as to Stephen Trenchard's antecedents, the colonel and his wife continue to court and cherish him, arranging the nicest little dinners for him, with Mr. Groshen to sit opposite to him and discourse upon the money market, lavishing affection on Sybil, inquiring kindly about the exiled Marion, as remote at the unvisited end of the town as if she had been removed to another hemisphere, and making themselves generally subservient and agreeable. Frederick Stormont, with his cutaway coat and legs like sticks of ceiling wax, calls frequently at Lancaster Lodge and is deeply interested in everything that interests Sybil. The flower garden,

Starting point is 02:55:44 the horses, he even volunteers to be interested in the poultry, but bottles his enthusiasm upon finding that Miss Fonthorpe has no taste for dorking, Spaniards or Cochin Chinas. There is a billiard room at Lancaster Lodge, and Frederick is great at billiards. He drops in of an evening and plays with Mr. Trenchard. He teaches Sybil how to handle her cue and discourses wisely on the theory of angles. Well, pretty one, says Mr. Trenchard one night, when Fred has taken his departure with obvious reluctance, and uncle and niece are loitering by the billiard table.

Starting point is 02:56:22 Sybil leaning over the green cloth to aim at the distant red, dressed in pale gray silk with innumerable flounces, and knots of mauve ribbon dotted about among them a masterpiece of Miss Islet's art. Well, my pet, I think it's pretty clear what that young gentleman comes here for. Billiards, I should think, replies Sybil, pushing her cue gently backwards and forwards as she meditates her aim. They have no table at the storm wants, and it is cheaper for him to play here than at the coach and horses. The billiard table is a very good excuse, my dear, but the gentleman comes to see you. Poor thread paper exclaimed Sybil with a contemptuous laugh, for his own sake, if the thing can feel, I hope not. Why, he'd be a very good match for you, wouldn't he? asked her uncle,

Starting point is 02:57:15 looking keenly at her from under his penthouse brows. These stormonts are great people, the leaders of Red Castle Society, you could hardly do better than marry into their set. If I were likely ever to marry, which I'm not, says Sybil, pocketing her ball triumphantly off the red, I'd marry a man. Never likely to marry, what do you mean by that? Simply that I'm quite happy as I am, and that I mean to stop with you and take care of you, please, Uncle Stephen, until you get tired of me. She has been living with her rich uncle nearly three months, and there is no more talk of her being a visitor at Lancaster Lodge. It is her home. Marion may come and go, but Sybil remains. Stephen Trenchard cannot do without her.

Starting point is 02:58:04 I shan't get tired of you in a hurry, answers Mr. Trenchard, but I think for your own sake you ought to marry when you get a good opportunity. I was only joking about that whippersnapper who walks about the place as if the very paving stones were his property, and couldn't give you change for a five-pound note if you asked him for it. He's not the man for you. But with your pretty face, you are sure to find the right kind of man before long, a man with brains and money, and when you do, I hope you'll be wise enough to marry him. It's all very well while I'm here to take care of you. But when I'm dead and gone, when you are dead and gone, I shall have your money, you dear old thing, think Sybil, but says not a word.

Starting point is 02:58:49 She only goes to her uncle's side and lays her face upon his shoulder and gives him one of those gentle little caresses, which Marion would as soon have offered to the zoological gardens tiger as to her Anglo-Indian uncle. Yes, pretty one, I should like to see you well-married before my time comes, says Stephen Trenchard. Now you know, Uncle, that you are under a solemn agreement with me to live till you are 90, replies Sybil, shaking her finger at him with playful menace.

Starting point is 02:59:22 She has grown very intimate with her uncle in these three months. Her playing, her singing, her bright talk, her sparkling vivacious little ways, have won the old man's confidence, stern to all the rest of the world, implacable in all his dealing with men, suspicious alike of equals and inferiors, tyrannical to his servants, he is yet wondrously gentle to Sybil. His inherent meanness, his mental incapacity to give, cannot be wholly subjugated even by her influence, but what money he bestows upon her, he gives less grudgingly than to Marion. He feels the loss of so many pounds, a shade less keenly, when Sybil's pleasure is in question, and though he grumbles sorely at the costliness of a woman's

Starting point is 03:00:11 toilet, he is pleased to see his niece expensively dressed, and may in time come to regard her costume as one of the accessories of his own grandeur, like his stables or hot-houses. Rarely, despite the confidence that is established between them, has Mr. Trenchard talked to Sybil of his past life, of his youth, never. He tells her his prosy old stories of Calcutta society, of men with whom he has had commercial dealings, of clever frauds and chicaneries, which he chuckles over as the coup d'etat of the trading world, but of himself he speaks very little. Never, above all, has the fatal name of Secretan cross-eastern cross-eastern. his lips, and Sybil is longing to find out the state of his feelings now, after this lapse of time, in relation to that name. If he had learned in the lapse of years to forgive the man he injured and overreached, if he had grown to feel some touch of remorseful pity for the supplanted son, what a happiness it would be to fall on her knees at his feet and confess the secret of her life, to be pardoned for her duplicity, set free from the

Starting point is 03:01:23 the toil and trouble of falsehood, able to call her proud young husband back to her side and to begin life again, honest, in the side of man and at peace with God. She is continually musing upon this question and would give much for an opportunity of sounding her uncle's feelings. It comes one day unawares, and she has no longer need to speculate or wonder about Stephen Trenchard's sentiments upon the subject of an old enemy. It is a drowsy July afternoon. The summer is at its hottest, and Mr. Trenchard and his niece are sitting on the lawn after that elaborate meal, half breakfast, half luncheon, which the Anglo-Indian calls Tiffin.

Starting point is 03:02:09 The lawn behind Lancaster Lodge is a delightful place on a warm summer day, three or four old elms, a spreading cedar, a Spanish chestnut, and a couple of of noble plane trees afford abundant shade. The grass is smooth as velvet. Garden chairs low and luxurious are dotted about under the trees. Newspapers and Sybil's work basket bestrew the light iron table. Changing lights and shadows flit and flicker among the leaves and Stephen Trenchard's lean figure stretched to its full length reposes at ease on a bamboo reclining chair, a glass of potash water on one side of him, a cigar case on the other. Sybil is reading to him out of yesterday's times when he interrupts her with a sudden sigh which is almost agron. What is the

Starting point is 03:03:04 matter, Uncle Stephen? You had better leave off. Even your soft voice irritates me. Your nervous headache not gone yet, Uncle Stephen? Gone. It's worse than ever. This English summer is more oppressive than Indian heat, or it seems so to me at any rate. Sybil searches in the little work basket lined with blue satin, fishes out a silver, stoppered scent bottle, and is on her knees by her uncle's side in a moment, dabbing his yellow forehead with her handkerchief, steeped in Ode-Cologne. Thank you, my dear, that will do. I don't care about it. He gives her an impatient little push, as disapproving so much fuss, but not before she has disarranged one of those terrier ear wisps of iron gray hair and has been startled by a scar which

Starting point is 03:03:57 disfigures the forehead beneath it a long narrow seam which crosses the temple diagonally just below the roots of the hair uncle stephen were you ever in battle battle child what nonsense of course not or in a mutiny or anything, how did you get this dreadful scar? From the foul blow of a scoundrel, answered Stephen Trenchard, deadly pale, from the man who lamed me for life, did you never hear your mother speak of Philip's secretan? Yes, Uncle Stephen, I have heard her say that he treated you very badly. Oh, she owned as much, did she? The world in general would have it that I used him badly, that I had no right to the money his father left me, a paltry 30,000, that I ought to have stood on

Starting point is 03:04:50 one side and said, no, blood is thicker than water. You've been an idler and a profligate, a bad son, the business would have gone to wreck and ruin if it had been left to you to save it. I've toiled, I've slaved, I've planned and plotted, I've borne the heat and burden of the day. But still, you are the son, and you've a right to come in at the 11th hour, and rob me of my just reward simply because you are the son. That's what the world would have had me do in the high and mighty justice it is, so good at dealing out for other people, and so bad at yielding on its own account. Some went so far as to say that the will was forged, and I was the forger. Luckily for me, old Mr. Secretan had published his intention of

Starting point is 03:05:39 disinheriting his son and making me his heir the year of the great Manchester failures when his house tottered, and I had the luck to save it by a desperate stroke of business. He was very fond of you, I suppose, this old Mr. Secretan, asked Sybil breathlessly. Fond of me? Yes, perhaps as much as it was in his nature to be fond of anything except money. He hated his son, knowing that he was a spendthrift, and would squander every shilling the old man had toiled for. He trusted me. He looked up to me. If you were my son, he used to say, I shouldn't be tortured by the thought this business would go to ruin when I'm in my grave. The day he said that for the first time I made up my mind that I was to be his heir.

Starting point is 03:06:32 Phillips Follies and Vices helped me, but my own patience and industry were the chief agents. and there was a quarrel between you and philip secretan asked sybil seated on the grass and plucking up little tufts of it nervously as she watches her uncle's vindictive face with eager eyes reading doom there yes when the will had been read and he knew the worst he ought to have expected it if he had a grain of sense philip secretan followed me out into the grounds his father's house was a few miles outside manchester a fine old place enough but neglected. The old man was too fond of money to spend much on house or gardens. Philip followed me to the back of the grounds where there was a wild bit of shrubbery and a hollow that had once been a stone quarry and which had been left either because people didn't care about the expense of filling it or because they fancied it was picturesque. In any case, it was dangerous and an abomination that ought to have been done away with. Well, I was close to

Starting point is 03:07:39 the edge of this hollow, there being a shortcut to the Manchester Road just beyond it, when Philip overtook me, he didn't spare me, I can tell you, for apart from the money question, there was an old sore between us. The girl he wanted to marry had done me the honor to prefer his father's confidential clerk. She was a sensible girl, and saw the point to which our lives were drifting. When he had called me reptile and a few other equally agreeable names, finding that he couldn't sting me into retaliation by abuse of that kind, he came close up to me and struck me across the face with his open hand. There, cur, he cried, and let's see if that will warm your fish's blood into manly feeling. I had been in a burning rage all the time at his

Starting point is 03:08:29 insolence, but had held myself in check, in pity for his disappointment, which was hard to bear, no doubt, richly as he had deserved it, I was a man, and the shame of a blow was too much even for my sluggish temper, trained to patience by long servitude. I closed with him, and we wrestled together on that path by the quarry. Now mark the cowardice of this fine gentleman who boasted of his honor and called me a sneak and reptile. He was twice my match in weight and size, three times my match in training, a practiced athlete, a skilled boxer, every muscle developed by exercise. To use his force against mine was simply murder. I was the shuttlecock and he the battle door. I had a confused sense of blows raining on my head as from a Nazmuth's hammer, colored sparks

Starting point is 03:09:27 dancing before my eyes, fire shooting out of my brain, and then I was hurled bodily into the air and fell crashing through the brushwood into the quarry. It seemed like falling from the highest cliff that breasts the Atlantic. How dreadful, says Sybil, with a gasp. It was deep in the night when I awoke and the stars were shining. I wondered where I was and how I came to see the pole star looking straight down at me. Pain came before memory, acute agonizing pain, and then I knew that my leg had been shattered somehow. I lay in the quarry till past eight o'clock next morning, suffering indescribable torture. At last, however, some laborers heard my faint cries for help, found me, and carried me to the nearest roadside inn, whence I was conveyed to the Manchester Infirmary.

Starting point is 03:10:22 Here I lay for five months, the most miserable months of my life, while the fractured bones united. It was a compound fracture, and for some time I was threatened with amputation. When I rose in the hospital bed, I was lame for life. The broken leg had contracted in the process of healing. Surgery had done its best for me and had saved my leg, but surgery left me a cripple, for which lifelong injury I had to thank Philip Sectoran. I had to thank him for something else, too, for the girl who had pretended to love me, chose this time for throwing me over and making a better match.

Starting point is 03:11:07 And in those weary months lying on your bed of pain, you learned to forgive your enemy, suggests Sybil very gently. Learn to forgive him. Yes, if forgiveness means undying hatred, if forgiveness means the rankling memory of an unatonable wrong, if forgiveness means to remember him and curse him every time. a change of wind brings back the old grinding pain in this crippled limb, if that means forgiveness, Philip Sectoran and his race are forgiven. His race, Fultor Sibyl, you could feel no rancor against his children. I could, I do, answers the old man vindictively. Let no viper of that blood cross my path.

Starting point is 03:11:56 The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. There's scripture for you. I believe in that good old heathen creed one reads of in Greek legends of an accursed race. Of Philip's secretans after career, I know little or nothing. He had the devil's luck as well as his own and married a woman with money, soon after his father's death, but I never heard what became of him. He may be living or dead. If he lives, let him keep out of my way. if he has left children, my dearest hope is that they are penniless, homeless, street Arabs, whose playground is the gutter, whose ultimate destiny is the gallows. Uncle, for mercy's sake! My cursed light on him and his seed to the third generation,

Starting point is 03:12:47 their child, don't cry, you should have known better than to tempt me to talk of Philip's Secretan. End of Chapter 11. Chapter 12 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Libravox.org

Starting point is 03:13:18 Recording by Mary Herndon Bell Dead Men's Shoes By Mary Elizabeth Braden Chapter 12 Love then had hope had hope of richer store. After that summer day under the plain trees, Sybil utters the name of secretan no more.

Starting point is 03:13:43 Hope of relenting on her uncle's part, there is none. If Alexis could forgive the man, who in his version of the story, came basely between father and son to cheat the son of his heritage and trick the lover out of his mistress, Stephen Trencher's stubborn soul would still remain. unsoftened. Reconciliation between these two was impossible. To retain her

Starting point is 03:14:11 uncle's favor and inherit a portion of his wealth, Sybil must keep the secret of her marriage. A painful part to play, even for a mind not untrained in deceit. But a necessary part, Sybil tells herself. A difficult game, but for a stake well worth the winning. She has no exact measure of her uncle's possessions. He has never talked to her of his investments or told her his income. But she has a fixed idea that his wealth is almost without limit. That, like the Rothschilds or the Duke of Westminster, he could scarcely state the sum total of his riches if he were asked for exact figures. His fortune, his fortune is a rolling mass of gold, she supposes,

Starting point is 03:15:04 which grows larger at every turn like a snowball. The respects he sees paid to him by the elect of Red Castle establishes her in this conviction of Stephen Trenchard's importance, for she knows that in this case, importance can only mean money. Lancaster Lodge is one of those handsomely finished, solidly built houses which adorn the outskirts of every country town, and are like temples dedicated to the genius of commonplace. Houses in which the butler's pantry has been as carefully considered as the drawing room,

Starting point is 03:15:46 and in which my lady's boudoir is just as unlovely as John Thomas's attic under the leads. All the principal rooms are large and square and loft. The passages are broad and straight. The staircase is well proportioned, ventilated, and lighted to perfection. Impossible to find fault with a house, which, as the house agent proudly puts it, possesses all the requirements for a gentleman's family. Equally impossible to feel the slightest interest in a mansion which neither awes by its splendor nor attracts by its eccentricity,

Starting point is 03:16:28 nor charms by the lowlier graces of humbliness and simplicity. A coffin descending that mathematical staircase would loose its awfulness in the pervading atmosphere of commonplace. A cradle in any of those rooms would seem to have lost its way and wandered into a desert where baby life could not endure. No sadly sweet fancies of domestic joys that are no more, entwined themselves about this dwelling of Stephen Trenchard's. It looks like what it is, an old bachelor's house, and Mr. Trenchard could hardly have chosen

Starting point is 03:17:12 a habitation more completely in harmony with his own character. The Red Castle, a polsterer, a man whose stock in trade appears to consist of two easy chairs and a sideboard, but who can do good. things at a push, has furnished Lancaster Lodge with appropriate splendor. All is solid and grandiose. Dark crimson draperies. Velvite in the dining room and library. Satin brocade in the drawing room. Subdue the garish light and give a sombre grandeur to the rooms. Heavy oak furniture, thickest turkey and Persian carpets, varied spoil of of carved black wood, ivory, porcelain, and Bombay inlaid work, which Mr. Trenchard has brought home with him from India.

Starting point is 03:18:07 Everywhere, the evidence of wealth. To Sybil, the house seems simply perfect. Its luxury, its soft, silent splendor contrasts so pleasantly with the humble homelessness of her Uncle Robert's old-fashioned low-ceiling rooms. The stealthy-footed footed footman, who's spend so much of his time looking at nothing in particular out of the hall window, that he grows sedentary in his habits and fancies he has disease of the heart. The ponderous butler in his glossy black suit and irreproachable white tie. The smart maid servants in crisp, starched cambric, tight-waisted, prim, supercilious, as if Mr. Trenchard's importance as the richest man in Redcastle, shed reflected glory upon them.

Starting point is 03:19:02 The household has an air of quiet dignity, which impresses Sybil wonderfully. Her soul reposes itself in this land of fatness. She looks back at her life in Dixon Street, its one room, its manifold privations, veritable starvation, hovering near like the wan specter of approaching doom. And the change seems too wonderful for anything,

Starting point is 03:19:28 but a dream. Does she think of the husband who shared her poverty, whom she abandoned to endure misfortune alone, deserted in the darkest hour of their wedded life? What does she not think of him? Memory and regret are interwoven with the fabric of her life. She consoles herself, justifies her desertion of Alexis by the idea that life must have been made easy to him by their separation. As a married man with a helpless wife to provide for, he was like a vessel waterlogged. Relieved of that burden, he is the same ship free to sail for any port in quest of fortune. One night, in the solitude of her prettily furnished bedroom, all rose-colored chintz and shining maple, furnished especially for a young lady's occupation at Mr. Trenchard's order.

Starting point is 03:20:29 Sybil takes out an insignificant paper-covered book from among her most sacred possessions and opens it with a hand that trembles a little as she sits alone in the lamplight. It is like opening the grave of the past. That little six-penny book is the diary she kept at Mrs. Hazeltons, her brief love story. Tearfully, sorrowfully, she reads that record of her first and only love. The story of a time when in singleness of mind and simplicity,

Starting point is 03:21:06 she surrendered her heart to its conqueror. I love him, I love him, I love him. She reads, almost blinded by tears. She remembers the gush of passionate feeling with which those foolish words were written. And one little year, after I wrote that line, I deserted him. She says to herself,

Starting point is 03:21:33 wondering at her own hardness of heart. What a fool I must have been when I wrote this book. This is her verdict as she closes the volume. Yet she feels as if it were the best and brightest part of her life in which those foolish pages were written, and that she was happier in those days than she is now, although she has become a personage in Redcastle. She looks around her room, wonderingly,

Starting point is 03:22:03 glancing at the maple wardrobe, which contains so many pretty dresses, such a treasury of ribbons and lace, and the frivolities women love. Would I exchange all this, and the hope of a fortune from my uncle, for the dismal second-flict, schoolroom at Mrs. Hazeltons, and the freshness and sweetness of first love, she asked herself.

Starting point is 03:22:29 And for a moment, it seems to her that could a good fairy give her back the days that are no more, she would be a gainer by the exchange. If she could know that her husband was safe and well, that he had prospered since she left him, or that things had gone tolerably well with him, she might feel more at ease than she does. But she knows nothing of what has happened to him since the beginning of the year when he was seen at Red Castle, a dismal apparition.

Starting point is 03:23:02 And of this appearance of his, she only hears by chance, a few days after her perusal of her diary from no less a person than her younger sister Jane. Otherwise, Jenny. Sybil is spending the day with her Uncle Robert, a visit which ranks as a condescension, now that she is on intimate terms, with the stormonts, the Grotians, Dr. Mitson, and, in a word, the elite of Redcastle.

Starting point is 03:23:32 She is received by her indulgent old uncle with all honor. Hester prepares an extra good dinner, a dainty little loin of veal, and a curry of yesterday's roast mutton, followed by the unwanted extravagance, of a tart and a pudding. Marion sees this relaxation of the economic bow with certain sniffings and bridlings indicative of suppressed indignation. I never knew such a time server as Hester,

Starting point is 03:24:05 she remarks, as she surveys the table laid as for a feast, a clean tablecloth in the middle of the week, almonds and raisins for dessert, an altogether ruinous expenditure. She didn't make this fuss about you when you were at home, and now she pays her court to the heiress elect. No more an heiress elect than you or Jenny, I should imagine, replies Sybil lightly. I think it is pretty clear that Uncle Trenchard means to leave his money among us, though he has not said as much.

Starting point is 03:24:41 Yes, and the lion's share to you no doubt, though he has known me the longest, says Marion snappishly. "'A precious sight of his money I'm likely to get, when he never so much as asked me to go and see him,' observes Jenny. Whereupon both sisters swooped down upon her in denunciation of such a noun of quantity as a precious sight. "'Where do you pick up your language, child?' cries Sybil. "'Not in the streets, surely, since Marion teaches you, and you have no occasion to be running about.' A fat lot Marion teaches me, says the incorrigible child. She nags at me for an hour and a half by the kitchen clock every morning,

Starting point is 03:25:28 and calls that education. Pray, in what addition of Lindley Murray do you find the verb to nag? Demands Marion, with the air of a pedagogue. It's as good a verb as any other. I nag, thou naggest, he or she nag. generally she or take it in Latin if you like nago nagas nagat nagamas nagattis nagant first conjugation perfect nagavi i am afraid that jane has rather an unruly temper remarks dr faunthorpe mildly oh of course it's jane marion is never aggravating you don't find me unruly do you uncle jane Jane adds coaxingly, as she sidles up to the gentle, easy-tempered little doctor, who has gone through life placidly bearing other people's burdens,

Starting point is 03:26:30 and has never murmured, against a destiny that has waited him with three orphan nieces. Later in the afternoon, Sybil and Jane are alone together in the garden, Marian having lost her temper at Croquet and left them to themselves. The little bit of grass upon which they play is not many sizes bigger than the billiard table at Lancaster House. The balls and mallets are in the last stage of shabbiness and chipped into icosahedrons. You must both come to afternoon tea tomorrow if it's fine

Starting point is 03:27:09 and play croquet on Uncle Trenchard's lawn, says Sybil condescendingly, as if she were inviting them to her own house. house. Perhaps this patronizing invitation has something to do with Marion's loss of temper five minutes afterwards when Jenny sends her ball into a distant cabbage bed. The sources of bad humor are more often complex than simple. It is a warm September afternoon, one of those days in which people inclined to sitting in gardens rather than walking on dusty high roads. Sibyl sits on the grass as she was want to do three years ago, before she was anybody's heiress. Jenny sprawls with an appalling display

Starting point is 03:27:56 of legs and boots and rusty bootlaces at her sister's side. Now, Sybil, she says eagerly, tell us about the parties you go to. Pray, who is your companion? inquires Sybil with a contemptuous droop of her heavy eyelids. I see no one here but yourself. I don't know what you mean, says Jane, staring. No more do I, when you say tell us. Oh, Lord, as if it mattered. You are as bad as Marion. Now do be nice, Sib, for once in a way,

Starting point is 03:28:36 and tell me what it's like going to the Stormonts. Only fancy you've been asked there ever so many times, and to think how often I've passed their door when we've been out for walks, and the inside of it has seemed as far off as heaven. Further, indeed, for they say we're sure to go to heaven if we're good, but we're not sure of going to the stormonts unless we're rich. What's it like, Sibb? Do tell. Well, they live in a house, as you know, since you've seen the outside of it,

Starting point is 03:29:11 and they eat their dinner at a table, just as we do, and they are rather stupid after dinner, and the ladies go up into the drawing-room and talk about other people who are not there, and a little about the minister and the clergyman and the schools, and look at one another's dresses. I can see them count the flounces of my dress sometimes, and actually take the pattern of it under my nose,

Starting point is 03:29:36 which I consider an impertinence. Is it nice going to grand dinners? Ask Jane breathlessly. Yes, I suppose so. It's rather a mild kind of enjoyment. It doesn't quicken one's pulse by a single throb. It isn't like riding a good horse or seeing a race, or hearing a great singer, or even getting a good break at billiards.

Starting point is 03:30:04 There's no excitement, no elation. But one feels one is doing the right kind of thing, that this is what one was born for. Are the dinner's nice? inquires Jenny, licking her lips gluttonously. They are very grand, replied Sybil. I don't know that I should care about Vula va la financier or Petty Timble du Jibia

Starting point is 03:30:31 for a continuance, and with so many made dishes, one has the idea that one is eating up all the coal meat that has accumulated in the last week. and one gets rather tired of seeing saddle of mutton and boiled fowls everywhere. For whether you call fowls, poulaye a la bechamel, are capons on demi da ville. They are very much the same birds. Capons in half morning? That is funny.

Starting point is 03:31:03 Do you know what my favorite dinner is, Sib? Bullock's heart with veal stuffing and current jelly. Do you ever have that at Colonel Stormont's? You must never mention such a dish, Jenny. It's positively revolting. But you used to like it, and liver and bacon and sheep's head with parsley and butter. But never mind your dinners. Tell me about your bow.

Starting point is 03:31:32 Marion says that young Mr. Stormont was in love with her until you lured him away. Marion is a fool. You must have lots of lovers now that you go into such grand society, Sib, because you are the beauty of the family, you know. We all know that, and that's what makes Marion so cross sometimes. I'm nobody, she says, and then she squeezes her waist in another half-inch, and fancy she has got the better of you. She's awfully proud of her figure, you know.

Starting point is 03:32:06 You mustn't talk disrespectfully of your elder sister, Jenny, remonstrates Sibble, yawning. The plebeian two o'clock dinner, and the game of croquet in the afternoon sun had made her sleepy. Then I won't talk of her at all. Tell me about your lovers, Sib. That's a deal more interesting.

Starting point is 03:32:27 Nonsense, child. I have no lovers. But you had one once. Yes, I saw somebody who was in love with you once, though he must have gone down in the world dreadfully, since you had had anything to say to him, for he looked little better than a beggar when I saw him. Sybil has sunk into a reclining attitude with half-closed eyes, and is dropping into a gentle doze. But at this speech of Jane's, she starts into a sitting posture again and looks intently at her sister, very pale.

Starting point is 03:33:03 What do you mean? she cries. What was he like? Where did you see him? When? Tell me all about it this instant. Ah, I see you know the person I speak of. You wouldn't be in such a way if you didn't. How pale you are, Sybil. Do you care for him very much? Will you tell me what you are talking about, child? exclaimed Sybil passionately.

Starting point is 03:33:28 Jane begins her story with deliberation and importance. I have always kept it a secret, she prefaces, feeling that it might get you into a rotechew with Uncle and Marion. And I've wanted to tell you about it ever since you came home, but I've never had a chance of being alone with you till this afternoon.

Starting point is 03:33:49 For goodness sake, go on. What was the man like? Very handsome and noble-looking, though his clothes were dreadfully shabby. His coat was shabbier than uncles, snuff and all. But it looked as if it had been a more gentlemanly coat in its day.

Starting point is 03:34:08 And as for his poor boots, it made my heart bleed to see them. I wanted to give him my new shilling. One Uncle Robert gave me on Christmas Day, for it was the day after New Year's day that I saw the man, you know. I know nothing. Never mind how you came by the shilling. But he pushed away my hand gently and said, No, my dear, I'm not a beggar, though I dare say I look like one. "'Poor fellow,' sighed Sybil.

Starting point is 03:34:40 "'Oh, Sybil, I did feel so ashamed of myself "'for having offered him that shilling. "'Ever so much ashameder than he did,' adds Jenny, "'coining a comparative in the impetuosity of her speech. "'Can't you tell me about it straight, beginning at the beginning? "'Demand Sibyl impatiently.' "'Well, it was the day after New Year's day. I detest New Year's Day, church in the morning, and dullness in the afternoon.

Starting point is 03:35:12 And I came into the garden to have a run all by myself, and to get out of Marion's way. It was a little after four between the lights, you know, in a wretchedly cold afternoon. Well, you know the lane at the bottom of the garden. Of course, says Sybil, with an involuntary glance in that direction. Beyond the plot of Lucerne, there is a low, wall, and on the other side of the wall, an accommodation road leading to a neighboring farm. Well, he was there, looking over the wall, and he beckoned to me. I was afraid at first, thinking he might be a robber, but, as I had nothing but my hoop to

Starting point is 03:35:55 be robbed of, I went up to the wall to look at him, and then I saw, somehow in a moment, that he was a gentleman, though I'm sure you wouldn't have given tupper. for his hat. What did he say? He asked me if my name was Fonthorpe, and then if I had a sister called Sybil. Yes, says I, but she's away in London.

Starting point is 03:36:22 Where? says he. At Mrs. Hazeltons, Laothar Street, Eccleston Square, says I. Is that all you know about her? Says he. What more can you? can I know about her, says I.

Starting point is 03:36:38 She's very happy, I believe, and she's very well. At least she was when Uncle heard from her last. When was that, says he? About three weeks ago, says I. And then he sighed heavily, and he looked so white and tired that I pitied him with all my heart. Poor fellow! sighed Sybil again.

Starting point is 03:37:04 Ah, you do know him. then, cries Jane. How can I tell? He didn't give you his name, I suppose. Not a bit of it. He asked me a lot of questions about you. Did we expect you home soon? And so on. But I could tell him no more than I had told him at first. You were at Mrs. Hazeltons, and you were likely to stay there for anything I knew. I didn't know that Uncle Robert wanted you to come home at that time. They don't take me into their confidence. You didn't mention Uncle Trenchard, asked Sybil with a scared look.

Starting point is 03:37:44 Of course not. Why should I go and mention our rich uncle to a wandering tramp that might go and steal his plate? At least I don't mean that, for when once I heard the poor thing speak, it never entered my mind that he was anything but a gentleman.

Starting point is 03:38:03 Who is he, Sybil? Do tell me. someone who fell in love with you in london saw you go by in mrs hazelton's carriage perhaps and fell in love with you at first sight and followed you about everywhere and neglected his profession and went to the dogs for your sake do tell me all about him how do i know who the man was said sybil absently there is no shadow of doubt in her mind this wanderer was her husband and had come to redcastle in question of her. I'll describe him if you like. I can see him before me at this moment. He is tall and dark with rather large features, regular features, but striking. Not one of those straight-nosed wax-worked faces one sees in the hairdresser's shop. His lower lip projects a little, which gives him a rather scornful look till he smiles, and then he has the kindest expression.

Starting point is 03:39:06 Dear child, he said, and patted my shoulder so kindly. You are just a little like your sister when you look up at me as you are looking now. You won't think that a compliment, I know, Sib, but he said it. Who is he, Sibb? Do tell me. I have not the remotest idea, replies Sibble with provoking indifference. Come now, you wouldn't have been so agitated when I spoke about him if you hadn't guessed who he was. I was not agitated, says Sybil, pretending to yawn. Oh, very well, if you like to tell Krammers, of course I can't help it.

Starting point is 03:39:48 My experience of elder sisters is that they may break all the commandments with impunity and drive a coach and six through the catechism. I think they wash their hands of Christianity when they're confirmed. Jane, you are not only blasphemous, but you're not only blasphemous, but you're extremely impertinent to me, exclaimed Sybil. Well, if that's all I get for keeping your secrets. That was wise of you at any rate, Jenny, says Sybil, making haste to relent. Marion would have made no end of mischief out of nothing.

Starting point is 03:40:24 Never mind the man in the lane, dear. We'll forget all about him. He was some foolish fellow, no doubt. And if you'd like a new frock for Sunday, Jenny, you shall have that pretty checked peach-colored silk of mine, and I'll get Miss Islet to make it up for you. Oh, you dear, cries Jane,

Starting point is 03:40:45 crimsoning with rapture. That lovely peach-color. How sweet I shall look, if, with a doubtful look at her well-worn boots, if Uncle Robert will only give me new boots. If he won't, I know somebody else who will. And Jenny, if you can, can contrive to keep your hair a little smoother and your hands a shade cleaner, you wouldn't be

Starting point is 03:41:10 the worst-looking child in Red Castle, says Sybil, drawing her younger sister towards her, and bestowing a condescending kiss upon that young person's forehead. Now mind, when you come to afternoon tea with me tomorrow, you make yourself look as nice as ever you can. I'll do my best, Sib, but I know I shall feel shabby before those stubs. up servants. When is Uncle Trenchard going to have Marion to stay with him again, do you think? I don't know. That's a question I can't ask him, you see. I suppose not. But Marion's rather cut up at his not inviting her, you know. I say Sibb, I fancy Marion's nose is out of joint

Starting point is 03:41:56 since you've come home. Sybil smiles, a self-satisfied smile. She is very sure of her uncle's preference, knows quite well that he considers Marion something of a simpleton, and not a little of a bore. It isn't my fault, Jenny, if Uncle Trenchard likes me best, she says complacently. The sisters go into tea after this, Jenny with her arm around Sybil's waist. I say, Sib, when you're married and have a beautiful house of your own, you'll have me to stay with you sometimes, won't you? I'll be good and keep my hair tidy. I mean never to marry Jane, at least not during Uncle Trencher's lifetime. I mean to keep his house for him, always. But he may live to be 90, 20 years to come, and a nice old woman you'll be by that time. Who'd have you

Starting point is 03:42:56 then? You ought to marry now, Sib, while you have such advantages. That's what Uncle Robert says. do be married soon that's a dear and let me be your bridesmaid in white muslin over pink silk is frederick stormont very nice he's absolutely detestable replies sybil and immediately without rhyme or reason burst into tears she is thinking of the fond and faithful husband who came to redcastle in quest of her and departed hopeless where is he what is he doing how has he fared since that bleak january afternoon when he found his journey had been useless starving perhaps or worse dead slain by his own hand in some dark hour of despair has she not reason to fear the worst of one she left without hope three days later by the help of her old ally mrs hazelton's housemaid Jane Diamond. Sybil contrives to insert the following advertisement in the second column of the Times supplement. SS to Alexis. You are not forgotten. In all I do, I am faithful to you and your interests. I look forward to our reunion. Wait and hope as I do. Write and tell me where

Starting point is 03:44:26 you are and what you are doing. Address SS. Post Office, Hale Street, Pimlico. This advertisement is inserted three times, and the Housemaid inquires diligently at the Hale Street Post Office during the following fortnight for a letter to be addressed to SS. No such letter comes, and Sybil's vague fears of evil are intensified by this ominence, silence. End of Chapter 12.

Starting point is 03:45:02 Chapter 13 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Mary Herndon Bell. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braden. Chapter 13 The Sweets of Life

Starting point is 03:45:45 Not a word has been said by Mr. Trenchard as to his testamentary intentions in reference to his three nieces. But in the mind of Redcastle, it is an established fact that Sybil is to inherit the bulk of her uncle's property. The other two girls will get something, no doubt,

Starting point is 03:46:08 Mrs. Stormont remarks obligingly to Mrs. Gross the banker's wife, as these two ladies take their afternoon tea together ceremoniously in the stormont drawing-room, a spacious apartment with a good deal of white paneling, gold molding, and looking glass, and not much besides in the way of furniture, a barren tract of Brussels carpet with an islet here and there in the shape of sofa, ottoman, or coffee table. The other two girls will get something, of course. Two hundred a year each, perhaps, and a very nice income, too, for young women not likely to marry. But mark my words, Mrs. Groshen, Sybil is the heiress.

Starting point is 03:46:56 Mr. Trenchard positively dotes upon her. Do you think her pretty? Ask the banker's wife languidly. She has been esteemed a beauty in her time. on the strength of an aquiline nose and a large pale blue eye, and she does not particularly approve of these new lights. Well, yes, decidedly pretty in her peculiar style. Features rather too sharp, perhaps, and a sad want of color.

Starting point is 03:47:30 The Miss Stormonts rejoice in vivid complexions, but she has fine eyes. Yes. Fine eyes, a sense, Mrs. Groshen. Though I cannot say I like their expression. No more do I, says Mrs. Groshen warmly. Perhaps the nicest thing about her is her manner. She has really charming manners.

Starting point is 03:47:57 Yes, very agreeable manners, drawls Mrs. Groshen. If they were not so painfully artificial. That's the very thing that's the very thing that struck me, says Mrs. Groshen, brightening. The banker's wife, Russell's home, in her silk attire, and tells Mr. Groshen at dinner how the stormonts are trying to catch Mr. Trenchard's niece for their empty-headed son, Frederick. This Mr. Trenchard is very rich, I suppose, she says interrogatively. Enormously, I wish he'd keep an account with us, replies the bank.

Starting point is 03:48:38 her. Sibyl accepts all the homage Redcastle can offer her with a tranquillity which raises her not a little in the estimation of the elite. She takes Mrs. Stormont's somewhat oppressive kindness as a matter of course, and is unawed by the splendor of the Groshen's dinner table, which for plate, china, glass, floral decoration, and hot-house fruit takes precedence of other tables in Redcastle. i don't pretend to do things as mrs groshen does the red castle matrons inform one another apologetically we can't all be bankers mrs stormont volunteers her services in escorting sibyl to concerts and other local entertainments which a man of mr trenchard's age may not care to patronize stephen trenchard is quite willing that sibyl should take advantage of these friendly offers but to his surprise, and perhaps gratification, the girl refuses. I am very fond of music, Uncle Trenchard, she says, but I shall not go out of an evening without you. That would be a pretty way of keeping you company.

Starting point is 03:49:56 But, my dear, there is some difference between 70 and 20. Crabbed age and youth cannot dwell together. Or, if they do, youth must have a hot. holiday now and then. You are not crabbed, and I am very happy with you, answer Sybil. Flatterer, exclaimed Stephen Trenchard, not the less pleased. Artful hussy, thinks Mrs. Stormont, and by and by in the course of that cutting and wounding which passes for conversation in Redcastle, that lady informs Mrs. Groshen

Starting point is 03:50:34 that Sybil Thonthorpe is one of the deepest girls it was ever her fate to encounter. She'll have that old man's money, my dear, every sixpence, says Mrs. Stormont emphatically. Then your Fred ought to have her. Why, you see, my dear, these Fonthorps are people of no family. Do you mean that he has asked her and been refused, remarks Mrs. Groshen astutely? i don't think a stormont is likely to find himself rejected by a parish doctor's niece replies the colonel's wife with suppressed indignation as to mr trenchard's fortune it is nothing to boast of after all it has all come from trade this is a thrust at the banking business i fancy that is the source of most people's money nowadays returns mrs groshen blandly professional men seldom seem to have much hereupon the two ladies having indulged in a few friendly passes on their own account returned to the slaughter of the absent and kiss each other affectionately at parting

Starting point is 03:51:50 sybil's dissipations are therefore by her own desire confined to those festivities in which mr trenchard is bidden and which take the dignified and substantive form of dinners no one can think of inviting the master of lancaster lodge to come in in the evening dinners of first quality a one at lloyds are those to which mr trenchard is bidden and very splendid are the banquets with which at longish intervals he gratifies his friends in return wonderful is the regard which red castle has for mr trenchard and its eagerness to win and retain his friend's friendship. It is not to be supposed that the elite have any expectation of profiting in a direct manner by his wealth. They have none, but they like to adorn their table with a rich man. They like to put him forward as one of their best friends, and to know that less privileged people are smitten with envy. They invite him very much for the same reason that they buy costly fruit out of season, and waxen blossoms from the hot house instead of homely roses ripened in the sun.

Starting point is 03:53:10 He reflects honor and glory upon themselves. It is a distinction to be on intimate terms with so much money. Mr. Trenchard's Red Castle friends brag about his wealth as if it were their own. Smack their lips as they tell each other his income and that he has never less than 50, thousand at call, in case some sudden opportunity for a stroke of business should crop up in Calcutta. Has Stephen Trenchard told his new friends the amount of his income are the sum he keeps uninvested? Hardly, for he is the most reticent of men as to his own affairs. But Redcastle has a knack of evolving facts about other people's business out of its inner consciousness. A year

Starting point is 03:54:04 has slipped away, unawares almost, it seems to Sybil, despite lurking pangs of remorse, silent hours given to regret. Life at Lancaster Lodge is such an easy thing. It is so pleasant to have everything one desires, to be praised and petted and invited here, there, and everywhere, and to refuse the most flattering invitations upon the last fashionable absurdity in note paper. Pleasant, in a word, to be Miss Fawnthorpe of Lancaster Lodge, instead of Miss Fawnthorpe of nowhere. There is something of the lotus eaters dreamy-eyed less assuredly in this reposeful existence at Lancaster Lodge. conscience has been lapped asleep before the year is out, and Sybil has persuaded herself that Alexis Secretan has carved his way to independence somehow or other, and is getting on very well

Starting point is 03:55:09 indeed in some distant quarter of the globe. Whence he will doubtless return by some happy conjuncture of events soon after Uncle Trencher's death, which calamity in the course of nature will come to pass in a few years. And then we shall both be amply rewarded for the sacrifice we have made in this separation. Muses Sybil, as if the separation had been a voluntary one on her husband's side, as well as her own.

Starting point is 03:55:41 Mr. Trenchard takes life tolerably easily, considering that he has his own way in everything, an indulgence which acts as an irritant upon some disposition. He is feared and obeyed in his own house, flattered and caressed out of it. His servants work for him as no other man's servants work and obey and tremble at his footstep.

Starting point is 03:56:09 He accepts all that Redcastle can give him, dines out a good deal among the elite, tells his prosy old Indian stories again and again to listeners who always laugh in the right places. he enjoys the homage offered to his wealth and chuckles over the weakness of his flatterers as he drives home with his niece if my name were in the gazette next wednesday morning before wednesday night i should be friendless he says and the people we have dined with this evening would be gloating over my downfall oh uncle they would be sorry surely exclaimed sybil more for the sake of conversation than from any belief in the good-heartedness of her friends sorry that they had been taken in that they had mistaken a poor man for a rich one no doubt but for me not a wit society in a place like red castle is made up on the co-operative system is a club to which a man is admitted upon certain understood conditions the first of these is that he should be

Starting point is 03:57:21 well off. Luckily, you are never likely to put our friends to the test, says Sybil. Of course not. And in the meanwhile, there's no harm in calling them friends. One name does as well as another when you are talking of unrealities. The year has gone, and Marion has not been asked to stay with her uncle Trenchard, a fact which she resents bitterly and ascribes to double dealing on the part of Sybil. She has been at Lancaster Lodge tolerably often, but only as Sybil's visitor. And although she accepts all Sybil's invitations, it is almost unbearable to be invited

Starting point is 03:58:05 and patronized by a sister. Sybil has established herself as Mr. Trenchard's adopted daughter. He coolly declares that she suits him better than Marion, and that she is to keep his house till she marries. I suppose I must have made myself very disagreeable to him. In the three months I spent here, remarks Mary in one bright April afternoon, digging her croquet ball into the ground with misused energy. She has come to spend the afternoon with Sybil. Oh no, dear, I don't think it was so bad as that, replies Sybil graciously. But you didn't succeed in making yourself agreeable to him. I know. I know. I I made myself a perfect slave, complains the injured Marion,

Starting point is 03:58:55 toasting his newspapers and running for his slippers and peeling walnuts for him until my fingers were black. I'm sure I don't know what he wants, the nasty old thing. No, really, Marion, I can't consent to hear the best of uncles called names. On his own croquet lawn, too.

Starting point is 03:59:17 Very much the best of uncles for you. but give me Uncle Robert. Well, my dear, you've got him. Haven't I left you in undisturbed possession of our paternal uncle? All I can say is that it is positive injustice, murmurs Marion as the game proceeds. Frederick Stormont strolls in five minutes afterwards and takes a mallet,

Starting point is 03:59:46 whereupon the sisters become all smiles and graciousness. he goes in to afternoon tea with them and they sit on the crimson brocade sofas sipping orange pico out of indian teacups waited on by the most accomplished of footmen and discussing the petty gossip of above and below bar an empty life assuredly but it is pleasant to sit in a handsome room almost an indoor garden in its abundance of choicest flowers a sunlit lawn beyond the open window pleasant to be dressed in the latest fashion, pleasant to be admired, even though the eyes of the admirer are pale in hue and porcine in shape. Pleasant to feel that in life's eager race one has shot ever so far ahead of one's younger sister. So at least feel Sybil, as she accepts Mr. Stormont's vapid homage, and allows Marion to be useful as her foil. Mrs. Groshen is strictly incorrect in her conjecture about this young man's wooing.

Starting point is 04:01:00 Frederick has not been rejected by Mr. Trenchard's niece. He has not yet ventured to propose to her, and when pushed hard upon the subject by his father, he always asked for time. I think she likes me, he says complacently, but by Jove. You know, it doesn't do for a man to hurry that kind of thing. You're so impatient, you see. You want a fellow to round the cape before he's got across the bay of Biscay.

Starting point is 04:01:29 Miss Fonthorpe has a great deal of reserve about her and that kind of thing, and she's just the sort of girl to throw over a fellow who proposed to her before she's quite made up her mind about liking him. She's a long time making up her mind about you, replies the colonel pensively. And upon my word, you know, Fred.

Starting point is 04:01:52 If you don't marry a woman with money, you'll have to do something for yourself. Things can't go on like this much longer. By Jove, you know, you'll have to immigrate. I don't see that there's anything you could do in England. You're too old for the Army or the Navy or the Civil Service. You'll have to try the colonies. I might do something. Kangaroo shooting in New Zealand, said Frederick meditatively.

Starting point is 04:02:20 Hang it, sir. A man can't get his living kangaroo shooting, roars the colonel. You'd better marry Trenchard's niece. She's a very jolly girl, says Fred vaguely. He would have called Electra or Antigone, Joan of Arc, or Mary Stewart Jolly. He knows no higher praise to bestow on the woman of his choice. End of Chapter 13. Chapter 14 of Dead Men's Shepard.

Starting point is 04:02:58 shoes. This is a Libervox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Mary Herndon Bell. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 14. Making ready for victory The fair spring days flit by, the violets and primroses, blue bells and windflowers fade in the copses, unseen, unknown, uncared for, saved by a few peasant children. The white blossoms of the pears, the pinky bloom of the apples, have drifted away on the light west winds like summer snow.

Starting point is 04:03:51 Ferns uncurl their tender fronds in thursday, thicket and lane, and stand up to hail the summer. The cuckoo's last call dies in the silence of the wood. The skylark's clear carol rings out above the tall green corn. Summer has come, summer has come, and the little children of Red Castle, the children of the commonality at least, wander far afield under the midday sun and lose themselves in distant woods and drain the cup of summer jostomers. joys to the dregs. The children of the elite regard summer as a period in which they wear

Starting point is 04:04:32 starched frock, find French and German grammar more than usually oppressive, and entertain hopes of going to the seaside. Sybil welcomes June and the roses with a languid greeting. That smooth, easy life has become to Paul a little on Stephen Trenchard's niece. Despite its pleasantness, it is at best a monotonous existence, and youth's eager spirit revolts against monotony. Not willingly would Sybil confess even to herself that she is tired of Lancaster Lodge, and Red Castle dinner parties, Red Castle compliments, Red Castle life altogether. She wishes that her uncle would extend the circle of his acquaintance, yet is obliged to admit that it would not be easy for him to do so.

Starting point is 04:05:24 at Redcastle. The county people have not called upon Mr. Trenchard, aloof in their fastnesses among the hills and moors, the county people refused to bow to the golden calf, hug themselves in their social privileges, and do not recognize the fact of an old gentleman having made money in India as a reason why they should go out of the beaten track to take notice of him. From their lofty region of territorial estate, They look down with an equal disdain upon professional and commercial people who live in a town and call five acres of garden and paddock land.

Starting point is 04:06:06 Stephen Trenchard's million is nothing to them, or, if they think of his wealth at all, it is with resentment as a sign of the times and an irrefutable proof that England is going to the dogs. Perhaps it is the very fact of the county people's exclusiveness which makes Sybil regard them with a certain amount of interest. Those big, broad-shouldered young men, she has seen ride past her window in the hunting season, sitting their horses much more easily than Frederick Stormont sits his chair, glorious in pink and buckskins, loud-voiced, large whiskered. Seems to her of a different race from young Grotian or young Stormont are Dr. Mitzin's pale-faced, speckled son, whose manly vigor has degenerated into brains. Mr. Twelz, the curate, are Mr. Juson, the lawyer. To her fancy, there is something grand about these sons of the soil, a rough nobility.

Starting point is 04:07:13 an outspoken contempt for the petty conventionalities which constitute the small despotism of Redcastle society. The county people are above good manners, that is to say, good manners as understood in Redcastle. The town and the county meet occasionally in the hunting field, where the county looks on with a smile at some of the town, feats in horsemanship, leaves the town three fields behind for the most part, and now and then deposits the town in ditches or hangs it out to dry on a stiff bullfinch. Twice in every year,

Starting point is 04:07:59 town and county meet on equal ground. Red Castle, small and obscure as it is in the eyes of the outer world, boast a race course, and as pretty a course in a small way as any in England. Less than a mile out of the town, on that broad open common known as Red Castle Woods, gleam the white posts of the course and the white walls of the stand, a permanent and substantial building. Red Castle has its spring and summer meeting two days on each occasion, and just the merriest two days in that part of the world. Granted that horses of much weight or prestige rarely appear at Redcastle,

Starting point is 04:08:43 The fact only leaves the ground open to the horses of the local aristocracy and makes the races so much the more interesting to Red Castle itself. Sybil has never seen a race in her life, and it is not without a struggle that she declined Mrs. Stormont's invitation to join her party at the spring meeting. Now comes the summer meeting and another invitation from the leader of Red Castle Society. rose and violet the dear girls are named after those favorite flowers five feet tan each of them and with the complexions of cookmaids rose and violet will be so disappointed if you refuse to join our party my dear sybil of course i say nothing of fred's feelings why don't you go with them child said mr trenchard when sybil reads him the letter laughing as she reads. I don't care for pleasures that you cannot share, Uncle. Nonsense, my dear. I could share this if I liked. For my part, I could never understand what people could see in a race, unless as a hazardous investment with the possibility of enormous returns. I can fancy a

Starting point is 04:10:03 bookman enjoying the races in a business-like way, but for people to sit in their carriages, to look on at other people winning or losing and call it pleasure. That passes my comprehension. I should like to see a race for once in my life, says Sybil, languishing for any novel sensation that may ruffle the mill pond of her existence. Then write and accept Mrs. Stormont's invitation, my dear. You won't think me unkind for going without you?

Starting point is 04:10:36 I should think you much more in kind if you wanted me to go with you. So it is settled. Sibble tells her dear Mrs. Stormont that she is charmed to accept her kind invitation and summons Miss Islet to immediate counsel.

Starting point is 04:10:53 She has ever so many pretty dresses in her wardrobe, but she must have something new for this occasion with a view to crushing dear violet and rose by the exhibition of a dress they have never seen before. The invitation has been given a week before the races, so there is time for preparation.

Starting point is 04:11:14 The council is a solemn one, and by the intensity of Sybil's desire to look her best, may be measured her hatred of dear Rose and Violet. Never mind, Miss Islet, she begins, after she has looked through La Foyle, and pronounced all the illustrations hideous. I must have nothing that can possibly look like a shopkeeper's wife's Sunday gown. No flaming pink or blue that people can see a mile off. Mav or a rich Violet now, suggests Miss Islet in her persuasive voice. My dear Islet, Move and Violet are the colors vulgar people choose when they want to be genteel. A sweet French gray.

Starting point is 04:12:03 give me a housemaid's afternoon gown at once. A cinnamon brown. A doctor's wife's dinner dress. No, I must have some pale, indistinct color softened with a cloud of Indian muslin. A dress which looks nothing in particular at a distance, but which is fit for a princess when you come to look into it. Mr. Trenchard gave me an embroidered Indian muslin,

Starting point is 04:12:32 which will be just the thing over a pale maize-corded silk. You know the shade, I mean. Straw color, shot with apricot. Sybil opens a huge camphor chest in which she keeps her treasures and displays a muslin dress fine as a cobweb

Starting point is 04:12:52 and covered with embroidery. Exquisite, exclaims Miss Islet. What taste you have, Miss Faunthorpe. She would have been just as enthusiastic, had Sybil suggested, pickled cabbage color picked out with pea green. And you must make me a bonnet exactly to match the dress. Of course, Miss Fonthorpe.

Starting point is 04:13:17 I'll go round to Carmichael's at once and see if they've got the color. And if they haven't, I'll take the three o'clock train to Cramston. The question settled. Sybil feels easy in her mind and looks forward to next week with pleasure. The summer is at its height, mid-July, and a delicious July, warm, dry, ripening roses and ripening corn, swelling the peaches on the wall and reddening the apples in the orchard, all the land basking in the sun, and Red Castle High Street, a place to look at blinkingly between two and five in the afternoon, and a burning plow share to walk upon. Marian and Jenny come toiling along the sun-banked pavement in the very hottest hour of the afternoon to visit their prosperous sister.

Starting point is 04:14:13 Jane, splendid in the peach-colored silk and new boots and a hat that is too small for her large round head, with its thick brown hair and curls that no application of the hairbrush will reduce from their disorder to the smoothness of civilization. Sybil receives her sisters languidly under the plain trees, exhausted by her interview with Miss Islet. Marion's temper is not improved by the warm walk, or by the labor of getting Jenny up in a style befitting Lancaster Lodge. There was never such a troublesome child, she complains as she sinks into a rustic armchair, conscious that her face is the color of a boiled lobster, while Sybil in a cream-colored Indian silk and a turquoise blue sash is looking divinely pale. Look at her legs. She has grown out of that frock already, and as forever keeping her decently dressed, I defy you.

Starting point is 04:15:16 There's the print of a slice of bread and butter on the front breadth and smears of marmalade all over the sleeves, though she's only worn the frock on Sundays. Let her wear it every day and wear it out, says Sybil. generously. She shall have another for best. Oh, you dear, cries Jenny. But if you knew what a life Marion leads me when I have a good frock on, you might think it a greater charity never to give me one. You ungrateful, minks, exclaims, didn't I stand half an hour this boiling afternoon doing your hair? Pulling it, you mean? responds Jenny. If you combed it with a hay fork and brushed it with a bush harrow, you couldn't have hurt me more. There's gratitude, ejaculates Marion, pointing to the offender.

Starting point is 04:16:08 My idea of gratitude is thankfulness for things we want, reasons Jenny, who is good at argument. I didn't want my hair pulled. Well, Sybil, says Marion, is Uncle Trenchard going to the races? Everybody thinks and talks of the races at this time. It is the one subject of conversation in Redcastle. A rare thing for Red Castle to have so much as one subject of conversation. As a rule, the town contrives to be conversational about nothing.

Starting point is 04:16:44 No, Uncle Trenchard hates races. I am going with the Stormonts. Indeed, I thought you wouldn't go anywhere without your uncle. No more I would in an ordinary way. but I felt a kind of interest in the races. One hears so much of them. I feel a kind of interest in them, too, says Marion, with an injured air. I've been hearing about Red Castle races ever since I left school, and yet living so near I have never seen them. Uncle Robert has got a pony that would take us, but he has not got the spirit. You might have asked Uncle Trenchard to let you take us all in his barouche. I dare say Uncle Robert would, have gone if you'd taken him. Sybil looks doubtful as to the delight of such a family party. I've accepted Mrs. Stormont's invitation, you see. She replies apologetically. Oh yes, of course. Catch you putting yourself out of the way for anybody. Another girl in your

Starting point is 04:17:50 position might have thought of her poor relations. What are you going to wear? Sybil describes the costume in which she and Miss Islet have arranged that morning. Poor Marion listens in an agony of envy. What a lot of money Uncle Trenchard must give you, she exclaims. No, he doesn't give me much, but he allows me to keep an account at Carmichael's. Well, sighs Marion. I would give a year of my life to go to the races this day week. What a pity our lives are not transferable, like railway stock, says Sybil Aerely.

Starting point is 04:18:34 She is not deeply moved by Marion's piteous condition. Her mind is occupied with a prophetic vision of her triumphs next Wednesday. She will see and be seen by the county. That idea is more inspiring than the prospect of a day spent with the stormonts whom she knows by heart, or even the privilege of beholding Mrs. Grotian's raiment, which is sure to be resplendent, and of the very latest fashion, however hideous in the abstract and individually unbecoming that fashion may be. And of Chapter 14. Chapter 15 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 04:19:36 Recording by Mary Herndon Bell. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braden. Chapter 15. Town and County A curious thing happens that evening after dinner. It is Mr. Trenchard's habit to read the daily papers at his eve. in the drawing room as soon as he is withdrawn from the dinner table. Or, if he is idly disposed, Sybil reads to him and beguiles him into placid slumber. This evening he reads the papers for

Starting point is 04:20:11 himself, beginning, as usual, with the times, which he studies profoundly. He sits in his easy chair by one open window. Sybil yawns over a novel at another. Rather dreary these summer evenings at Lancaster Lodge, when twilight's purple shadows rise ghost-like among the trees on the lawn, and the gates are closed upon the outer world. Welcome even such commonplace interruption as the advent of Frederick Stormont and an adjournment to the billiard-room. Sybil looks up from her book with a start at a sudden movement of her uncles. What was that half-stifled exclamation which sounded so like an oath. Stephen Trenchard is standing up,

Starting point is 04:20:59 with the paper crumpled in his right hand, staring blankly at his niece. She goes to him, looks at him in frightened interrogation, but he neither sees nor hears her. Is this some kind of seizure, epileptic, paralytic? She thinks so tremblingly for a moment,

Starting point is 04:21:20 before Mr. Trenchard's keen black eyes assume their power of vision and look into hers. Dearest uncle, what is the matter? Nothing that need concern you, Sybil. A friend, an old friend of mine, dead in India. The announcement of his death shocked me, that's all. I ought not to have been surprised.

Starting point is 04:21:47 At my age, a man must expect old friends to drop off. Go back to your book, my dear. There is no reason for you to be agitated. Sybil looks wonderingly at the paper in her uncle's hand. It is not the supplement, that, with its births, marriages, and deaths, lies on the carpet unopened. She remembers that the deaths of distinguished people

Starting point is 04:22:13 are sometimes recorded in the body of the paper, and this friend of her uncles is doubtless a person worthy of an obituary paragraph. I am so sorry. sorry, she says sympathetically. So am I. But it was to be expected. Go back to your book, child. Perceiving that sympathy is not required, Sybil returns to her seat by the distant window. Marion would have hung about her uncle for a quarter of an hour, bemoaning his loss and offering stale crumbs of consolation. Sybil hears the door shut ten minutes afterwards and looking

Starting point is 04:22:55 up sees that Stephen Trenchard has vanished. She hastens to look for the newspapers, eager to find out all she can about her uncle's departed friend. But Mr. Trenchard has taken the papers with him, and when she searches for them next day in his study and in other likely places, they are not to be found. Nor does Mr. Trenchard reappear that evening. The butler brings Sybil a message at tea time to the effect that his master has letters to write, and will take tea in his study. So that particular infusion of Heisen, with which Mr. Trenchard is in the habit of irritating his nerves, is carried to the study on a salver, and Sybil is left to spend her evening alone. There are times on just such an evening as this, when memory recalls that one room in Dixon Street, Chelsea,

Starting point is 04:23:53 and his company whose easy temper and natural gaiety of heart could brighten deepest poverty with an occasional ray of light. If I could have borne poverty as well as he, we might have struggled on together to the end, she thinks, with a touch of remorse. But then, what a pity it would have been to lose Uncle Trenchard's fortune! How ghastly pale he looked to-night, poor dear man! mr trenchard seems a little out of sort for the next few days not quite so keen and far-seeing so exacting or high-handed in his household as it is his want to be he has a preoccupied air a thoughtful look and is evidently much concerned by the loss of that departed friend whose name he has not mentioned sybil wonders at this a little never having heard mr trenchard talk of any intimate friend in India. He has told numerous stories of Calcutta society, of trade and chicanery in that palatial city. But a friendship, of intimate, congenial companions,

Starting point is 04:25:08 he has not breathed a word. Nor, in the year and a half of his residence at Redcastle, has a single Anglo-Indian acquaintance visited him, impossible to imagine a man more independent of friendship. Yet he seems cut to the quick by the death of this distant friend, and is slow to recover his equanimity. Mrs. Stormont calls about three days before the races, and finds Mr. Trenchard and his niece on the lawn, the gentleman asleep or meditating, his countenance shrouded by an orange-colored bandana like a new veiled prophet, the lady-working point-lace at a stitch a minute. The kind soul has come to talk about the races. I wish you could be induced to join us, dear Mr. Trenchard.

Starting point is 04:26:01 You're very good, my dear madam. But the thing is not in my way. I hardly know whether a horse should have four legs or six. If you were to show me a six-legged animal, I doubt if I should remark the redundancy. And yet you have the finest carriage horses in Red Castle. Because I did not choose them myself, madam. I shall call for you at half-past twelve, my dear,

Starting point is 04:26:29 says Mrs. Stormont, turning to Sybil. Fred is going to ride. I shall hire Shrubbs, Landau, and pair. My poor dear ponies would be frightened to death on a race course. Shrub is the proprietor of the George Hotel and livery stables, and has the honor of ministering to the elite on all state occasions. Why hire shrubs Landau, when my barouche is at your service? Ask Mr. Trenchard.

Starting point is 04:26:58 I shall be glad to give that idle coachman of mine a day's work. My dear Mr. Trenchard, you are too kind. Such an idea never entered my head. Odd if it didn't, think Sybil, when you are always making use of the carriage in some way or other. The Stormonts have allowed Sybil to drive them a good deal during the last few months, to the infinite relief of the ponies and the buck basket,

Starting point is 04:27:29 both of which institutions are slightly the worse for wear. You may get fifteen years good work out of a pony, but when he approaches his majority, his powers are apt to wane. Mrs. Stormont allows herself to be entreated, and finally yields gracefully, and with an airy coquetry, but only on condition that Mr. Trenchard,

Starting point is 04:27:51 shall dine with them on the race day. This he promises with certain reservations. If I feel myself up to the mark, I'll come, he says. But I have not been particularly well lately. Uncle Trenchard has lost an old friend in India, explains Sybil, and seeing her uncle's impatient frown is sorry she has made the remark. Indeed, exclaims Mrs. Stormont,

Starting point is 04:28:20 thirsting for information. in the civil service are the army the colonel has many old indian friends my friend was neither in the civil service nor the army says mr trenchard and says no more mrs stormont is disappointed but she has got the carriage which was the object of her visit so she dr dr stormont's off into the usual redcastle talk have you seen the groschens lately and did you hear that dr mitson has been very ill and so on with which interesting discourse she beguiles the next half hour the race day comes with the calendar and a glorious day hot blue sky Roads white with dust, grass brown and slippery. Bad for the horses, opine the learned in such matters. The grandstand is gleaming in the sun. Flags are flying.

Starting point is 04:29:20 The town is all astir. Flies are driving to and fro between station and racecourse with visitors from Cramston, people who smell of commerce and dockyard, oakum and tar, a rough lot in the estimation of genteel Redcastle. At half-past twelve, the trenchard barouche calls for Mrs. Stormont and her two daughters. Sybil has taken her place in it already. She wishes to sit with her back to the horses,

Starting point is 04:29:48 but this Mrs. Stormont will not allow, and after a little polite skirmishing, she takes her place next to that lady, the Miss Stormont's side by side on the opposite seat, which they fill to overflowing. On the way to the course, the lady, have time for a silent review of each other's apparel. Rose and Violet are in washed muslins and homemade bonnets. Mrs. Stormont wears her dove-colored moray, which is an institution in Red Castle, and as well known as the town clock.

Starting point is 04:30:23 Here comes Mrs. Groshen's carriage. I suppose she is going to crush us with some new finery, says Rose, with a venomous look at the maize silk and India muslin. I hope it will be in a little better taste than usual, remarks Violet, who is of a more calculating temper than her sister. What lovely embroidery that is of Eurisibyl? I can't help noticing it. Frederick joins the party presently on a brute of a grey horse,

Starting point is 04:30:55 whose ownership he participates with young Juson, the lawyer's son. The joint animal having very little mouth to speak of at the best, and being ridden on opposite principles by his two proprietors is about as manageable as a watering-place donkey. Frank Juson, who is the better equestrian of the co-owners, boast that he rides with his knees. Fred Stormont hangs on by the reins and makes the wretched quadruped's mouth his fulcrum.

Starting point is 04:31:26 He is not happy on horseback himself, or the cause of happiness to his steed, and the joint proprietor's, is an extravagance which he can ill afford. But he feels that the horse gives him social status and endures bravely. The beast is consistent and starting with a fixed idea that the sooner he gets back to his stables, the better for his own well-being, tugs desperately at every turning in the endeavor to make a shortcut home, and if confronted in his straight course with any object which he dislikes, wheels sharp around, and sets off at a lively trot stablewards.

Starting point is 04:32:08 The first half-hour of Mr. Stormont's ride is one prolonged tussle with the Grey, which, in the pride of their hearts, the joint proprietors have christened, flying Dutchman. The Dutchman is awfully fresh today, Fred, remonstrates rose, when the Grey has backed into the Landau half a dozen times, in his efforts to go up every side street or alley. Hadn't you better try him on the curb? I think I am riding him on the curb, says Fred, looking doubtfully at his reins, which are in an inextricable muddle. The fact is, Juson spoils his mouth. Yeah, you beast, what's the matter now?

Starting point is 04:32:50 As the Dutchman taking objection to a very small child in a white pinafore, gathers all his legs together, collapses and scrambled frantically across the street, with a noise as of a detachment of cavalry. Is that a fit? Ask Sibble, when Mr. Trenchard's horses have recovered from their consternation at this maneuver. No, it's only a shy. He cannot stand a perambulator.

Starting point is 04:33:19 Nor a woman in a red cloak, nor a baker's cart, nor a washing basket, nor a chimney sweep, nor a heap of stones, nor an organ, says Rose indignantly. I never knew such a beast. He'll have your life someday, Fred.

Starting point is 04:33:34 I feel convinced. He's more than half a thoroughbred, says Frederick, leaning over to pat the animal's neck, an attention which the Dutchman resents by a sudden slouch forward and a furious shake of his head, whereby he all but precipitates Fred upon the paving stones. Are you fond of writing?

Starting point is 04:33:58 Asked Sybil, as the horseman pulls himself together, scarlet after his struggles with his steed, and settles into a jolting trot beside the barouche. Pappassionately, says Fred, the syllables jerked out of him piecemeal by the gray. But that seems rather an uncomfortable horse to ride. He's a little fidgety in the town, but he's splendid when you get him on the turf. You should see him in a stretching gallop across the grass. mr stormont omits to state that in these stretching gallops he is entirely at the dutchman's mercy and suffers abject terror

Starting point is 04:34:41 they turn out of the market-place presently into a broad lane leading to the woods a lane in which there are nice old houses on one side and orchards on the other and at the top of this lane they come out of that open stretch of greensward with a hollow full of hazel bushes hawthorn and Blackberry here and there, which is dignified with the name of Red Castle Woods. Yonder towers the stand, white in the sunshine, flags, blue, red, and yellow, fluttering gaily, the oval course on the southern side of a slope, and a fringe of carriages and smartly dressed people.

Starting point is 04:35:22 A simple rustic racecourse, with its local gentry and sprinkling of citizens from busy Cramston. the stormont burrush takes its position among the great ones of the land and by good luck finds itself in the very lap of the county the magnates of red castle are six carriages off mrs groshen becking and nodding at her friends gorgeously arrayed in a brilliant mauve silk which glistens in the sun and a bonnet with feathers there are many greetings between mrs stormont and her neighbors for the stormonts occupy the border line of red castle society and are graciously regarded by the county families loud how do you do's are uttered by the occupants of a tall coach next door to the barouche two young men and two young women are are seated on the box, the men in homespun tweed, the women in brown Holland and brown straw hats. Two grooms in dark green and mahogany tops are in attendance.

Starting point is 04:36:30 Are we going to have some good racing, Sir Wilfrid? Ask Mrs. Stormont, radiant at finding herself in such good company, and Mrs. Grotian afar off, like dives. The bigger of the gray men answers in a loud, good-natured voice. dropping lightly down from his perch and coming close to the brouche. Not much fun, I'm afraid. Wretched lot of leather plaiters. Going to speculate, Miss Stormont,

Starting point is 04:37:00 better put something on stagging for the cup, sure to win. He addresses himself to the fair rose, shaking hands with her the while, but he looks at Sybil. That delicate, clear-cut face, with its brown eyes, is strange to him, and in a place where everybody knows everybody else,

Starting point is 04:37:21 that is enough to awaken interest. Sybil remembers him as one of the hunters she has seen ride past the walls of Lancaster Lodge, clad in weather-stained scarlet. He is tall, six feet two, broad-shouldered, with the frame of an athlete. He has shaggy brown hair, shaggy brown moustache, good-humored gray eyes,

Starting point is 04:37:47 A commonplace nose, a good, firm mouth, and strong square chin, large hands in well-worn tan gloves. Sir Wilfred Cardinal, Miss Fondthorpe, says Mrs. Stormont graciously. Sir Wilford takes off his hat and looks pleased, but is little wiser than before. This name of Fonthorpe means nothing for him. Fund of racing, he inquires, following up the introduction. This is the first time I was ever at a race, replies Sybil, but I think I shall enjoy it very much.

Starting point is 04:38:28 Then you don't belong to this part of the country, I suppose. We Yorkshire folks are always going to races. Yes, I have lived in Redcastle ever since, or almost ever since I left school, and have never come to the races, I couldn't get anybody to bring me, replies Sybil frankly. Neither of my uncles cares about races. Good gracious!

Starting point is 04:38:55 This exclamation is evoked by a most startling apparition on the other side of the course, exactly opposite the barouche, a shabby old pony carriage, quite the most ancient vehicle of its kind in Red Castle. A dilapidated, unkempt pony with his nose in a nose bag, an elderly gentleman in a discolored white hat, a young woman in pink muslin, and a girl of nondescript appearance in short petticoats standing on the back seat of the pony carriage in order the better to survey the brilliant scene and making a positively awful exhibition

Starting point is 04:39:35 of her legs. These are Uncle Robert, Marion, and Jenny. Sibble beholds them with unmitigated consternation. She will be obliged to acknowledge them presently, to avow her relationship to that wretched chaise, that odious pony in the face of the county families, nay, the highest and mightiest of the high and mighty, the cardinals of the howl. People she has heard the Stormonts talk about with as much reverence as if they had the prosperity of the county in their keeping, wound up the sun like a clock, and turned on the rain from a tap in their custody. This is Marion's doings, thinks Sybil indignantly. That girl is capable of anything, to think that they must needs come and perch themselves

Starting point is 04:40:27 exactly opposite us. There seems deliberate malice in the act. A few minutes ago, there was only empty space where the pony chaise stands now. The chaise has been placed there since the day. the arrival of the barouche. Dr. Fonthorpe surveys his niece's party, mildly, through his spectacles. Marion nods and kisses her hand. But Sibble, once having seen her danger, looks every way except towards the Dr. Shays.

Starting point is 04:40:59 Jenny, more energetic than her elders, is not to be baffled. Finding nods and hand-kissing unnoticed, she raises her shrill young voice and screams, Sybil! Sibyl! Look this way, Sybil! Who is that leggy child calling? Asked Sir Wilfred looking at Jenny through his race glass, which brings her to the end of his nose.

Starting point is 04:41:24 What an excitable young person. And what a funny party. A little old man in spectacles and a white hat, a tall young woman with ginger hair, and that leaggy child dancing about upon the cushions. And what a pony! the very one Noah had in the ark, I should think. Sybil grows crimson.

Starting point is 04:41:46 Can she acknowledge her kith and kin after this? While she hesitates, Mrs. Stormont raises her gold-rimmed binoculars and scrutinizes the opposite party. Why, my dear, she exclaims, not sorry to set off any obligation involved in the loan of the barouche by the humiliation of its owner. It's that dear, good. little man, Dr. Fonthorpe, and your sisters.

Starting point is 04:42:13 I wonder you didn't recognize the pony. There's not another like him in Red Castle. Is that little girl your sister? asks Sir Wilfred. I beg your pardon, and hers, if I said anything impertinent. She seems a fine, high-spirited girl, but in an awful state of excitement. Shall I bring her across to you?

Starting point is 04:42:37 She wants to speak to you, I fancy. Oh, pray, leave her where she is, replied Sibble. She's a dreadful nuisance. There, there, child, nodding to the obnoxious Hoyden, won't that do? Jane kisses her hand again vehemently, and having succeeded in attracting her sister's attention, seems tolerably resigned. Sybil feels that her maize-colored silk and India muslin, the barouche, and all things are a failure. after this. And there are the Miss Cardinals in their plain Holland gowns with satchels at their

Starting point is 04:43:17 waists, brown hats, brown feathers, brown holland umbrellas, singularly plain attire, which looks in better form for a race course than Sybil's flower show costume. Sir Wilfred stands by the Baruch for an hour or more and tells Sybil all about the horses. He devotes himself to her almost a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little. exclusively before the face of Redcastle. Fred Stormont, pounding restlessly about upon the gray, and bringing that excited animal to anchor beside the barouche when he can, feels that he is nowhere, and begins to think that he has erred on the side of caution

Starting point is 04:43:56 and hesitancy in his wooing of Stephen Trenchard's niece. The races may not be good races from a professional point of view. The horses may be the very refuse of famous stables, but the excitement and exhilaration of the crowd are not lessened by that fact. No weighty steaks are lost or won, but everyone seems happy. Broad grins are the only where. There is a great deal of picnicking between the races, and people who would have lived through the day at home on a biscuit and a glass of sherry

Starting point is 04:44:30 do wild things in the consumption of lobster salad, chicken, mayonnaise, and pigeon pie. Mrs. Stormont has provided the most refined of baskets, delicate papers of anchovy and chicken sandwiches, fragile biscuits, some choice fruit, and a bottle of dry sherry. These favors she dispenses to her party, while Sir Wilford and his people are devouring their lobster salad on the roof of the drag, enlivened by the running fire of champagne corks. Fred roving to and fro.

Starting point is 04:45:06 on the gray declines the maternal sherry. No, thanks, mother. When I'm dry myself, I don't want my wine dry. I'll go and do a bitter at the stand presently. Sibyl has gradually recovered that death blow of the pony carriage. Sir Wilford Cardinal's attentions have put her in a good humor. It is as if some prince of the blood royal had paid her homage in the presence of his subjects, and she knows that Mrs. Groshen and Mrs. Marlin Spike, the Miss Jusens, and above all, dearest Rose and Violet, will be provoked to envy by the distinction thus conferred upon her. Indeed, dear Rose's brow has a cloudy look already, and violet is snappish. Only Mrs. Stormont preserves her

Starting point is 04:45:59 equanimity and smiles upon the baronet when he re-descends from the drag and takes up his position beside the barouche. Sybil's ignorance of racing matters is curiously attractive to him from its novelty, his sisters being learned in the minutest details of the turf, and as well up in stable talk

Starting point is 04:46:19 as their brother's stud groom, under whom they have graduated. He lingers by her side till the races are nearly over, and his grooms go to fetch the horses. The important duty of seeing these animals put to distracts him a little, but he comes back again,

Starting point is 04:46:36 at the last to say good-bye to Mrs. Stormont and her daughters, and to Sybil. I should like you to know my sisters, he says. I am sure you'd suit each other. A mendacious assertion, inspired by the exigencies of the situation, Sir Wilfrid knowing very well that Town and County have seldom an idea in common. He has not ventured to bring about an introduction on the course, his sisters being at an inconvenient altitude and of an uncertain temper. But he feels that he must contrive to see more of Miss Fonthorpe somehow or other. Who can she be?

Starting point is 04:47:16 She is too richly dressed for a governess, and the Stormonts are too civil to her. Yet she must be a nobody, or Mrs. Stormont would have taken care to parade her people. He resolves to call on the Stormonts in a day or two and find out all about their protege, and sustained by this resolution he takes his reluctant leave. How splendid his coach looks to Sybil, the four broad-chested bays with their honest English-looking heads, horses that mean work, the steel chains, the black harness, austerely simple in its mounting, the grooms in Lincoln Green, the two girls in Brown Holland nodding goodbye to the Stormonts,

Starting point is 04:48:01 as Sir Wilfred drives away, making wide sweep upon the turf. His horse is going as if this was the happiest moment of their lives, his grooms climbing into their places after the team has started, with some hazard of life and limb, but with honor to themselves. Charming man, Sir Wilfred Cardinal, says Mrs. Stormont. The Cardinals are one of the oldest of our county families. How do you like him, Sybil? He seems very good-natured.

Starting point is 04:48:31 replies Sybil carelessly. What are the cardinals to her? And what avails this young man's admiration, safe to flaunt in the face of her acquaintance? Her name is written in the book of fate, and in the registers of St. Apollonius, Pimlico. The soul of good nature, his sisters are charming, too, great friends of rose and violets. Uncommon intimate, says Fred, who has dragged that unyielding gray up to the carriage once more. They see one another twice a year, I should think. For my part, I detest the county people. They are a parcel of narrow-minded snobs

Starting point is 04:49:12 who think the beginning and end of life is to ride straight to hounds. Having relieved his jealous pangs by this vindictive burst, Fred goes to look after Mr. Trenchard's horses, and presently the baruch falls in with the line of vehicles driving towards the town. Fred and the Grey in attendance.

Starting point is 04:49:32 That animal suddenly amenable to reason now that he is going back to his stable. Sybil drives home with the Stormonts, with whom she is to dine. I do hope your dear uncle will join us at dinner, says Mrs. Stormont. That hope is nipped in the bud, for among the day's letters

Starting point is 04:49:52 Mrs. Stormont finds a note from Stephen Trenchard. Dear Mrs. Stormont, I do not feel well enough to avail myself of your kind invitation for this evening. So must ask you to excuse me. I will send the carriage for Sybil at half-past ten. Yours very truly, Stephen Trenchard. I'm afraid your uncle is breaking up, my dear,

Starting point is 04:50:17 remarks Mrs. Stormont with a sigh. I saw us change in him when I called the other day. That is strange, says Sybil, for he has not been actually ill. He has not kept his room for a single day. He is a man of iron nerves, my love, and would be reluctant to give way to illness. But I feel sure that he is declining.

Starting point is 04:50:42 At his age, and after a life in India, you cannot expect to have him with you many years. Sybil looks grave. No, she has not counted on her uncle living many years. Or at least when she deserted her husband, she told herself that the old man, man's life could be but brief, and that a few years of patience would be rewarded by fortune and independence for all her life to come. But since she has lived with Uncle Trenchard, she has been

Starting point is 04:51:11 inclined to think differently. In his wiry frame and active habits, his temperance, his iron nerves, there seems the promise of life prolonged to its utmost limits. He may live to be 90, and she to be almost an old woman ere she reap the wages of her toil. And in that case, what is to become of Alexis? Mrs. Stormont's remark inspires a new hope. The end may not be so far off after all. She is not ungrateful to her uncle. She is not without some kind of affection for him. But the hope of reunion with her husband, of forgiveness and atonement, is sweet. End of Chapter 15 Chapter 16 of dead men's shoes

Starting point is 04:52:12 This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Libravox.org Recording by Mary Herndon Bell Dead Men's Shoes By Mary Elizabeth Braden Chapter 16

Starting point is 04:52:34 A mysterious visitor The dinner at the stormance is as other dinners in the same house. The guests are Mr. and Mrs. Groshen, Dr. and Mrs. Mitzin, and one Miss Mitzin, the ugliest, as Fred remarks with a sense of injury. The flour pots on the table, the silver dishes, the ruby-hawk glasses, the finger glasses engraved with the Greek key pattern, The talk, the twaddle, Mrs. Groshen's Honiton Lace,

Starting point is 04:53:08 how well Sybil know them all. She breathes a sigh for the days that are gone, before that slow, pompous banquet is ended, and think that after all there was more pleasure in a haddock and a cup of tea in Dixon Street than in all this provincial splendor. The talk is chiefly of the races, who was there and who was not there. The county families are brought on the table,

Starting point is 04:53:34 and discussed fully, together with the genealogies, which are as well known and as complicated, as if they were Greek heroes or demigods. Mrs. Stormont praises Sir Wilford Cardinal, and those dear girls his sisters, and talks of the Rose Garden and fernaries at the Howl, whereby she bears down rather heavily upon Mrs. Groshen, who has never been bidden to that earthly paradise.

Starting point is 04:54:04 Mr. Groshen opines that Sir Wilfred is better off than most of the county people, whom he disparages as a shabby lot. But adds that at the rate Sir Wilford is going on with his drags and hunters, he is likely to outrun the constable before he is many years older. That the evening entertainment which follows the feast is dull. Not even Mrs. Stormont's dearest friend Mrs. Groshen could deny, were her views taken on the subject. Sybil knows every piece of furniture in the drawing room by heart,

Starting point is 04:54:41 every photograph in the album. She knows the Miss Stormont's favorite fantasia's better than those performers themselves, or they would play more correctly. She knows exactly how she will be asked to play one of her lovely pieces or to sing one of her sweet songs, and how the young ladies will pretend to delight in Chopin, and the elders

Starting point is 04:55:05 praise her wonderful fingering, and how stifled yawns, will at intervals, prevail among the company. She knows how Violet will tell her about some new ferns she has discovered. Such a darling! And how Rose will ask her

Starting point is 04:55:21 if she is going on the continent this year, and will then favor her with some interesting facts about her Swiss tour with her papa three years ago. What a blessed relief when the clock on the mantelpiece strikes eleven. Sybil has been wondering for ever so long why her carriage has not been announced.

Starting point is 04:55:42 Dear Mrs. Stormont, I think they must have forgotten me, she says. But we are such near neighbors. I can walk home easily. My love, it is quite early. Don't talk of going. The carriage will come for you, I am sure. We want another of those delicious sonatas.

Starting point is 04:56:01 not going surely mrs. Grotian cries Mrs. Stormont rejoicing in her soul to see the banker and his wife advancing to her, stately and smiling, to tell her that they have spent a most enjoyable evening. Everyone discovers that it is frightfully late. No one would have supposed it for an instant. How swift are the pinions of time when pleasure quickens them? Mrs. Stormont, pressed by Sybil, makes an inquiry about Mr. Trenchard's carriage. It has not come. We walked here, said Mr. Groshen. Matilda grumbled about her dress, but I wouldn't have my horses harnessed again, after they had come from the racecourse, and I couldn't have them standing in harness while she changed her dress.

Starting point is 04:56:52 It is no use having fine horses if you don't study them a little, and we're such near neighbors. We'll take care of you, Miss Fonthorpe, if you don't mind walking. I should like it, says Sibble, with a longing look at the cool, purple night beyond the open window of the gas-lit room. Fred springs up eagerly from the ottoman on which he has been sitting in patient attendance on the unattractive Miss Mitzin. Let me see you home, Miss Fonthorpe. I shall be delighted. Sybil runs away to put on her bonnet, and the guests issue forth in a bevy. Dr. Mitzin's useful Bruham is waiting.

Starting point is 04:57:34 The others walk home in the tranquil, perfumed air. Fred offers his arm, which Sybil accepts with the infinite ease of indifference. Mr. and Mrs. Groshen makes himself agreeable by walking on briskly. Isn't it a lovely night? Gasp Fred rapturously. yes it's very fine we generally have nice evenings in june yes replies fred after judicious consideration i think we do nice long evenings at any rate the twenty-first being the longest day of course is a reason nice month for races too but rather rainy sometimes don't you think sybil concedes the point I remember one wet June poured all the month, regular cats and dogs.

Starting point is 04:58:31 The race course was a morass. Of course, the heaviest timbered horse won. Here we are, I declare, close to Lancaster Lodge. How I wish it was further off. Not very flattering to me to wish us less near neighbors, says Sybil laughing. Oh, come now, Miss Fonthorpe. You know I don't mean that. but just for tonight, for the sake of prolonging this delightful walk.

Starting point is 04:59:00 Don't talk nonsense, please, says Sybil, and be kind enough to ring the bell. They are standing at the gate by this time, and Fred lingers, as if loath to perform that necessary duty. He rings, and the lodgekeeper opens the side gate. Sibyl offers Mr. Stormont her hand on the threshold, but gives him no invitation to enter the domain. Good night, she says, and then cries suddenly. Do you hear that? It is a most melodious jug-jugging from a dark clump of chestnuts near the gate. I hear something chirruping, replies Fred dubiously. It's the nightingale. It sings every night just at this time. Isn't it exquisite? Rather throaty, says Fred.

Starting point is 04:59:55 Good night, repeat Sybil, shutting the gate in his face. Horrid young man, she ejaculates. How dark, cool, and silent, save for those nightingales, the grounds are tonight. She is in no hurry to go into the house. The dewy turf, the tall black trees standing out against a sky of mixed light and color, the moon rising grandly above the elms yonder, just where the Lancaster, just where the Lancaster Lodge grounds meet the edge of Redcastle Park. Sir John Boldero's domain, all is beautiful. Sibble walks slowly along the shrubbery drive and round to the lawn behind the

Starting point is 05:00:39 house, that wide sweep of velvet grass upon which she and her uncle spend the summer afternoons. Mr. Trenchard's study is on this side of the house. The lighted windows inform Sybil that he is not yet retired for the night. The study opens on the lawn by a half-glass door. She can go into the house this way and surprise her forgetful uncle by her return and tell him all about her day, about Sir Wilford Cardinal's attentions of which she is proud. She thinks it will please her uncle to know that one of the magnates of the land has admired her. She goes towards this glass door, but makes a dead stop before one of the study windows, startled by what she sees there. It is nothing very remarkable, perhaps, at the first showing, only Uncle Stephen and a stranger.

Starting point is 05:01:34 But the stranger is no ordinary person, and there is that in Stephen Trencher's face, which makes the scene remarkable. The lamp burns brightly on the official-looking table, which is spread with papers, formidable-looking papers, bristling with figures ruled with red ink. They are laid open, as if for inspection, and among them lies an open ledger. Sybil has no experience which can teach her the exact nature of these papers, but she knows instinctively that they must have

Starting point is 05:02:10 some relation to commerce. Stephen Trenchard's face is black as thunder. His left hand lies on that open ledger. With the right he points to a column of figures, running his square forefinger down the column with a vicious dig of the nail here and there, as much as to say, look at that, sir, and at that, and what do you say to that? The stranger stands at Mr. Trenchard's elbow. He is a foreigner, an oriental, Sybil thinks, though his plain and faultless clothes are perfectly English. He has a dark olive skin,

Starting point is 05:02:48 eyes black as night, an aquiline nose, a narrow oval face, and silky blue-black hair. He is something less than the middle height, stout, and sleep. His lips move softly, and his plump yellow hand seems to expostulate as Stephen Trenchard scowls at the figures. Who can he be? wondered Sibble, abandoning all intention of seeing her on. uncle to-night. Some Indian friend of Uncle Stevens, I suppose. But what can all those papers mean? And why does Uncle Stephen look so angry? He looked just like that when he spoke of Philip Secretan. She goes round to the front of the house. The hall door is open, and the footman is airing himself on the threshold, listening to the nightingales. Why wasn't the carriage sent for me?

Starting point is 05:03:45 asked Sybil. Indeed, ma'am, I don't know. Was it ordered? I suppose so. Mr. Trenchard said he would send it. I am afraid Master must have forgotten it, ma'am. I didn't take no message to the coachman. Perhaps it was the gentleman coming to see him

Starting point is 05:04:05 that put it out of his mind. I suppose so. Who is the gentleman, do you know? No, ma'am. There was no name given. The gentleman came after dinner about nine o'clock. He came from London, I believe. The London train hadn't been long in when he came,

Starting point is 05:04:25 and he's been with Mr. Trenchard ever since. Is he going to stay here tonight? I don't know, ma'am. There's been nothing said. But Mrs. Skinner had the blue room got ready, in case it should be wanted, as a premonitory measure. Sibyl yawns languidly

Starting point is 05:04:43 and goes upstairs to her own room. puzzled, but not seriously disturbed. This stranger has come on some business errand, evidently. She knows that her uncle's temper is not particularly placid, and concludes that he has been irritated by some vexation of a commercial character. Yet she cannot understand how this can be, since she has been taught to believe Mr. Trenchard has retired from business. Curiosity would impel her to await the stranger's departure,

Starting point is 05:05:15 in the drawing-room, or to discover whether he is to remain for the night. But she does not care to encounter her uncle in his present temper, and he would doubtless be offended by anything that could look like espionage. It is nearly midnight when she goes to her room. Her windows open on the garden and are above those of the study. She seats herself by an open window and looks out into the cool, shadowy garden. Presently she hears a voice raised in anger. Her uncle's voice, she knows,

Starting point is 05:05:50 but the stranger's tones never reach her ear. His voice is like his looks, I dare say, she thinks. Soft and silky and cunning. I shouldn't think he was the kind of man Uncle Trencher would trust. She waste more than an hour in undressing, brushing her hair, putting away her finery. The clock strikes one.

Starting point is 05:06:14 but those lighted windows still shine upon the dark turf below what a long interview she thinks this indian gentleman must surely be going to stay all night he would never leave the house at such an hour as this she falls asleep at last worn out by the fatigues of the day but at the last moment hears that angry voice of her uncles suddenly raised in a gust of passion she wakes next morning with an uneasy sense of something having gone wrong but it is some moments before that scene in the room beneath flashes back upon her who can that man be she asked herself again and why was uncle trenchard so angry some indian merchant perhaps to whom he has lent money the loss of a few thousands ought not to make him so angry it must be like a drop in the ocean compared with his immense wealth but then i know he is fond of money and that it pains him to part even with a ten-pound note She dresses and goes down to the dining room, looking as fresh as the newly opened roses, to which the nightingale sings at sundown. Mr. Trenchard is in his accustomed seat, the big crimson Morocco armchair drawn into the bay window.

Starting point is 05:07:42 The sashes are up, and the sweet morning air comes in across the flower beds. Eight o'clock is the hour for breakfast, winter and summer, at Lancaster Lodge, and un punctuality is little less than a crime in the eyes of Stephen Trenchard, who is usually dressed in his blue frock coat and pan-keen waistcoat and trousers by six and prowling about the grounds to the discomfiture of his gardeners. He is a shade paler than usual and has purple shadows under his eyes. His hand shakes a little, Sybil thinks, as he turns the leaves of the Manchester Daily, which he reads every morning before breakfast.

Starting point is 05:08:26 The face he turns to her as she bends over him to administer her morning kiss has an old and wan look in the sunshine. Can it be that Mrs. Stormont is right and that Stephen Trenchard is breaking up? There are no early prayers at Lancaster Lodge. Mr. Trenchard has his ideas upon religion and his own particular creed by which he is to stand or fall, no doubt. But whatever these are, he keeps them strictly to himself. He never goes to church,

Starting point is 05:09:02 a neglect of duty which in a person of Mr. Trenchard's consequence, Redcastle regards as an eccentricity, but which would make a social outlaw of a small butcher or baker. He has no objection to Sybil's attendance at the Minster, where she exhibits the latest fashions on Sunday mornings. he is no declared infidel he simply ignores religion as a thing he has been able to dispense with all his life sybil takes her place before the silver urn and begins the business of tea-making mr trenchard drinks green tea unmixed with black and is very particular about the preparation of the beverage marion has never succeeded in pleasing him in this matter sybil has never failed you are looking so tired this morning dear uncle she says in her soft winning voice you were up very late last night were you not how do you know that you were in bed i suppose not till twelve o'clock i stayed rather late at the stormonts thinking you would send the carriage for me the carriage ah to be sure i forgot It didn't matter in the least. I walked home. That horrid Fred brought me. Such a lovely night,

Starting point is 05:10:31 the walk would have been delightful with anyone else. Ah, you don't like young Stormont, says Mr. Trenchard, looking sharply at her. I'm glad of it, child. He's a genteel pauper at best. You must marry someone better than that. Sybil pales at the mention of marriage. I don't mean to marry at all, Uncle, I'm much happier as I am with you. Stuff and nonsense, my dear. Marriage is a woman's mission, and with your pretty face, you are sure to get a rich husband. You wouldn't have me marry for money, Uncle Trenchard, cries Sybil with a horrified look. Here is this old man rolling in wealth, and yet counseling a mercenary marriage. I wouldn't have you marry without money. are no girl to play at love in a cottage. That's a game you'd soon grow tired of. Sybil starts,

Starting point is 05:11:31 as if she had been stung. Don't talk of marriage, Uncle Trenchard. The subject is hateful to me. There is no one in Redcastle that I care for, or am ever likely to care for. I am sorry to hear it, replies Mr. Trenchard with a moody look as he resumes his newspaper. Stephen Trenchard is not a man who riots in the good things of this life. His breakfast consists of a cup of green tea and a little bit of dry toast. His other meals are of the simplest, but there is a considerable Epicureanism in his simplicity, and he resented a bad dinner as a personal injury.

Starting point is 05:12:13 I expected to find a visitor here this morning, Sibyl says presently, too curious to be silent on the subject of that nocturnal interview in Mr. Trenchard's study. Indeed. Have you invited anyone? I should not take such a liberty without your permission, unless it were Marion or Jenny. I thought the gentleman who was with you last night would stay. Her uncle looks at her with a darker frown than she has ever provoked before.

Starting point is 05:12:46 The gentleman came on business. and left as soon as his business was concluded, replies Mr. Trenchard in chilling tones. The less you trouble yourself about my affairs, Sybil, the better for our mutual happiness. I only wondered, falter Sibyl. Don't wonder. It's a most unprofitable occupation of the mind.

Starting point is 05:13:11 Who told you there was anyone with me last night? I saw him. Saw him? How? the night was so lovely that i walked round the garden after fred stormont left me at the gate and i was coming in at your study door seeing your lamp burning when i saw that you were not alone the gentleman you saw is a calcutta merchant an old acquaintance who wanted my advice in a critical turn of his affairs and now you know all that there is to be known and may leave off wondering Mr. Trenchard sips his tea and nibbles his dry toast in silence, and presently disappears altogether behind the county paper. Sybil is disappointed. She expected to be questioned about yesterday. To be asked if she had made any conquest,

Starting point is 05:14:06 to be able to describe Sir Wilford Cardinal's obvious subjugation, and the effect which it produced on the stormonts. rose's envious looks violus constrained civility fred's anguish of mind as he curved on the unmanageable gray finding her uncle indisposed for conversation sibyl leaves the dining-room as soon as decency permits and flits away to her favorite retreat the garden life which is all a summer holiday is pleasant enough doubtless but oh how monotonous and it is a momentous and it is a very nighness and it is a very nautness and it is a very nautness and it is a very nautness and it is a very nigh In Sybil's case, how lonely? This morning, exhausted with yesterday's excitement, she throws herself back in her low-wicker chair wearily and sighs two or three times in a quarter of an hour without knowing why.

Starting point is 05:15:02 Sighs for the days that are gone, for poverty and Alexis perhaps, though she would hardly confess as much. The roses glorify the garden. The trees cast. their deep, cool shadows on the sunny grass. The house yonder, with all its windows shining in the sun, its Venetians, its flower-boxes, its prosperous air, as of a habitation for which wealth has done its uttermost. All these things remind her that her lot has fallen in a pleasant

Starting point is 05:15:34 place. Yet she yearns for something more. How soon will it come? How soon will the heritage for which she awaits be hers. Mrs. Stormont has noticed a change in Stephen Trenchard, and that change has been very obvious to Sybil's eyes this morning. She struggles against sordid mercenary thoughts, but they are too strong for her. She cannot help speculating about the future which seems drawing nearer. That future, which is to reunite her to Alexis, to open the door of a new glad world. to release her from this dull bondage in the narrow paths of provincial pretence and respectability she knows that she is her uncle's favourite niece marian is suffered to come and go but is rarely favoured with so much as a civil word or a kindly glance from mr trenchard jenny he openly abominates her noisy bouncing ways distress him beyond measure and she is rarely admitted to his present Sibyl therefore concludes that although Mr. Trenchard, out of kindly feelings, may leave a few

Starting point is 05:16:50 thousands to Marion and Jenny, just enough to secure them a competence, the bulk of his fortune will be hers. That vast wealth which has made Redcastle bowed down before him will be hers, and Red Castle, which already fawns upon her, honoring her prospective riches, will fall prostrate and worship her. Poor Uncle Trenchard, she thinks compassionately. What is the good of money to the old? His prosperity comes at the wrong end of life. What can his wealth give him?

Starting point is 05:17:28 A fine house where he lives alone, a splendid solitude, horses which he rarely uses. For all the personal gratification he has out of his wealth, he would be as well off with six hundred a year. But he has the homage of Red Castle, which would not be given to a man of limited income, even though he devoted half his revenue to acts of charity.

Starting point is 05:17:54 Sybil sees the end of her bondage coming near and thinks of Alexis with tender longing for reunion. Will he come back to her? Will he forgive her? Yes, a thousand times yes. He loves her too well to be obdurate. Whatever anger he may have felt at her abandonment of him will melt away before her smiles. It is a trial to be so ignorant of his fate,

Starting point is 05:18:22 not to know where he is or what he is doing, whether fortune has been kind or cruel to him. Great heaven, if he should be dead, if the fight should have been too hard and he fallen. Her heart grows cold at the mere thought that such a thing is possible. She shudders, clasped her hands over her eyes as if to shut out the horrid spectacle. If he were dead, Hope's airy palace built on a fatal quicksand. And the future she has looked forward to, a future never to be realized.

Starting point is 05:19:00 No, she will not think of anything so hideous. fate must be kind to true love, and she has loved her husband truly, even when deserting him to secure fortune. She remembers how often she has heard him say that it is easy for a single man to fight the battle of life, that alone he could have struggled on somehow, could have obtained employment,

Starting point is 05:19:26 could have roamed the world, till he found just the one spot where he could prosper. He has never said it reproachfully. he was too fond of her for that but he has said it and the memory of that speech is a consoling thought to sybil just now he has immigrated i dare say she thinks he had a longing to try his luck in australia he is on the other side of the world most likely and when i am free to call him back to me i shall have to wait ever so long before he can come she is roused from this reverie from the deepest deep of thought by the mellifaloous soprano of mrs stormont raised inquiringly that society voice in which a comedy actress makes such trivial inquiry at the wing before she appears on stage in the garden screams mrs stormont dear child i will find her mrs stormont emerges from the shrubbery rustling in a flounced cambrick morning dress she wears a black lace shawl, her last summer's bonnet, done up inexpensively by her maid, and, in honest truth, has been uptown to pay her tradesman's weekly accounts. The Stormont's, though near, are good pay.

Starting point is 05:20:51 Old mother's stormant will haggle about the bone in a bit of brisket, and she will worry about her Sunday sirloin, says Mr. Heifer, the butcher, but she do pay uncommon regular. I will say that for the old familiarity induced by Mrs. Stormont's frequent personal visits of complaint or inspection at Mr. Heifer's shop has bred contempt in that citizen's mind. The customers he respects are those who never cross his threshold or weigh his meat. Mrs. Stormont is followed by a tall stranger in gray, who looks about him admiringly, and whom Sybil hardly recognizes at the first glance. Charming place. Kept so well, too.

Starting point is 05:21:37 Garden much neater than my fellows keep the how. How do you do, Miss Fonthorpe? Hope you weren't tired by the races yesterday. Sybil blushes becomingly, startled by this sudden appearance of the mighty Sir Wilfred Cardinal, startled out of all sad thoughts, and gratified by this proof of her power. I met this tiresome Sir Wilfred in the marketplace, Sybil,

Starting point is 05:22:02 says Mrs. Stormont with juvenile playfulness, which sits upon her portly middle age about as becomingly as the airy gau's bonnet on her pepper and salt chignon. And he insisted upon my bringing him to call on you. I hope you are not shocked with us for invading you at such a barbarous hour. Sybil assures Mrs. Stormont that the hour is a matter of no importance. You are just as glad to see us as a-and-as-a-lawful. if we had come in proper visiting hours, exclaims the lady. What a dear, candid child she is. I don't know what you did with my poor Fred last night, Sybil, but you sent him home quite low-spirited. This is said with meaning, and Sir Wilfrid looks at the speaker curiously.

Starting point is 05:22:51 Poor Fred, he cries in his loud voice. I think it must have been the bumping he got on that bony grey that made him low-spirited. I'm afraid, I said. I'm afraid, I said. said good-night rather abruptly, says Sybil, which was very ungrateful of me after his kindness in seeing me home. But I was vexed with him for not appreciating our nightingales. Not appreciate the nightingales. How odd! exclaims Mrs. Stormont. Fred has such an ear for music. Shouldn't have thought it from his trotting, remarks the candid Sir Wilfred. man with a good ear always keeps time in the saddle.

Starting point is 05:23:34 So you have nightingales here, Miss Fonthorpe? Shouldn't have thought it so near the town. We've no end of them at the howl. Jug, jug, jug, jug from sundown till midnight. I should like to show you our gardens at the howl, by the by. Mrs. Stormont might drive you over someday. Mrs. Stormont divided between her desire to be intimate with the best of the county families,

Starting point is 05:24:00 and her maternal solicitude for Fred, whose interests are evidently in peril, can only smile blandly and assentingly. To drive over to the Howe, in a friendly way, is to take the highest rank in Redcastle society. Mrs. Grotian will feel absolutely crushed when she is told of such a visit. And after all, poor Fred's courtship hangs on hand dismally,

Starting point is 05:24:26 and may never come to anything, Sybil, although courted by the whole family, has given no token of preference for the eldest hope. Sybil, with Stephen Trenchard's fortune, and exalted into Lady Cardinal, would be a splendid person to know. The dear girls, Rose and Violet, would be asked to stay at the howl, no doubt, might make splendid matches, marry into the county. The conversation meanders on in the same elevated strain, for half an hour, while Sybil and her visitors walk round the garden. Sir Wilfrid admiring everything monstrously, to use his own phrase, and grumbling a good deal about those fellows of his at the howl. I never saw such flower beds, he says. There's not a dead leaf among them. My uncle is very

Starting point is 05:25:19 particular about the garden, says Sybil. That reminds me that I must ask to be introduced to your uncle. I dare say he is in his study, replied Sybil. I'll run and see. She has an idea that it would hardly do to take Sir Wilfred to her uncle without some note of preparation, Mr. Trenchard being somewhat out of sorts today. She has saved the trouble of going to the study, however, for Stephen Trenchard is seen coming across the lawn in his Panama hat, and they all three go to meet him. He receives Mrs. Stormont and Sir Wilfred graciously, and the luncheon bell, ringing while he is conversing with them, insists upon their staying to luncheon. So they all go together to the dining room, Mrs. Stormont protesting that her absence will be the cause of consternation at home.

Starting point is 05:26:13 Sybil is fluttered and a little pleased at the idea of having made such an important conquest. A useless triumph, of course, for a woman in her position, but one that flatters womanly vanity. End of chapter 16. Chapter 17 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Mary Herndon Bell.

Starting point is 05:26:52 Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braden. Chapter 17. The Wanderers return. The great city lies seething, like some unholy cauldron under the blazing August sun, when a lonely wayfarer returns to it after two years exile on the other side of the world. Rank and fashion, middle-class wealth, professional respectability, have deserted the airy western squares and streets for English watering places, Welsh mountains, Scottish moors, Irish lakes, or broiling continental esplanades, spas, conversation houses,

Starting point is 05:27:37 rinds, steamers, and so on. But from this eastern end of the city, there is no such exodus. Here life holds on patiently through the dog days. Here labor knows no respite, and the grinding of the universal mill slackens not. Alexis Secretan just embarked from the famous clipper ship Orinoco, surveys the dingy street, the driving crowd, with wonder, not unmingled with loathing. What a weary city, it seems to this man, who walked its stony ways two years ago, a seeker for bread, and, for the most part, found only the natural product of the soil, a stone. He has found fortune kinder at the antipodes, man more friendly, nature more liberal of her smiles, less shut out and constrained by brick and mortar. He has achieved no sudden prosperity.

Starting point is 05:28:38 He has worked hard and honestly, and has done well, so well as to be able to come back to this sophisticated, unfriendly city, whither fate draws him as a magnet. It is not possible for a man to feel more lonely than this returning wayfarer, in all the vast city which spreads itself, about and around him, there lives only one person from whom he can hope for a friendly smile of welcome. His humble friend Dick Plowden is the only being to whom he can go with any certainty of not being considered a bore and an intruder. His old brother officers, the companions of his brief day of prosperity, alas, he wore out the friendship of those when he sank to that lowest grade in the animal creation, the borrowing animal.

Starting point is 05:29:32 Dear old Dick, honest, friendly Dick, to whom he has long since repaid that 10-pound note borrowed for the false wife who deserted him. It is to Dick he goes naturally today, as brother goes to brother. It is to Dick's recommendation to Messrs. Keel and Screw, he owes the honorable independence of the last two years. But for Dick's influence, he would never have got that fair start in a new world,

Starting point is 05:30:02 which has enabled him to keep his head above water, and do Messrs keel and screw honorable service on the other side of the globe. He can afford to take a handsome and drive to the Brompton Road as fast as a broken-down thoroughbred can take him. Dear old Dick is in the little back parlor hard at work, as on that snowy day when desperation guided Alexis to that last resource of the desperate, the humble friend of better days.

Starting point is 05:30:33 But Dick is not occupied today in the mechanical drudgery of map painting. He is writing a book, a little book on astronomy for the use of schools, that elementary geography of his having been a success. He starts up at sight of Alexis,

Starting point is 05:30:50 who has pushed by the maid of all work and entered unannounced. The two men greet each other heartily. Captain, Secretan, what a delightful surprise, and looking so well, too. So handsome. Just like my original captain who took Mother's first floor. Dear old Dick. But I did not expect you home for ever so long. I thought you were going to stop at Sydney, working for the firm until you had made your fortune. Fortune is all very well, Dick, and the firm is all very well. They have been liberal employers, and I have worked honestly for them. But the soul of man needs something more than 15% commission upon all his dealings. There was an emptiness in my heart, Dick, out yonder, a cavity that needed filling somehow.

Starting point is 05:31:44 So I took the first opportunity to slip across to the old world, though God knows there's little chance of filling the vacuum here. However, I shall only stop a month or so, and then go back again. The firm has been very kind about the matter. I told them my health was failing, and that the voyage home was my only hope of getting strong again, so they gave me a free passage both ways, and I'm to hold counsel with them about the opening of a new branch of the business out yonder. And were you really ill? asked Richard Plowden sympathetically.

Starting point is 05:32:23 What I told the firm was not much more than the truth, old fellow. When heart sickness sets in, bodily sickness is pretty sure to follow. My nights were growing sleepless, full of bad thoughts. Well, Dick, you can guess my first question. Any news of her? Richard Plowton shakes his head despondingly. I am the last to hear of her, he says, I who live as much out of the world as if I were a hermit in a cave. She might have come to you to inquire about my fate,

Starting point is 05:33:00 knowing you were the only friend adversity had left me. She has never come. Nor written? Not a line. Forgive me if I wound you, Captain Secretant. Call me Alex, Dick. or we shall quarrel. Forgive me if I seem to speak hardly of her. But upon my honour, Alex,

Starting point is 05:33:20 it seems to me that you have nothing to do but to forget her. She deserted you when you had the most need of her love, when, if she had been a true woman, she would have clung to you most fondly. Granted, Dick, she was selfish, base, cowardly. We had sunk together into the slew of despond, and she contrived to scramble out of it and leave me in the mire. She was clever enough to make use of me to accomplish her escape.

Starting point is 05:33:50 Sent me out among hard-hearted humanity, to borrow, beg, or steal the means by which she meant to separate herself from my fallen fortunes. Do you think I came across the world to seek for her? No, Dick, I am not such a fool. I have been cheated once. I shall never be her dupe again. Do you think I could ever trust her anymore?

Starting point is 05:34:15 That if fortune smiled upon us and she pretended to love me, I could feel any confidence in her truth, any security in her affection? The void in my heart is to be filled, but not by her. I came back to the old world to look for my child, the child that was to be born to me when my cruel wife left me. You do not even know that the child. the child survived its birth. What a Job's comforter, you are, Dick.

Starting point is 05:34:46 I know nothing, except that I am going to hunt for the mother in order that I may find the child. The law would give the custody of so young a child to the mother. I snap my fingers at the law. Truth is great and shall prevail. So base a wife must be an unworthy mother. I will find her price for the child. She will sell that as she is.

Starting point is 05:35:11 sold me for a mess of potage. When I left England, I was desperate, mad perhaps, or I should not have left that land that held my child. My loneliness in that strange world yonder, awakened a father's feelings. I found out how dreary a prospect life is to a man who stands alone, a blank and barren desert with no green oasis, no distant city to which he may direct his steps, a lonely pilgrimage leading nowhere. How shall you commence your search? I have thought of that question many a time on board the Orinoco. There is little choice of plan left open to me. You remember that before Messrs. Keel and Screw took me into their employment, I went to Redcastle. The place my wife came from when she came to London is Mrs. Hazleton's governess. I saw Sybil's younger sister,

Starting point is 05:36:09 made my inquiries, and found that Sybil had not been heard of at Redcastle. She had not gone straight home to her uncle, the parish doctor, as I had supposed it probable she would, and flung herself and her troubles upon his shoulders. No, she was too artful for that. She had some deeper game in view, some rich relative from whom she had expectations, as I gathered dimly from her letter. I could find out nothing more from the girl, than that Sybil was supposed still to be in Mrs. Hazleton's employment, that her marriage was not known to her family, that she had not reappeared at Redcastle, or received any help from her uncle the doctor.

Starting point is 05:36:53 Where could she be, and how could she be living? She must have found the wealthy friend whose existence I inferred from her letter, and this wealthy friend, or relative, was evidently not an inhabitant of Redcastle. She must have found a safe haven somewhere. I made no further attempt to trace her. I was too deeply stung by her abandonment. Let her go, I said to myself, as I crawled wearily away from that dismal country town

Starting point is 05:37:23 through the January weather. She and I have done with each other. I did not foresee that the hour would come in which the thought of my child would be more precious to me than my false wife's love had ever been. But in my lonely days in a strange land, lonely, in spite of what the world calls friendship, I have suffered my hopes to build themselves round that one image,

Starting point is 05:37:50 the child whose face I have never seen. Now, Dick, there seemed to be only two sources of information open to me. I can go down to Redcastle again and renew my inquiries at Dr. Faunthorps, or before doing that, I can hunt up an honest creature who used to be housemaid at Mrs. Hazeltons, and who made herself useful to my wife in sending her letters, and so helping her to sustain the falsehood which she chose to practice upon her uncle, for quite inadequate reasons as they always seem to me.

Starting point is 05:38:25 But there are minds in which double-dealing is an absolute pleasure, and hers may be of that order, adds Alexis bitterly. you have not dined says richard plowden by way of changing the conversation i'll order a steak and potatoes you'll enjoy an english rump steak after ship fare and you now mother's a first-rate cook you'll take up your quarters with us of course while you are in london I shall go to Redcastle tomorrow, Dick, if I can find Jane Diamond, the housemaid, this evening. But if you can give me a bed for tonight, I will accept it with all gratitude. Don't trouble about dinner. I had a substantial lunch on board the Orinoco. I'll go to Lowther Street at once, and we can smoke our pipes together when I come back and talk over old times, when I was a careless, thriftless bachelor.

Starting point is 05:39:21 How selfish I am, talking of my own. affairs all this time, and never so much as congratulating you on your success as an author. Don't call me an author, protest Dick blushing. That's putting me too much upon a level with Scott and Bulwer and geniuses of that kind. I was lucky enough to hit upon an easy, simple way of stating hard facts, making information a little more attractive than it has been made for young minds, and the style took with the schools and teachers. My little, little handbook of geography has gone through 15 editions and has been quite a fortune to me, and I am now doing the sixth in a series of handbooks, all more or less geographical, up to the

Starting point is 05:40:06 present one, in which I venture upon astronomy. So you see, map painting led to something after all. Intelligence and industry always lead to something, Dick. There would be a screw-loose in the scheme of the universe if they could ever lead to nothing. those little books have done wonders for us exclaims dick with harmless pride mother doesn't work half so hard as she used though she will stick to the cooking and she has a silk gown to wear on sundays doesn't it rustle too you can hear it at the very top of the staircase None of your soft silks for mother, but a silk that stands alone and let you know that it's there. And I've got a garden. See? The Duke of Devonshire could feel no loftier pride in the possession of Chatsworth, then swells Richard Plowden's breast today, as he draws up the Venetian blind

Starting point is 05:41:04 and allows his cherished garden to burst upon Alexis Secretan's admiring gaze. It is a quadrangle of 15 feet square, shut in by whitewashed walls, overshadowed by leaden cisterns, bounded by the slated roofs of a muse. But Dick has built rockeries in the corners, rockeries where ferns flourish greenly. He has trained ivy over one wall, that blessed parasite, which is so fair and quick growing a screen for brick and mortar abominations.

Starting point is 05:41:37 Virginia Creeper over another The grass is soft and green And in the middle of the little plot There is a stone basin A time-worn old basin Which Dick has picked up for half a sovereign In a builder's yard But a basin in which a slender jet of water

Starting point is 05:41:56 Actually plays Scarlet geraniums in green tubs Give color to the picture An old stone bench Also a bargain of Dick's offers repose to the idler in this narrow pleasureance. Shot in as it is by muse and back kitchens, overshadowed as it is by cisterns,

Starting point is 05:42:18 Richard Plowden's garden is absolutely pretty. Alexis accords it his unmeasured approbation. It's the first English garden I've seen for the last two years, Dick, and it smiles at me like a welcome home. Yes, I'll come back in time to smoke a cigar on that stone bench of your under the summer stars. We drink tea out there on fine Sunday afternoons in the warm

Starting point is 05:42:43 weather, says Dick, smiling at the ferns and rockwork. And you can't imagine how proud mother he is. I've got the real Osmunda Regalis, our flowering fern in that corner, though you'd hardly believe it. And there's a polypodeum over there

Starting point is 05:43:00 that a friendly lodger of ours brought me from Ilfercombe. Well, Dick, I must go and look for Jane Diamond, but I'll be back in a couple of hours at latest. Dick limps to the door with his friend, and follows his figure with admiring eyes till it vanishes in the current of wayfarers. What a fine fellow he is, and to think that a wife could desert him. I'll ask Mother to get a bit of something nice for supper, a veal cutlet and a few peas, or a chicken and a slice of broiled ham.

Starting point is 05:43:35 End of Chapter 17 Chapter 18 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org Recording by Michelle Kilpatrick Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Starting point is 05:44:08 Chapter 18 There are some people whose houses never change, people whose habitations are in a manner symbolical of their lives, and whose even tenor of existence, nothing less than the undertaker, can overthrow. Mrs. Hazleton is one of these eminently respectable personages. She has occupied the house in Louthar Street for the last ten years. She has gone to the seaside every year of those ten, and at exactly the same period, has returned after the same interval, has given her great parties at the same seasons,

Starting point is 05:44:46 and has lived a methodical and prosperous existence, with satisfaction to herself and her neighbors, and with considerable profit to the surrounding shopkeepers. When the London season is over, Mrs. Hazleton goes to the seaside, not because she belongs to that flight of fashionable swallows who follow pleasure's summer from climb to climb, but simply because London and August is unendurable, baking pavements, scorched verdure, dust and grime on everything, and a sense of desertion in all those regions which the upper 10,000, and a considerable portion of the lower million, inhabit. There could not be a better time for Alexis to make his inquiry without having to present himself in a formal manner to his old acquaintance. Mrs. Hazleton is at Scarborough

Starting point is 05:45:37 with children, governess, and femme de chambre. The blinds are all down, save one of the Venetians in the dining room, which is drawn up about halfway, and in the space thus exposed to view, the comfortable round face of Mrs. Hazleton's cook, and the lanky countenance of Mrs. Hazleton's sandy-haired footman, a footman whose visage is happily unfamiliar to Alexis, exhibit themselves. Cook and footmen are engaged in looking out of the window. There's not much for them, to see in Laothar Street on this August evening, but it is a relief to be above ground for a little while, after the twilight of those underground dungeons to which the London domestic is confined. Alexis mounts the steps and knocks and rings under the calm survey of those two pair of

Starting point is 05:46:25 eyes. The sandy-haired footman is not impressed by Mr. Sackerton's appearance. Alexis is carelessly dressed in garments of a colonial cut, a velveteen shooting jacket, a soft felt hat, closed chosen for ease and hardware rather than for fashion. The footman yawns audibly, and when reminded of his duties by a nudge from Cook's plump elbow, mutters contemptuously, oh hang it, that fellow can wait, you know, and then withdraws himself lazily from his post of observation, and Anon opens the street door a little way, filling the opening with his person. Is there a young woman called Diamond in service here now? asks Alexis. Don't know. I'm sure. replies the flunky with another yawn.

Starting point is 05:47:10 What do you want with her? We won't go into particulars till you find out whether she's still here, answers Alexis coolly. Perhaps you will condescend so far as to inquire of your fellow servant. Hi, Cookie, balls the footman. What's our Jane's name?

Starting point is 05:47:25 Diamond, ain't it? Of course it is. You might have known, answers Cook, who has come into the hall and now contemplates Alexis over the youth's shoulder. What do you want with Jane Diamond? she inquires sharply. There's no followers allowed here. I'm not a follower, answers Alexis,

Starting point is 05:47:43 but I want to see Jane Diamond alone for five minutes on business. The countenances of Cook and footmen plainly expressed an apprehension that this is the beginning of a deep-laid scheme against the family plate. I'll tell you what, young man, says the cook with disparity. My missus is out of town, and we don't want no airy sneaks loafing about while she's away. And it ain't no good for them to loaf, adds the sandy-haired young man, who has not shaved for the last day or two, and whose chin is adorned with a tawny stubble, like a newly cut wheat field. The plate has all been sent to the bank. Alexis fairly bursts out laughing. Is there so much difference between a chimney pot hat and a wide awake?

Starting point is 05:48:29 Between pool and a colonial tailor, he says to himself? And then he adds aloud, if one of you simpletons will take the tree. trouble to call Jane Diamond, she will be able to tell you that I'm a gentleman, and that I have not come after the teaspoons or the umbrellas. I'll wait in the street for her. You can tell her that a gentleman from Australia wants a few words with her. Cook and footman whispered doubtfully for half a minute, and then shut the door upon Mr. Secretaryton, leaving him to infer their acquiescence with his request. He paces the pavement for five minutes or so, and then the good nature Jane Diamond comes down the steps while Cook and footmen stand in the doorway to watch the proceedings.

Starting point is 05:49:13 They see Jane gesticulate as an extreme surprise at sight of Alexis, and then the two walk a little further off, quite out of earshot, to the aggravation of Jane's fellow servants, whose curiosity is by this time raised to the highest pitch. I shouldn't wonder if he was some aristocratic-off brother-avers, says Cook, who is a devoted student of Reynolds' Mysteries of London. Like is full of family secrets and such like, "'Lor, sir,' says Jane Diamond, when she has recovered the shock of surprise, "'I thought you was dead and gone.

Starting point is 05:49:47 Did you, Jane? Why? Because I fancied if you was in the land of the living, you wouldn't have turned a deaf ear to that advertisement. What advertisement? The advertisement is Miss Fonthor, I beg pardon Mrs. Never mind the name, girl. Tell me all about the advertisement.'

Starting point is 05:50:04 Jane explains herself in a roundabout way. but in due course Alexis knows all that Jane knows, except his wife's present abode. That the girl refuses to tell even to him. She told me to keep it a secret, and I'm not going to tell no one without her permission, says Jane resolutely. This resolve the husband combats, but in vain. I'll ask her leave to tell you, and when I've got her leave, I'll tell you, answers Jane. While horses wouldn't move me from that. Telegraph to her then directly, cries Alexis, taking out a handful of silver.

Starting point is 05:50:42 Come with me to the nearest telegraph office, and I'll write the message for you. You can put in the address yourself. No, I won't send her no telegraphs, lest I should get her into trouble with her friends. I'll write to her. Inexorable girl. Is she in the country? Yes. And the country post is gone ever so long.

Starting point is 05:51:03 I shall have to wait 24 hours before you can get her answer. I can't help that, says Jane with an inflexible air. She's trusted me, and I'll do my duty by her. As you stayed away so long, it can't hurt you to stay a little longer. Stayed away so long, cruel girl. Don't you know that it was she who left me? Whatever she did, I make no doubt she did it for the best, answers Jane, true to the fair young governess, whose donations of lace and ribbon,

Starting point is 05:51:33 soiled gloves, darn stockings, and friendly smiles had won her heart years ago. See here, Jane, says Alexis, unfolding a five-pound note. Here's something to buy you a silk gown for Sundays. Now, don't you think that you could contrive to tell me the address at once? You know my wife wishes to see me. The advertisement says that. No it don't, answers Jane, taking a tiny slip of paper out of her shabby old portemone. The advertisement says nothing.

Starting point is 05:52:03 of the kind. She reads as follows, SS to Alexis, you were not forgotten. In all I do, I am faithful to your interests. I look forward to our reunion. Wait and hope, as I do. Write and tell me where you are and what you are doing. Address SS post office, Hale Street, Pimlico. There, you see, exclaims Jane triumphant. Does not a word about wanting to see you. She only wants to hear from you.

Starting point is 05:52:31 Heartless woman, mutters Alexis. yet I'm glad she was just a little anxious to know my fate. I'll go to a coffee house and write to her and bring the letter to you to post. There's the silk gown for you all the same, Jane, to show that I bear no malice. Oh, sir, cries the housemaid, overcome by this generosity. I couldn't think. You needn't think about it. You've only to take the money and buy your gown.

Starting point is 05:52:56 I'll go and write my letter. He goes to the nearest coffee house and writes to civil. There is a touch of bitterness in the composition, though his wounded heart is full of love for her all the time. Neither exile nor the sense of her unkindness have been strong enough to exclude her from his heart. He may pretend to himself and to his friend Dick Plowden that he has ceased to love his wife, that he seeks his child alone. But the mere fact that she has sought to obtain tidings of him is enough to melt his heart, to change pride and anger, to love and pardon. Whatever the exalted sphere in which you now move, he writes,

Starting point is 05:53:36 you may be glad to know that your desertion has not quite been the death of me. I have contrived to live somehow, though indignation against your cruelty has lacerated my heart, and love for the wife who deserted me has proved an incurable disease. I have not starved or been driven to hang myself, and I have come back from the other side of the world, because I have a foolish hankering to know the fate of the woman. who swore at the altar to love, honor, and obey me, and kept her vow by abandoning me in my darkest hour of need. Where are you, Sybil? And with whom? What has been your reward

Starting point is 05:54:15 for deserting me? Has your scheme of life been a wise one? Have your hopes prospered? Write and answer all these questions freely and fully if you recognize the tie, which in the sight of God and man, makes us two one. Tell me about our child. the infant I have never seen yet whose baby face has haunted my dreams. You have given your babe to the care of strangers, perhaps, but I conclude you have watched over its welfare. Tell me further, if there are in your life, prosperous as it may be, some few weaker moments when your heart yearns for reunion with the husband you once loved.

Starting point is 05:54:55 But no, love, I will show you an easier way. Do not stop to answer one of these questions. write Sybil from your heart to mine. Tell me in three words to come to you, and I will come. I will come, dear, and all the past, all that you have made me suffer shall be forgotten and forgiven in the rapture of our reunion. Yours forever. If you will have it so, Alexis. He is swayed to and fro by diverse passions as he writes this letter. Now all bitterness, now, all bitterness, now fond, unreasoning love. He has not the courage to read over his effusion, but seals and addresses it hastily and hurries back to Laothar Street. There is no difficulty about admittance this time. Jane Diamond opens the door, receives the letter, and promises to post it that evening. It is too late for any of the provincial mails, but it is something to be assured that there shall be no needless delay. I shall call for the answer the day after tomorrow, in the evening. You ought to

Starting point is 05:56:01 have it by that time, says Alexis, and it seems to him that the interval would be an unendurable space of time. He thinks about that advertisement as he goes back to the Brompton Road. Sybil must have cared for him a little, despite her heartless abandonment of him, or she would not have felt this anxiety to be informed of his fate. She would not have committed herself by an act likely to entangle her fate with his. Once having released herself from him, she would have held herself altogether aloof. She would have stretched no friendly hand across the Gulf if she had not loved him. Her heart was still his, he tells himself, when she made that appeal to him. Whatever her scheme of life, whatever game she was playing, her heart was true to him. Comforted by this assurance,

Starting point is 05:56:52 he is inclined to be wondrously indulgent, to forgive much should she but prove herself worthy to be forgiven. He tries to occupy himself with hard-headed business during that weary interval in which he waits for Sybil's reply. He goes down to Messrs. Keel and Screw's office and enters upon the discussion of certain extensions and improvements in the Australian branch of the business, improvements which his experience of the colony has suggested to him. He is well received and his views approved by Mr. Keel, the senior partner, a gentleman with large ideas of palatial villa on Clapham Common, binaries, pineries, succession houses, and a stable, which is a perennial source of profit to the horse dealers and the veterinary surgeon, and a wellspring of heart-burning and annoyance to his proprietor.

Starting point is 05:57:42 Mr. Kiel is a gentleman who talks of thousands, as meaner people talk of six pences, and is rumored to have started in life 30 years ago as a stevedore, and to have founded his fortunes upon the ill-gotten gains supposed to be inseparable from that function. Mr. Keel is pleased with Mr. Secretan's suggestions. You're about the only fellow I ever sent out who seems to understand the Australian trade, he says approvingly, and I shall push you, young man. Mark my words, I shall push you. Cheered by this assurance, Alexis thinks what a nice thing it will be for him to go back to Sydney with his wife and child for his companions. If Sybil will but show herself true metal after all, and if his child lives.

Starting point is 05:58:24 two formidable ifs. He builds a delightful castle in the air and looks so well, fed upon this nutriment of hope, that Samuel Plowden scrutinizes him with a serial comic expression when he returns to the outer office after his interview with Mr. Keel.

Starting point is 05:58:43 Why, I thought you came home on sick leave, youngster, says the kindly clerk. By Jupiter, I never saw anyone looking better. All the effects of the voyage, Mr. Plowden, I assure you. I was a shadow when I went on board at Sydney. The second day after Mr. Seckerton's interview with Jane Diamond has come, and in the evening Alexis knocks at the familiar door in Lauther Street,

Starting point is 05:59:06 with a heart that seems to be louder than the knocker. Jane Diamond appears promptly, and divining his impatience gives him the expected letter without a word. He rings her hand in speechless gratitude, as if the letter were a boon from her, bids her a brief good night, and goes away with his pride. He would rather read the letter in the street, unwatched, than open it in Mrs. Hazleton's hall under the housemaid's friendly eyes.

Starting point is 05:59:33 Yes, it is from Sybil, in the hand he knows so well. The last letter he received from her was that cruel renunciation, that most heartless farewell, the loosening, nay the severing of every link between them. She writes to him again, there is communion between them once more. The thought thrills him. She begins well at all events. Dearest, dearest, dearest, there is love's foolish rapture and a gush of pen and ink. Thank God for your dear letter, though it is not altogether kind.

Starting point is 06:00:09 Still, it promises forgiveness for my wrongdoing, and that is much. Thank God for the knowledge that you were living and well. My heart grew very heavy when that advertisement of mine remained unanswered. You ask me if my scheme of life has realized what I can't. upon, if my hopes have prospered. I can say yes to both those questions. I am on the road to high fortune, fortune which you and I will share in happy days to come, if you are as true to me as I am to you, though seeming estranged. In a very little while, dear, my most anxious hopes will be realized. The realization is so near that it would be worse than folly to sacrifice

Starting point is 06:00:48 those hopes now, as I must sacrifice them if I were to obey you and say, come to me. I long to see you. My heart aches, my soul sickens at the thought that we must wait for the hour of reunion. But I am not so weak a slave to impulse as to abandon my prize, just as it is almost one. We must wait, dearest. I ask from you patience and trust. I give you my daily prayers, my nightly dreams. There is no wrongdoing in my scheme of life. I injure no one. Least of all do I wrong you. I only forego the happiness of sharing your life for a little while in order to make it brighter afterwards. Write to me, dear husband, from time to time, and let me write to you. But let our correspondence pass to the hands of that good girl, Jane Diamond. I know your

Starting point is 06:01:38 impulsive nature, and I cannot trust you with my address, for fear you should come here and destroy all my plans. I am known in my present circle only as Miss Fonthorpe. All my hopes would be shipwrecked if I stood confessed as Mrs. Secreton. Yet believe me, there is no shadow of wrong to you in this concealment. It is for our mutual welfare. You ask me about our child, Alexis. Our child, our son is safe and well. I dare tell you no more than that. Ever, through all changes and dangers, your true and loving wife, Sybil. Is she mad? Alexis asks himself indignantly after reading this letter? Does she think I'm to be put off with loving words and assurances of constancy? Does she suppose that she can keep at a distance by concealing her

Starting point is 06:02:31 address and writing to me undercover to a housemaid? Wherever she may have hidden herself, my business shall be to find her, and my first visit shall be to Redcastle. I'll go straight to her uncle, the doctor, and unearth this mystery. End of Chapter 18. Chapter 19 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Libravox.org

Starting point is 06:03:08 Recording by Lena Emsley Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 19 A Dangerous Triumph That visit of Sir Wilford Cardinals to Lancaster Lodge is followed in about ten days by a second morning call, the baronet being supported on this occasion by his elder sister, a rather strong-minded young woman, who rejoices in the pastoral name of Phoebe.

Starting point is 06:03:43 "'My sisters are dying to know you,' says Sir Wilford, with a gush of enthusiasm, after the necessary introductions have been gone through in a slipshod way, Sir Wilford being careless of the rules and ceremonies of polite life. Miss Cardinal's countenance does not support her brother's statement by any gleam of light from the spirit within. She is looking round the handsome, upholsterer's drawing-room with a critical air, taking stock of the big Japanese vases

Starting point is 06:04:14 so like those in the window of the chief grocer at Cramston, the crimson Saturn curtains and sofas, half an acre or so of looking-glass, the black boys in front of the console table, holding up golden baskets of emptiness in their ebony arms, a room so different from the spacious saloon at the Howe, with its faded curtains and fine old pictures, its tulip-wood coffee tables and threadbare carpets,

Starting point is 06:04:44 its crystal chandeliers, and cabinets of old English china, collected by the grandmothers and great-grandmothers of the reigning family. What a pity these commercial people have everything so fine and so new, thinks Miss Cardinal. If they didn't burst out into all its splendour, one might forget they were parvenus. The girl is pretty, I suppose, or what most people call pretty, features too sharply cut for my taste. Miss Cardinal's features are of the blunt order, and her face inclines to that type of beauty

Starting point is 06:05:23 which the vulgar mind classifies as puddingy. They have found Sybil in the drawing-room, looking her very prettiest in white muslin, much adorned with Valenciennes, straw-coloured bows dotted about here and there among the flouncinges and rooshings, and a broad straw-coloured sash, tied with that artistic carelessness,

Starting point is 06:05:47 which is one of Sybil's gifts. She has a running account now at Car Michaels, the leading draper of Redcastle, and orders what she likes. The account has been running for the past twelve months, and indulgent as her millionaire uncle is, Sybil rather dreads the hour when the sum total of this account shall be brought under his notice. But in a dull provincial town,

Starting point is 06:06:13 what excitement can a pretty girl have except a little extravagance in the way of dress? Even matrons, whose beauty is a matter of tradition, are apt to plunge into a vortex, of millinery, for want of any other whirlpool wherein to rotate. Stephen Trenchard receives his guests with a marked graciousness, accepts Sir Williford's friendly advances greedily, and tries to make himself agreeable to Miss Cardinal,

Starting point is 06:06:41 who is rather more stony and unimpressionable than she ought to be if she comes prepared to extend the hand of friendship. I'm very glad for my niece to make pleasant, indeed distinguished acquaintance. says Mr. Trenchard. People in Redcastle have been very kind, Mrs. Stormont especially, quite muddally in her goodness to Sybil. But I am better pleased for her to know county people. There is a difference. Yes, I suppose you find it so, replies Miss Cardinal coolly, as if she felt she belonged to another order of bipeds.

Starting point is 06:07:20 Mrs. Stormont is nice, of course, with seraphic patronage. "'Very good family, I believe, the Stormonts.' "'This dubiously, as much as to say, "'So they tell me, poor creatures, "'but I haven't seen the particulars in Burke.' "'Sir Wilford has come to ask "'when Mr. Trenchard is going to drive Miss Fawnthorpe "'over to the Howe.

Starting point is 06:07:47 "'If you want to see our roses, you know, "'you must not lose any time, you know?' "'He adds emphatically, must they, Phoebe?' "'The roses are not. "'Nally over now, Wilford,' replies Miss Cardinal, "'which remark is not exactly a warm invitation. "'Oh, stuff! "'Why, you were saying that the Dijons

Starting point is 06:08:07 "'were just in their glory this very morning "'while we were waiting for the fate on? "'When will you come, Miss Fawnthorpe? "'Tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday. "'We dine at the friary on Wednesday, Wilford. "'Ah, to be sure. "'Tomorrow, then.' "'Civil, looks embarrassed.

Starting point is 06:08:26 This marked attention from the head of a county family Kindles no flush of gratified vanity on her cheek today. Sir Wilford's admiration was pleasant enough on the racecourse, a triumph in the sight of all Redcastle. But the matter is now growing more serious. She begins to think that she has really made a conquest, and that Sir Wilford is disagreeably in earnest. It's like the realisation of my childish dream

Starting point is 06:08:56 about a rich husband and all the bells in Redcastle ringing for my wedding, she says to herself, Only it comes too late. I am not sorry that it is so. I have no regret. I made my choice and shall be proud to stand by it when the time comes. Only it is curious that the childish dream should come true after all. Will you come to the how-tomorrow, Mr. Trenchard? asks Sir Wilford.

Starting point is 06:09:26 We have some old pictures that you may like to see. There's a Van Dyke my father used to think great things of, and our gardens are worth a visit in this weather, though I'm always blowing up at those beggars of gardeners. Come early, and we can do the gardens before luncheon, and the pictures after. My uncle so seldom goes out in the morning, says Sybil quickly, as if eager to find an excuse for declining.

Starting point is 06:09:51 But this invitation is too tempting to be refused, interposes Mr. Trenchard. I have heard wonders of the how. Mrs. Stormont is very fond of talking about the howe vineries and the how stables. Then you'll come to-morrow, exclaimed Sir Wilford delightedly. Miss Cardinal is lost in contemplation of the lights and shadows on the lawn, seen under the Spanish blind, which affords but a limited view of the garden. If that day will suit Miss Cardinal's engagements?

Starting point is 06:10:24 oh i shall be very happy i'm sure replies the young lady thus directly appealed to after this miss cardinal is tolerably civil and talks to sibyl a little questioning her about her habits and amusements whether she rides is fond of croquet archery and so on with a rather district visiting air as of a kindly inquirer letting herself down to the level of the lower classes you have a croquet club or something of that sort in red castle she says loftily as if she had never had the institution clearly explained to her i rather think my sister and i are honorary members but we've never been yes there is a club for croquet and archery they meet in sir john baldero's park very nice for you i dare say remarks miss cardinal as much as to say people of your class must be provided with amusements of some kind. They all take a little stroll in the garden presently, and Miss Cardinal deigns to admire the fine old plane trees on the lawn. It is a considerable relief to move about in the sunshine,

Starting point is 06:11:39 and to have flower-beds and standard roses to look at and talk about after that forced conversation in the drawing-room. I think your ribbon borders are better than ours, remarks Miss Cardinal. Those are the stables, I suppose, looking at the slated roofs which appear above the shrubbery. Have you many saddle horses? Only the one my uncle bought for me.

Starting point is 06:12:06 The groom rides one of the carriage horses. Miss Cardinal visibly shudders. And is your horse nice? She's a darling, very pretty and very gentle. Indeed, says Miss Cardinal. "'I hate gentle horses. "'I like a horse to be lively and give me something to do. "'It must be rather dull work for you riding alone

Starting point is 06:12:29 "'if you're not particularly fond of riding.' "'Oh, but I'm very fond of riding.' "'You don't hunt, I suppose.' "'No, my uncle would hardly like that, I think. "'I dare say not. "'Wilford, your roams must be very tired of waiting, "'and I have some more calls to make.' "'Mr. Trenchard begs his guests.

Starting point is 06:12:51 to stay to luncheon. Thanks, you are very good, but it would be quite impossible, replies Miss Cardinal, decisively. I have so much to do before I go home. Then we are to see you at the how tomorrow. Goodbye. Come, Williford, pray.

Starting point is 06:13:10 Sir Wilford, who has been gazing at Sybil and forgetting the engagement of life and time, follows his sister reluctantly, after a cordial leave-taking. "'Well, little woman, I think there's no doubt about you having made a conquest there,' says Stephen Trenchard. "'Directly the Cardinals have vanished. "'His tone is at once more cheerful and more affectionate than it has been for some little time,

Starting point is 06:13:37 "'for a period dating from that night on which he received his nameless visitor. "'Please don't talk about Conquest's uncle.' "'Nonsense, child! It's a subject I'm very glad to talk about. I want you to marry well, and I should like you to make a brilliant marriage, Sybil, before I am gone. Dear, uncle, pray, don't. My love, I am an old man. Tough and wiry enough, it is true, but well on in years. I can't expect to live forever.

Starting point is 06:14:10 And I should like to see you well placed in life before I say my noctimittis. What does it matter, uncle, says Sybil impatiently. it is so tiresome of this old man rolling in wealth and of course intending to bequeath a considerable portion of his riches to her to harp thus persistently upon the advantages of a good marriage what could a rich husband avail to one who is to be so richly dowered two fortunes are no better than one if the one be large enough for every earthly desire believe me dear uncle i have no idea of marrying i never shall marry and as for sir wilford cardinal adds sybil with asperity i positively hate him she has her husband's letter in her bosom that letter written in the pimlico coffee-house and transmitted through jane diamond's toil-stained hands and the idea of any other man's admiration is revolting to her if if she dared but tell her uncle the truth if he had not this rooted hatred of his dead enemy's race how different life might be "'Hate a fine, handsome young man,

Starting point is 06:15:33 "'one of the best in the county? "'Who has come out of his way to pay you attention? "'I'm ashamed of you, Sybil,' exclaims Stephen Trenchard, "'and his bristling brows contract threateningly over his keen dark eyes "'as he scrutinizes Sybil's pale face. "'I hope there is no one else in the background,' he says. "'No scamp whose acquaintance you made in London?' perhaps that's the reason why you stayed away so long after i asked to see you sybil's pale cheek grows paler there is no one uncle she says resolutely feeling that the situation is desperate

Starting point is 06:16:14 have you ever heard me speak of any one all i want is not to be worried about marrying if you are tired of me if you think me an encumbrance or a burden send me away i can go back to uncle robert or i can be a governess again this little bit of temper or independence pleases mr trenchard don't fly into a passion little one he says kindly i suppose you know how pretty you look when you are angry i won't tease you any more about getting married but when a good chance offers don't refuse it that's all i say my dear they go into luncheon together and sybil resumes those pretty coaxing ways that have won her uncle's heart she sits near him and ministers to his wants which are not many never forgets to hand him the napole pepper pours out his glass of claret all with a caressing tenderness which is not without its charm for him i think i shall pay a duty visit this afternoon uncle unless you want me for anything going to see your sister and the old doctor i suppose replies mr trenchard he speaks of robert faunthorpe with a touch of compassion as if the surgeon were considerably his senior instead of being his junior by about ten years yes uncle marian thinks me unkind for not going oftener but it's such a long dusty walk through the town and if i take the carriage she does nothing but sneer at me "'Poor Marion,' says Mr. Trenchard. "'She has all the littleness of a girl fresh from boarding school.

Starting point is 06:18:02 "'Let her sneer, child. "'We must all live our own lives, "'and let people think what they like about us. "'You'd better take the carriage.' "'It's not worthwhile. "'I should like to stop with Marion and Jenny for a few hours. "'I shall be back to dinner, of course, uncle.' "'I'm glad of that.

Starting point is 06:18:22 "'You've spoiled me for lonely dinners, little. one, I miss those bright eyes of yours at the other side of the table. It is a broiling summer afternoon, and that long, empty street below bar, the broad, bright marketplace, little Bethel, the British schools, the Sunday school, the independent chapel, the Athena Lodge, are all glaring in the sun. Mrs. Groshen has made her housefront a blaze of geranium and calciliaria. festoons of verdure hang down from the encaustic flower-boxes brass canary cages glitter in the open windows dr mitson's grave old house on the shady side of the street brown and sombre contrasts this variegated glare from this point the houses decrease in size and importance and a little lower down begin the shops all of a refined and elegant character at this end of the street

Starting point is 06:19:27 the hairdressers, the stationer and booksellers, the fancy and Berlin wool warehouse, the photographers, the fashionable pastry cooks, in whose plate-glass window appear a wooden wedding cake, sumptuously decorated with fly-spotted plaster of Paris, two glass jellies, and three tall jars of confectionery of the meringue and cracker bonbon order, which have never been opened within the knowledge of the external world. The marangs, the bonbons, and the savoy biscuits are pale with old age. But the confectioner is not without business, for it is he who supplies the volvons a la financier and the lobster cutlets,

Starting point is 06:20:12 which are an inevitable feature in a Red Castle dinner. After these genteeler repositories come the vulgar, every day butchers and bakers, grocers, candlestick makers, drapers and tallow chandlers. The street opened into the market square, in the middle of which stands the town hall, square and imposing, with a facade of no particular style, and a big-faced clock, which is always at variance with the Minster. Here, too, is the police station at a corner, with a flaming bill stuck against its stony front, offering a reward for the apprehension of the assassin in a murder case which no one has ever heard of. That bill will disappear in a day or two,

Starting point is 06:21:02 and no one in Red Castle will ever be any the wiser about the murderer or murder. After the Market Square, the High Street, or main artery of the town, dwindles and goes narrow. The shops become dingy and small. There are rows of cottages at intervals, then a row of very ancient and shabby arms houses, whose parlours have sunk below the level of the pavement and whose upper chambers are no higher than the passing pedestrian's shoulder. Here, at the end of the street, the centre of all this shabbiness,

Starting point is 06:21:39 rising sublimely above the petty modern town, stands the Minster. one of the most perfect cathedral churches in the land, its ancient burial ground stretching widely behind it, a forge and a cluster of old-fashioned cottages for its opposite neighbours, and beyond the white high road and the open fields. There are a few houses and gardens on this high road, and the second of these on the same side as the Minster

Starting point is 06:22:11 is Dr. Faunthorpe's dull old dwelling. The roses are in bloom in the front garden today and brighten the aspect of the house a little. But the roses and the grass, the old cherry tree in the corner, and the jasmine against the wall, are all alike whitened with dust. The garden gate is rarely locked and the house door is always open in warm weather,

Starting point is 06:22:38 so Sybil has nothing to do but walk in. She has not seen her relatives at this end of the town since she saw them on the race course, and she is quite prepared to find Marion somewhat cantankerous. That young lady starts up from the sofa with a flushed face, rumpled hair, and a generally tousald appearance as Sybil enters the everyday parlour. She has fallen asleep over a novel, in which an impossibly lovely and accomplished heroine revolves in a circle of dukes and duchesses, marquises and millionaires, the male members of which patrician society fall in love with her at the slightest provocation.

Starting point is 06:23:21 Oh, exclaims Marion with a long yawn. It's you, is it? I didn't expect you to come and see us anymore, now that you've made the acquaintance of the county. Pray to what fortuitous combination of circumstances do we owe this unlooked for honour, she adds, with a touch of the all-accomplished heroine's dignity. Don't be an idiot, Marion. I wonder I ever do come to see you considering how excruble you make yourself. I do not enjoy your opportunities, replies Marion briskly. I am not favoured with the friendship of the store wants. I don't live in a splendidly furnished

Starting point is 06:24:04 house with pampered flunkies to wait upon me. I am not favoured. I am not favoured, and I am a honourable, I haven't a running account at the drapers. In short, I'm a low, vulgar person altogether. Marion, you are too absurd. Her manners had not the repose that marks the cast of Verde de Verre. You ought to pity my shortcomings. I dare say when you are Lady Cardinal you will cut me altogether. You looked as if you would have liked to do it on the race course.

Starting point is 06:24:35 And so I should you provoking, Minx. the idea of taking that horrid old rattletrap of a pony carriage up to the racecourse, to let all Redcastle see how often the harness has been mended, and how the cushions have been devoured by moths. Everybody can't have baroches and pears, cries Marion with vixenish energy. You thought I was going to stay away from the races, did you, while you were enjoying yourself with your grand friends. If you didn't want me to go in Uncle Robert's pony chaise,

Starting point is 06:25:08 Why didn't you take me an Uncle Trenchard's Baruch? He's my uncle, every bit as much as he's yours, unless I'm a changeling. I was to be moping at home, was I, while you were decked out in new bonnets and things, and flirting audaciously with a baronet. Cinderella's sisters were kindness itself compared with you. Talk as much nonsense as you like, Marion. I'm not going to quarrel with you. The weather's much too warm for family squabbles.

Starting point is 06:25:37 I'm sure I'd be nearly melted. between Lancaster Lodge and here. People accustomed to a barouche must find walking a trial. Where's Jenny? Making an object of herself in the garden, I suppose, replies Marion, flinging herself down upon the sofa and resuming her novel.

Starting point is 06:25:57 I'll go and have a chat with her. She's pleasant to accompany than you are at any rate. I dare say, says Marion contemptuously with her back to her sister. Some people don't like home truths. Sybil goes into the garden, not displeased at being on bad terms with Marion. Jenny is the person she has come to see,

Starting point is 06:26:21 and it is vital to her to see Jenny alone. The long, old-fashioned garden is a land flowing with milk and honey in this blazing July weather. Gouzbury bushes bending under their heavy load, smooth gooseberries and hairy gooseberries, green, red and yellow gooseberries, currents, red, white and black. The hoary old bushes grow such fruit as you could rarely find in your orderly modern garden. This midsummer time is Jane Faunthorpe's Saturnalia.

Starting point is 06:26:57 She spends the long, warm afternoons in a dwarf forest of prickly shrubs, tears her frock to absolute ribbons, neglects her stockings, lets her long tails of brown hair go loose and ragged as a beggar girls, and in her sister's words, makes an object of herself. The fruit she eats all day, the lettuces and other green stuffs she consumes at suppertime, would lay an ordinary mortal low under the deadly grip of cholera. But Jenny is none the worse for her intemperance,

Starting point is 06:27:32 and rises with renewed vigour every morning to run riot among the gooseberry bushes. Dr. Faunthorpe remonstrates occasionally on the subject of his youngest niece's unkempt and down-at-heel condition, and remarks plaintively that she's not exactly a credit to him or to her sisters. But Marion flings the burden of blame on Jane. She is quite incorrigible. It is useless to attempt improvement.

Starting point is 06:28:02 If I were to work my fingers to the bone today, be just as ragged tomorrow, argues Marion. But, my love, there are rents, absolute rents in her frock, which might surely be sewn up with very little labour, pleads the mild doctor. Then let us sew them up herself, exclaims Marion. She's old enough. I shan't encourage her to be a tear-coat by doing all her mending.

Starting point is 06:28:30 The old servant and factotum Hester girds at both. Jenny for her sluttishness, Marion for her fine ladyism. You can pour your eyes out over a bit of trumpery to make yourself smart, she says to the elder damsel, yet you won't thread a needle to make your sister tidy. Thus Jenny is an element of discord in the house, and conscious of this fact confines herself seldom within its walls. She rambles about the garden, or squats in dusty corners,

Starting point is 06:29:04 or hides among the gooseberry bushes all day long. She has sundry members of the animal kingdom for her amusement, a blind jackdaw in a dilapidated old cage in the stable, caterpillars and green beetles in paper boxes or old pickle bottles, a family of white mice, a hutch full of rabbits. With these companions she is perfectly happy. Sibyl finds her youngest sister sitting on the ground in a spot where the gooseberries grow thickest, sunburned, disorderly,

Starting point is 06:29:41 her plentiful brown hair hanging loosely over her shoulders, no collar, no cuffs, a dirty holland gown out at elbows and too short at the wrists, and two stout legs stretched straight out before her in wrinkled stockings, two overgrown feet in clumsy boots, making themselves ungracefully conspicuous. Jenny Faunthorpe is not a bad-looking girl, and may possibly develop eventually into a good-looking woman, but in her present wild state she has not that air of refinement which Sybil would like to see in her sister. Today, however, Sybil is anxious to be on good terms with this young bohemian. Well, child, burning yourself to a cinder as usual, she begins,

Starting point is 06:30:30 and you might have such a nice complexion if you would only take care of it. I should never have your complexion, answers the reprobate child without looking up. I'm not made of tinted marble like Mr. Somebody's coloured Venus. Get up, you silly girl, and let me have a look at you. Dear me, cries Jenny. So you know me today? You didn't seem to recognise me on the race course last week in Uncle Robert's pony chaise. You'd needn't have been so proud.

Starting point is 06:31:01 We were carriage people just as much as you. A carriage is a carriage anyhow. There are some carriages that are a great deal more disgraceful than walking, exclaims Sybil, forgetting the necessity of conciliating this outspoken child. Yes, carriages that people ride in through lick-spittling and turning their backs on their truest benefactors, cries the incorrigible Jane. If it hadn't been for Uncle Robert's goodness,

Starting point is 06:31:32 we might all have died of starvation when we were tiny children. Uncle Trenchard did not think of us then. Oh dear, no. But Uncle Trenchard can leave us a lot of money, and Uncle Robert can't, so we caught Uncle Trenchard. At least some of us do, not a hundred miles from this gooseberry bush.

Starting point is 06:31:51 Well, Jenny, I came here this overpowering afternoon, through that baking town on purpose to see you. But as you're not particularly civil, I may as well go back. No, you needn't, cries Jenny, springing up from the ground and letting a shower of gooseberry skins fall from her lap. I feel better-tempered now that I've given you a peace of my mind, but when you see me again in a public place, Sib, don't try to cut me because it won't do. I'm not going to be cut by my own flesh and blood. I'll run and coax Hester to let us have tea in the arbour.

Starting point is 06:32:29 You know that old vine in the corner? It doesn't grow grapes, but it grows a lot of leaves. Me and Tom Sprigg have made an arbor, and trained that old vine over it. I should say Tom Sprigg and I. Should you? I shouldn't. If I'm not of more consequence than a boy that comes to litter the pony for 18 pence a week,

Starting point is 06:32:50 I don't know English grammar. Such an awfully jolly arbor, Sib. I'll run and see about a little. tea. There is a vision of legs whirling wildly down the garden walk, and Jane is gone to hold parley with honest old Hester, who stands at a wash-tub by the back kitchen window, the perspiration pouring down her toil-worn face. There are women in the world who bear all the burden of family cares, without the sweets of kindred, and this faithful old servant is one of these. She has toiled and striven for Dr. Fornthorke, and she has toiled and striven for Dr. Fornthorke's.

Starting point is 06:33:25 nests, as if they were her own flesh and blood, has scolded and praised them, worked for them, and thought for them, risen early and gone to bed late, and except that she is recognized in a general way as a good creature, too fond of using her tongue, she has not much reward for her labours in this sublunary sphere. "'Tee in the Arbor!' cries her shrill voice, and on washing day, who ever heard of such a thing, you're never happy unless you're giving trouble.

Starting point is 06:33:59 But we must have to eat somewhere, mustn't we? And what's the difference of our having it in the harbour if I carry out the tray? Yes, and smash out the cups and sauces. Oh dear yes, I'm always smashing things, ain't I? Who was it broke the pie dish yesterday, not me? The damsel open to cupboard, takes out loaf and butter dish,

Starting point is 06:34:23 whisks a tea tray from its shelf and arranges cups and saucers with a tremendous clutter, while a long-suffering Hester is wiping her shriveled hands. There is a good deal of squabbling, but the tray is laid between the disputants and the tea-made, a plate full of bread and butter, and another plate of plain current cake cut, and Hester bears the tray off to the garden, Jenny following with the cake and bread and butter, radiant at her victory. The arbour, in an angle of the crumbling red brick wall, is not altogether a bad place after its fashion. An ancient fig tree, which grows anyhow and bears innumerable figs that never ripen, shields it on one side.

Starting point is 06:35:11 The vine covers the other side and trails over the top. Tom Sprigg, the stable-boy, has exercised his mechanical genius in constructing a rude table and bench out of old packing cases. Jenny has painted bench and table a vivid green. Here Hester places the tea tray, under protest, after a passing nod, not a very friendly salutation, to Sybil. If you like earwigs and your tees, you'll have them in plenty, she says, as she surveys the rustic banquet. There's no accounting for tastes, and with this remark she returns to her washtub. "'I'll run and fetch Marion,' says Jenny. "'Not just this minute, dear,' says Sybil, stopping her.

Starting point is 06:35:58 "'I want to have a few words with you alone.' "'For an instant or so, Jenny apprehends a lecture. But as Sybil winds her arm caressingly around her sister's waist, Jenny opines that she has wanted to share some agreeable confidence. "'You're going to tell me about him,' she cries eagerly. "'Do, Sib, when is it to be?' "'Whom do you mean by him?' "'So Wilford Cardinal, of course.

Starting point is 06:36:24 "'Anybody could see that it was a case of smite. "'Genny! What horrid language! "'I mean to say that he was smitten, "'and he has called on you with Mrs. Stormont, too. "'That must mean something. "'Who told you that?' "'Hester knows a young woman that's housemaid at Mrs. Stormont, "'and she tells us all that goes on above bar.

Starting point is 06:36:45 "'I will not quite cut off from the world of fashion, though we do live at the shabby end of town. When is it to be, Sib? They are walking slowly up and down the path by the old red wall, and the border where clove carnations and cabbage roses grow in wildest luxuriance. When is what to be, child? Your wedding! When are you going to be Lady Cardinal? You'll let me be bridesmaid, won't you, Sib?

Starting point is 06:37:13 I'll try to be graceful. I'll take such pains with myself for a month beforehand. and I'm your own sister, you know. It stands to reason I ought to be bridesmaid. I've just as good a right as Marion. When's it going to be, Sibb? Never, cries Sibyl, turning upon her angrily, and if you allow your tongue to run on in this ridiculous manner,

Starting point is 06:37:35 I shan't come to see you any more. But you'd marry him if he asked you, sure to goodness, exclaims Jane. Sure to goodness is a favourite ejaculation of Hester's. no i should not jenny and in a gush of feeling or remorse or utter helplessness sybil flings her arms around jane fauntlop's neck and sobs upon her shoulder sybil whatever is the matter are you presently oh jenny i'm very miserable miserable with that lovely hat and with all that madeira work on your dress yes jane i want someone to help me someone to pity me and i would rather trust you than marian trust me then you might trust me with high treason cries jenny vehemently her notions of history being for the most part derived from mr aintworth's novels if i had my flesh torn off with red-hot pincers or my feet screwed up in iron boots i wouldn't tell you'd get no ryehouse plot out of me yes i think i can trust you jenny says sybil drying her tears you were always my favourite sister you know i didn't know it though i remember you said so when i told you about that man yes dear i always loved you best

Starting point is 06:39:07 i'm very glad to hear it sib and i shall be your bridesmaid shan't i when you marry and wear white muslin over white silk a pink sash and a wreath of pink That's my idea of a bridesmaids dress? I shall never have any bridesmaids, Jenny. End of Chapter 19. Chapter 20 of dead men's shoes. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibrovox.org.

Starting point is 06:39:59 Recording by Mary Herndon. Bell. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 20. Half Confidence What do you mean by not having any bridesmaid, Sybil? demands Jenny, as the sisters walk slowly along the garden path. You can't be married without them, can you? Yes, answered Sybil. I know a girl who was married one morning with not a soul belonging to her in the church. gracious goodness who gave her away the beetle how horrid and now let's be serious jenny do you remember that man who came here two years ago in the winter and questioned you about me as if i were likely to forget him if he were to come again and want to see me what should you say to him well that would depend upon how he was dressed. If he looked like a beggar, as he did last time, I should tell him some bouncer or other,

Starting point is 06:41:08 and send him away, because I'm sure you wouldn't like a ragged person to come and ask for you at Lancaster Lodge. What a sensible girl you are, Jenny. Yes, I believe my head is screwed on tight. Now listen, darling, if that poor young man should come here again and ask you questions about me, You must contrive to send him away with the idea that I am ever so far from Red Castle. In Scotland, Ireland, anywhere you like. But you must not say that I am abroad, as he knows that I am within a 24-hour's post of London. Say what you like, but don't let him know that I'm in Red Castle,

Starting point is 06:41:53 and whatever you do, don't mention Uncle Trenchard's name. I'll be as secret as you. the grave, answers Jane solemnly. Don't you think that tea will be overdrawn? Let it draw a little longer. We all like it strong, you know. You shall have this hat next week, Jenny, since you think it pretty. Pretty? It's absolutely divine.

Starting point is 06:42:23 Marion will be awfully jealous. I can't help that. If Marion were a little more civil, I should give her plenty of pretty things. Now listen, Jenny. Suppose that poor young man were to say curious things were to tell you something strange about me. What could he tell me? asked Jane,

Starting point is 06:42:46 making her eyes as round as marbles. Never mind what. You must not be surprised, and you must not let him discover anything from your manner. Above all, remember that he is to know nothing about Uncle Trenchard. It is nothing wrong that I am asking you to do, Jenny, except so far as it is wrong to tell a falsehood, and I really think even that is excusable

Starting point is 06:43:12 when one is in a great dilemma. I don't mind telling a bouncer, says Jane boldly. Bouncers never weigh much on my conscience. It is very wicked to tell stories in a general way. You ought to know that, Jenny. but this is quite an exceptional case it is all for the best all will come right in the end and i shall love you dearly jenny if you will help me out of my difficulties mind the person i speak of may not come here again i only wish you to be prepared for him if he should come i'm prepared answered jenny boldly poor fellow i did feel sorry for him that bitter winter day He looks so tired and worn. Very good looking, too, in spite of all. How handsome he must be when he is well-dressed.

Starting point is 06:44:11 Yes, he is very handsome, says Sibble pensively. And you like him, Sibb? Just a little bit. I loved him with all my heart. I love him still. I am true to him through all difficulties. that always, Jenny. Gracious, cries Jenny. And it is on his

Starting point is 06:44:35 account that you would refuse to marry Sir Wilford Cardinal if he were to ask you? Yes, Jenny. But I say, Sib, suppose he should come to the front door, and Marion or Hester should get hold of him. You must be on the watch

Starting point is 06:44:52 to prevent that. If he comes at all, he is likely to come within the next few days. I rely upon your cleverness to prevent his seeing Marion or Hester. Very well. It will be difficult, but I'll do my best. And now I'd better run and call Marion to tea, or she'll begin to think there are secrets between you and I.

Starting point is 06:45:17 Between you and me, Jenny. Oh, bother. If I say me, it's I. If I say I, it's me. I'll run for Marion. Again appears that vision of legs whirling wildly and scanty skirts flying in the wind. Sybil strolls along the path and looks at the big cabbage roses, the red crinkled wall, the sprawling vegetable marrows, the flush of uncultivated fertility. Red and yellow dragon's mouth flourishes on the wall.

Starting point is 06:45:51 Stone crop in full flower on the sloping roof of the tumble-down old shed that serves as a stable, converts the thatch into a roof of gold. Butterflies, bees, and all the summer insects are flying from flower to flower, carrying the yellow pollen on their honey- smeared wings, and intermarrying all the families of blossoms as they flutter to and fro. It is only poverty's poorly tended garden, but how full of color and perfume and beauty! it is almost as good as uncle trenchard's velvet lawn and mosaic flower-beds one feels more at home here think sybil

Starting point is 06:46:36 i wish i were jenny or marian without a care for what to-morrow may bring forth she thinks even though i forfeited my chance of uncle trenchard's fortune marian comes along the path by the gooseberry bushes presently tearing her muslin skirt once or twice by contact with the straggling thorny branches on the way and muttering little ejaculations which come as near swearing as a lady can permit herself to venture plague take the brambles she cries at uncle trenchards the kitchen garden is in its proper place not all mixed up with the flowers how you must laugh at us sybil for drinking tea in such an arbor as that and calling it pleasure. Not at all. I am very fond of Uncle Robert's old garden, and I think everything grows here better than at Lancaster Lodge.

Starting point is 06:47:33 It's very considerate of you to say that, in order to reconcile us to our lowly lot, replies Marion, with a sneer as she takes her place on the narrow green bench and begins to pour out the tea. Milk and sugar, I suppose. You used to take both when I had the privilege, of being intimate with you. Of course it's cream at Lancaster Lodge, and the sugar doesn't

Starting point is 06:47:58 look as if it had the jaundice, as ours does. Marian is not comfortably awake yet. Her eyes have a watery look. The great lump of hair and padding with which she adorns the top of her head is pushed awry. Her toilet has an air of faded fashion, of tumbled frippery, which is suggestive of a struggle to be fine under disadvantages. No dress is more becoming to a girlish wearer than fresh, uncreased muslin, but a muslin dress that has been worn three days and slept in three afternoons is not the loveliest of garments. Marion has penned a bow here and there, and has put on the latest fashionable ruffle at

Starting point is 06:48:43 one and eleven pence three farthings, and has done her best to embellish the soiled muslin. but the result is failure, and she feels that it is so as she looks at Sybil's pure white cambric and delicate Madeira embroidery. I wonder you're so fond of Move, Sybil, she says after a critical survey of her sister's hat. It doesn't suit you by any means. You look as white as chalk. The warm weather is rather trying, answered Sybil. And you have such black marks under your eyes. I have not slept well lately.

Starting point is 06:49:21 You look like it. One would think you had something dreadful on your conscience. Take that horrid caterpillar off the bread-and-butter plate, Jenny. I declare this den of yours swarms with reptiles. I saw a toad under the bench yesterday. Toads are valuable animals, answers Jane. They eat the snails like one o'clock. Another of your lady-like similes.

Starting point is 06:49:46 Poor Uncle Robert. I pity him when I think how his money was wasted in paying for that child's schooling. The only education she got was the bad language she picked up in the street on her way to school and back. If Uncle Trencher had a spark of family feeling, he'd send her to a good boarding school where she'd be licked into shape. Licked into shape isn't my idea of elegant language, remarks Jenny, with her mouth full of bread and butter. But I forgot, pursues Marion, ignoring this interruption. Uncle Trenchard reserves all his generosity for one member of this family. Any attempt of ours to obtain a share of his favor would be regarded as an intrusion.

Starting point is 06:50:33 We are outsiders. But if ever a child is going to ruin her want of proper tuition, Jenny is that child. I should have thought you might have taught her yourself, Marion, says Sybil. should you then perhaps you'll be kind enough to try the experiment some morning for an hour or two before you think any more about it a more unteachable brat i never came across in all my life and i took the fourth class at miss warries for a week when you were laid up with scarletina i don't like to be taught by an ignoramus exclaims the contumacious jenny who was it said nuzaleron was the future of alarer people should look at learn before they teach. At least that's my idea. Sybil wearied with these recriminatory passages looks at her watch and finds it is time for her to go back to Lancaster Lodge. It's half an hour's walk, she says, and I must be dressed for dinner by seven. Uncle Trenchard likes me to be in the

Starting point is 06:51:37 drawing room half an hour before dinner. Ah, no wonder you don't care about our current cake when you're going to have a regular tuckout at half-past seven, exclaims Jenny. If you knew how little appetite I have for Uncle Trenchard's grand dinners, Jenny, you wouldn't envy me, says Sybil. In fact, my dear Jenny, exclaims Marion, going over to the enemy, Sybil is a woman of fashion, a superior being, whom you and I are not qualified to comprehend. This remark winds up the skirmish. Sybil wishes Mary and goodbye and leaves the arbor, followed by Jenny, who hangs on her as they walk down the narrow path.

Starting point is 06:52:20 At the kitchen window, Sybil pauses to say a civil word to Hester. And how are you, Hester, this warm weather, she inquires. Just as hard at work as if it was cold weather, replies Hester, in no wise mollified by the sweetness of this address. Your uncle's shirts have to be washed, even if it is the dog. days, and the perspiration running down one's face. As to how I am myself, I haven't got time to think whether I'm ill or well, and that's all about it. I hope Uncle Robert is feeling better than when I saw him last, remarked Sybil, playing with the ivory handle of her parasol, embarrassed by the faithful servant's stern countenance. Then he isn't, snapped Hester,

Starting point is 06:53:07 and a deal you care about it. I wouldn't be a nipocrite if I was used. you, Miss Sybil. You've got your rich uncle. Stick to him. And don't pretend to care about the poor uncle that brought you up. Upon my word, exclaimed Sybil, half angry. I wonder that I ever come here. So do I, miss. You come so seldom that you might just as well stay away altogether. It would be more consistent. End of chapter 20. Chapter 21 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Librevox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Mary Herndon Bell. Dead Mince Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Chapter 21. Received by the county.

Starting point is 06:54:11 At half past 12 o'clock on the following day, Sybil and Mr. Trenchard start on their drive to the Howe. It is more than an hour's drive, even with Mr. Trenchard's well-fed horses, who are used so little that they are in a chronic state of either wanting to run away, are languishing into a crawl. Their paces between Redcastle and the Howe are an alternate bolt and dawdle, and perhaps on the whole they take more time about the journey than the less pampered steeds, which ply for hire at redcastle station sir wilfrid cardinal is smoking his cigar on the grassy walk inside the moat as mr trencher's carriage drives through the gateway the howe is a good old place of the moated grange order tudor gables and windows in front roofs and chimneys at the back of the premises of an earlier period a fine old chapel which has been converted into a drawing-room a monkey refinery which has been made a billiard room. The gardens are lovely, and that deep, wide moat,

Starting point is 06:55:24 with its dark still water and smooth green banks, adds not a little to their beauty. A swan comes sailing down the dark, shining water, as Sybil alike, assisted by Sir Wilfrid, who has thrown away his cigar and come to welcome his guests. How late you are, he exclaims. i have been expecting you for the last two hours now what will you see first the stables or the gardens sybil is going to say the gardens but mr trenchard who knows that his host tastes are turfy votes for the stables i'm so glad you like the stables exclaimed sir wilfrid addressing himself to sybil as if the choice were hers i am rather proud of mine you know i've spent a good deal of money upon him They were regular pig-sties when I inherited the place. My poor father didn't care about his stables, you know.

Starting point is 06:56:22 As long as he had a couple of carriage horses to drag the family about, a weight-carrying cob for his own use, and a pony or two for us children. He was satisfied. His horses weren't members of his family. Why, in his time, the gardeners and farm laborers were as well accommodated as the horses, concludes Sir Wilfrid, as if this were the summit of iniquity.

Starting point is 06:56:48 They traverse a shrubbery and find themselves in the stable department, a spacious quadrangle, stone paved, and with a stone basin of water in the middle. Numbered doors and windows adorned with flower boxes surround this neat square quadrangle, each door opening into a loose box, each number belonging to a special quadruped in Sir Wilford, stud. Within, the loose boxes are as neat as a spinster's annuitant's best parlor. Each horse is provided with a cat or dog for company, while one animal, more social than the rest, is not satisfied without the society of a stable boy, who sits in a corner of his box reading the paper all the summer afternoon, while the lordly beast stares dreamily at him

Starting point is 06:57:39 across the swinging door, makes an occasional snap at him, displaying an appalling range of long yellow teeth in pure playfulness. Sybil is introduced severally to the horses, who are swathed in double sets of clothing as if they were in Siberia. Why are the poor things wrapped up so in this warm weather? inquire Sybil. That's to keep up the beauty of their coats, Mum, says a stable boy. numerous animals are unclothed and brought out in the sunny quadrangle to display their various graces. They all seem pretty much alike to Sybil, except that some are thin and some thick. Sybil admires the slimmer animals, but Sir Wilfrid, Mr. Trenchard, and the stud groom go into raptures about the thicker and more stalwart quadrupeds.

Starting point is 06:58:35 There's a shoulder, says the groom punching a bull-neck, brute. Carry a church. There are legs, cries Sir Wilfred, regular gate-posts. Shall I bring out Bull of Bishan, sir? inquires the stud groom, and another thick-set beast is led forth, plunging viciously to the rearwards as he emerges from his cool retreat. Bull of Bishan is the gem of the stud. His leading qualification is cobiness. He has a thick neck, thick legs, a straight line from hawk to fetlock, short barrel, broad chest, an eye like Jove to threaten or command, and not a white hair about him, as the stud-groom remarks complacently. Time was when Bull of Bashan would have been esteemed a serviceable horse for a village miller or a

Starting point is 06:59:30 tenant farmer. Today he is the last fashion for a gentleman of fortune. ran away with a stable boy yesterday morning when he was being exercised, says Sir Wilfrid approvingly, patting the beast's solid shoulder. Which familiarity the bull resents by sticking his ears back till he appears to be unprovided with those appendages, and giving a vicious kick in the direction of his master's shins. How do you like the bull, Miss Fonthorpe? isn't he rather bad-tempered inquires sibyl doubtfully oh he's a lively horse i admit but the best-goer in the stable the men don't care about riding him but he and i understand each other don't we bull there take him in chanter they look into other loose boxes and sybil begins to think there is no end to the horses but the stable inspection is over at last and the stable inspection is over at last and the they go back to the gardens, where the baronet's sisters condescend to join them. Phoebe Cardinal is a little more inclined to be civil today than she showed herself at Lancaster

Starting point is 07:00:44 Lodge yesterday. She tells Sybil the names of roses and ferns, and makes herself otherwise agreeable. This amelioration of the young lady's manners has been brought about by a domestic process, which Sir Wilfred calls, a jolly good setting down. The baronet has informed his sisters in the plainest language that he considers Miss Faunthorpe the nicest girl he has met for a long time, that he has been informed that she has large expectations from the old Indian beggar, meaning Stephen Trenchard, and that in his Sir Wilfrid's opinion she would suit him admirably for a wife. Whereupon the two sisters, Phoebe and Lavinia, as with one voice, exclaim in the words of Mrs. Stormont.

Starting point is 07:01:36 "'Wilfred! A girl of no family!' "'Hang family!' ejaculates Sir Wilfred. "'We've got pedigree enough and to spare. The needful thing is ready money.' "'Oh, Wilfrid, you are rich enough, surely.' "'Oh, I can rub along, if that's what you mean,' answers the baronet. "'But I could buy the longly bottom of sea. if I had fifty thousand to dispose of. And then I should be the largest landowner between this and York. There's an upland meadow that would make the finest gallop in England,

Starting point is 07:02:12 and you know how badly I want some good training ground. Well, Wilfrid, if I were the head of the family, I wouldn't degrade myself by a plebeian marriage for the sake of a few paltry thousands. You might have Lady Malvina Ville Roche for the asking. But I shall never ask, answered Sir Wilfred decisively. Lady Melvina is a good deal too weedy for my money, and I don't like them that color. I'd marry Miss Fonthorpe if she hadn't a sixpence, but of course I take all the more kindly to the notion on account of that old chap's cash. I shouldn't like to see Longley Manor owned by some three-quarter-bred cockney. The result of this conversation which took place after dinner yesterday evening is Phoebe Cardinal's

Starting point is 07:03:02 amiable welcome of today. She takes Sybil up to her own room to take off her hat before luncheon, and Sybil admires the fine old house with its spacious corridors, massive tutor windows, and innumerable rooms. It is also different from the formal splendor of Lancaster Lodge. here all is picturesque, full of old associations, suggestive of ruffs and farthingales, silk and hose, enjeweled sword-hilts. There must be a family ghost, of course, in such a house. It is a place whose mistress must feel like a queen,

Starting point is 07:03:43 think Sybil, as she stands before the carved oak dressing-table, with its old Venice mirror, not quite so convenient as a modern dressing-table, but wondrous stately. From the wide, mullioned windows, she sees the garden and park spreading far away to the summer woods, and woods, as well as park and gardens,

Starting point is 07:04:04 belong to Sir Wilfred Cardinal. She can but think what a mighty conquest she has made if Sir Wilfred is really in love with her, as she can hardly doubt. She is just a little intoxicated by the idea. She feels as if she has been raised suddenly to a dizzy height, from which she must come toppling down presently. She feels, as she has often felt in a dream years ago, at Miss Worry's boarding school,

Starting point is 07:04:33 when her slumbers were frequently visited by a vision of pride, in which she saw herself wooed by some rich and noble suitor, and from which she awoke at the shrill peal of the school bell to find herself in the bleak bare dormitory, with the prospect of a winter day's dreary toil before her, Luncheon at the Howe is a bounteous and hospitable meal in an oak-panelled dining-room. After luncheon they explore the old house, which, although not a show-place, is well-worthy that honor. They look at the family pictures, which seem to Sybil rather a collection of wigs than of faces. So much more distinctive are the wigs than the countenances they embellish. The portrait gallery is, of course, a compendium,

Starting point is 07:05:22 of the family history, and Sybil here discovers that the Cardinals have produced alternate commanders by land and sea for the protection of their country, and have occasionally blossomed into a judge. Stephen Trenchard takes his part in the day's proceedings with supreme patience, admires the family portraits, just as he admired Sir Wilfred's horses, and makes himself generally agreeable. It is only when he is seated in the carriage. with his niece that the tension of the bow is relaxed, and weariness overshadows the Anglo-Indians sallow countenance. Rather a long morning, Sybil, he says, and more sight-seeing than I care about.

Starting point is 07:06:08 But I have borne it all for your sake. It will be a proud day for me if I live to see you mistress of that place. Yes, my dear, one of the proudest days of my life. and yet I have made many a conquest over fortune since I left Redcastle more than fifty years ago, a gaunt, hungry lad. Turned my back resolutely on my native town, knowing very well that there was nothing but starvation for me if I stayed there any longer. Sybil is silent.

Starting point is 07:06:42 It would be cruel to dispel a fancy which evidently gives the old man pleasure. Let him dream on. if what Mrs. Stormont says is true, and Stephen Trenchard's strength is dwindling fast, the end may come before he is awakened from his dream. And it will please him better to leave me his money if he thinks I am going to be a rich baronet's wife, reason Sibble within herself. To add riches to riches is the delight of such men. End of Chapter 21.

Starting point is 07:07:24 men's shoes. This is the Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibrovox.org. Recording by Mary Herndon Bell. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braden. Chapter 22. Jenny's Visitor Another blazing July afternoon, and all all the cornfields baking under the ripening sunshine. Jenny Fonthorpe lulls in her favorite armchair, a dreadfully dilapidated armchair it is,

Starting point is 07:08:05 with a faded chintz cover, which is always grimy, in the surgery window. She is very fond of sitting in the surgery, chiefly because it is against her uncle's household laws. If any man so easy-going and mild as Dr. Faunthorpe can be said to be a lawgiver in his household, that she should sit there. It is not an attractive apartment. It is dirtier than any other room in the house,

Starting point is 07:08:33 Hester being strictly forbidden to interfere with things in this sacred chamber, or, in other words, to sweep, dust, or scour. Its atmosphere is odoriferous, with compound rhubarb pills, colicinth, and pounded aloes. Its counter is sticky with the traces of divers medicines which have been compounded upon it. But there are attractions for Jenny in the room, notwithstanding, and she infinitely prefers it to the family parlor. There is the syrup of poppies yonder on the second shelf from the top,

Starting point is 07:09:09 in the dusty recess where the spiders have such a good time of it, and Jenny often indulges herself with a few sips of that soporific decoctions. If she has a surreptitious novel in her possession, she hides it on one of the lower shelves, behind the delth jar of leeches, perhaps. Sometimes she takes the leeches out and plays with them. At other times, when she is quite sure of not being disturbed by Dr. Faunthorpe, she amuses herself by taking down sundry bottles and making up prescriptions of her own. Thus,

Starting point is 07:09:45 syrup poppies, one ounce. Honey. Lotz Kanz roses one half ounce peppermint one dracham Tamarins

Starting point is 07:09:58 two ounces Aquapura 4 ounces This afternoon however She has a particular reason For prefering the surgery To her usual

Starting point is 07:10:09 happy hunting grounds Among the gooseberry bushes Faithful to her promise To Sibyl She makes the surgery window her post of observation. So that if the young man she expects should approach by the front

Starting point is 07:10:23 door, she may be ready to receive him, and cut off all communication with Hester. Should he come to the garden wall, on the other hand, as on his previous visit, there can be no harm done, as the wall adjoining the lane is beyond Hester's ken.

Starting point is 07:10:40 With infinite diplomacy, Jenny has contrived to get Marion out of the way for the whole day, by persuading her to take the train to Cramston and visit her old school fellow, Maria Harrison, the Cramston Wesleyan minister's daughter, with whom Marion has kept up some semblance of friendship, although the taste of the two young ladies are widely at variance. Miss Harrison, being, as becomes her, of a serious turn of mind, while Marion is to the last degree frivolous. If there is one thing which Marion enjoys

Starting point is 07:11:14 more than another in Maria's society, it is the opportunity which it gives her to talk over Sybil, whose goings-on, gay apparel, and chariots and horses, Miss Harrison contemplates with the disapproving eye of the Hebrew prophets. Jeremiah himself did not denounce the foolish daughters of Israel with more vigor than Miss Harrison exhibits towards her old schoolfellow. Thus it is that whenever Marion is particularly offended with Sybil, she is always in the humor for a visit to Miss Harrison, whose home, though unpretentious in its character, and situated in an obscure byway of the busy port of Cramston, is comfortable in its arrangements and of a hospitable turn. The five o'clock tea at the minister's table is a plentiful and substantial meal, which makes an excellent

Starting point is 07:12:08 substitute for dinner and render supper a superfluity. Jenny, turning to account this idiosyncrasy of her elder sisters, has persuaded Marion that she owes Miss Harrison a visit, and that today is a good opportunity for the settlement of that debt. Marion has allowed herself to be persuaded, has put on her best bonnet, and departed for Cramston in the one o'clock train, meaning to have a good look at the shops, which means a two hours perambulation of the principal streets before proceeding to Miss Harrison's paternal dwelling. You needn't expect me till you see me, says Marion at departing.

Starting point is 07:12:52 For if there's an evening service at Little Bethel, I shall be obliged to go. Though if there are two people in the scriptures I dislike more than another, it's Ahab and Jezebel, and they always crop up in Mr. Harrison's sermons. Jenny has thus made the coasts clear. It is Hester's day for cleaning the kitchen and outhouses, a day upon which the Miss Fawnthorps must either open the door to patient or casual visitor, or encounter Hester's wrath, that faithful servant having a temper which is aggravated by hearth-stoning difficult corners and awkward steps, and exasperated to fever point by scrubbing worm-eaten old floors, which never do no one credit.

Starting point is 07:13:38 jenny is quite sure that hester will not appear till she brings in the tea-tray scarlet of visage and perspiring and puts it on the table with a bang and a clatter exclaiming there now you've got your tea and don't come worrying for anything else it is between three and four the sleepiest hour in the slumberous balmy day and jenny bask in the sunshiny surgery window with folded arms watching the wasps and vagabond bees bouncing their stupid heads against the roses in the dusty front garden it is the very hour in which sibyl and mr trenchard are returning from the howl in the first day of jenny's watch just as the old minster clock with its mellow tongue chimes the half hour a dusty wayfarer comes in sight and jenny cries out loud it's the very man by all that's wonderful but dressed like a gentleman this time and oh how nice he looks yes it is the man she saw in the lane two winters ago tired footsore out at the elbows to-day he is as well clad as any man in red castle and he walks as if he had only come from the station he looks about him doubtfully for a minute or so as if unfamiliar with the front of dr faunthorpe's house then sees the name upon the brass plate and approaches boldly opens the gate and comes in if marian or hester were in the way now it would be all up says jenny to herself before the stranger can ring she has opened the door and stands face to face with him upon the threshold.

Starting point is 07:15:29 You're the very person I wanted to see, exclaims Alexis Secretan, as Jenny confronts him, her big round eyes staring their hardest. I'm lucky in finding you in the way. Luckier than you know of, thinks Ginny. Are you a patient? she demands aloud. If you are, uncle's out, and you can't have any medicine until after seven o'clock. between seven and nine in the evening are his hours or before nine in the morning. Nonsense, child. You must remember me, surely. Jane Fonthorpe's face expresses a total blankness.

Starting point is 07:16:09 She shakes her head stolidly. Perhaps I look a little more decent today than I did one winter afternoon two years and a half ago, says Alexis with a laugh. But I'm the man who spoke to you across the garden wall. do you remember now i have a faint recollection replies jenny with a languid hauteur which is very fairly imitated from sibyl come into the surgery young man if you please alexis laughs at the mode of a dress and follows her down a step into that temple of the healing art jenny enjoys the situation and means to make the most of it she looks at the stranger critically as he drops into one of the frayed horsehair chairs her parish patients are accustomed to sit awaiting dr faunthorpe's opinion as the fiat of fate the opinion rarely going beyond the statement that the patient is not so well as he might be, and that his condition will be improved by the medicine which Dr. Fonthorpe is about to give him. If, after this, the patient goes home and dies, it is his lookout. The parish

Starting point is 07:17:24 has done all it can for him. I want to know about your sister Sybil, says Alexis, looking round the shabby room, and thinking that this home of his wife's uncle is not much better than Mrs. Bonnie's one pear front in Dixon Street, Chelsea. Is she at home? Jane shakes her head dolefully, and heaves a sigh, which would do credit to an actress of transpontine melodrama.

Starting point is 07:17:52 I was in hopes you had come to tell us something about her, she says, for it's a hard thing to have one's eldest sister wandering about the world no one knows where. You mean to tell me that you don't know where she is at this present time,

Starting point is 07:18:07 exclaims Alexis. That's precisely the fact. She was governessing in Jersey when we heard from her last. But that's full ten months ago, and she's too much of a rolling stone to have stayed as long as that in one place. Especially, as she told us that the lady had red hair and used to fly into passions,

Starting point is 07:18:29 adds Jenny with a graphic touch that she thinks will give reality to her narrative. What was the lady's name? mrs yokohama gray says jenny on the spur of the moment reminiscent of the advertisement of a certain dress fabric which she has perused with keenest interest yoke hama repeats alexus that's rather a queer surname well it was very like that if not that exactly jersey says alexis thoughtfully when last you heard you heard you heard of that exactly jersie says alexis thoughtfully when last you heard you heard you of your sister, she was in Jersey, and that was ten months ago. Jenny counts her fingers meditatively, and appears to enter upon an abstruse calculation. Exactly ten months, she answers finally.

Starting point is 07:19:24 Could you show me your sister's letter? It's torn up. Uncle Robert never keeps his letters. But is not Dr. Fonthorpe anxious about your sister? It seems such a strange thing for him to be ignorant of her fate. Of course it is, but Sybil's a strange girl. Uncle Robert has had many a sleepless night on her account. I dare say we shall get a letter from her some day, telling us that she has gone with a lady to Peru, or Kamchataka, are some of those hot climates where mosquitoes devour you all night,

Starting point is 07:20:01 and alligators hide themselves under your bolster. Alexis sighs rarely. i should like to see your uncle he says he might tell me more not a bit of it replies jenny who has posed herself gracefully on a corner of the surgery table and swings her leg to and fro as if rather admiring the shabby leather boot at the end of it deficient of every alternate button uncle robert couldn't tell you a word more than i've told you in fact he mightn't tell you quite as much it's hard to be left in the dark like this says alexis it's hard upon us but i can't see that it matters much to you remarks jenny if you are ever so deeply in love with sybil she isn't so much to you as she is to us isn't she exclaims alexis suppose i tell you that she is more to me than she is to any one else in the world and that i am determined not to be kept in ignorance of her present position position. She is my wife, Miss Fonthorpe, and the law of the land, as well as the law of God, which preceded that law, gives a husband custody of his wife.

Starting point is 07:21:18 Gracious goodness, ejaculates Jenny, slipping off the angle of the table and recovering her equilibrium with a struggle. Do you mean to say that my sister Sybil is a married woman? She is my wife, an unethical. faithful wife, for she deserted me because I was poor. Yet, I am weak enough to love her still, and I will go to the end of the world to find her. My! exclaims Jenny. This is the awfulest thing I ever heard of. You can understand, therefore, that I have some right to make inquiries about your sister, and that I am justified in insisting upon seeing your Uncle Robert.

Starting point is 07:22:03 Oh, but you mustn't, cries Jenny with overwhelming energy. You mustn't breathe one syllable about your marriage to Uncle Robert. It would be the ruling of all of us if you did. Don't you know that we are no better than paupers dependent upon his charity? He'd turn marrying and be out of doors if he knew that Sybil had married without his consent. You don't know what a man he is. Our innocence wouldn't help us. He'd wash his hands of the whole.

Starting point is 07:22:33 lot of us. That would be a very vindictive course of action. Uncle Robert is vindictive, exclaims Jenny. He doesn't know what it is to forgive. Do you suppose he'll ever get over Sybil's ingratitude? He never would, and he'd wreak his vengeance upon unoffending Marion, and still more upon unoffending me, for I'm not old enough to go and get married clandestinely if I wanted to. I had no idea your uncle was such a tartar. Sybil ought to have told you, I thought when a person married a person, they always described their relations to that person. I had an impression that Dr. Faunthorpe was quite an easy-going little man, says Alexis. Ah, Sybil may have felt it her duty to make the best of him. You see,

Starting point is 07:23:24 he gives us the bread we eat, and one ought to be thankful for one's daily bread, even if it's two days old and scrappy as to butter. We don't ask for butter in our prayers, you see. And do you expect me to leave this place without making any further inquiries about my wife? demanded Alexis. What's the use of inquiring when you've had all the information anyone can give you here? says Jane, with a practical air. You'd much better go to Jersey and inquire there. Yet you say Sybil is likely to have left Jersey. by this time. More than likely.

Starting point is 07:24:04 She is always fond of change. She may have gone to Calcutta or St. Petersburg or Hong Kong or Scarlborough or anywhere where governesses are wanted. But you might trace her from Jersey, you know. It would be a good starting point. You tell me that she has never been home since she first left this place to go to Mrs. Hazleton. Never, says Jenny, so resolutely.

Starting point is 07:24:30 that Alexis ought to know that she is telling a falsehood. Well, if I can do myself no good by seeing your uncle, and are sure to do us a lot of harm, interjects Jenny. I may as well go away without seeing him, and trust in my own wits for finding your sister. Decidedly, replies Jenny. A clever young man like you can't be long at a loss. Goodbye, Miss Fonthorpe.

Starting point is 07:24:59 You'd better call me Jenny. if you're my brother-in-law. Goodbye, Jenny. Thou hast comforted me marvelous much. I must go and try my luck elsewhere. If there is anything in this way I can do for you, says Jenny,

Starting point is 07:25:15 waving her hand in the direction of the shelves. The surgery is at your service. I know the bottles as well as Uncle does. Anything from syrup of squills to corrosive supplement. Uncle sends a good deal of that to his parish patients, and I believe it cures them,

Starting point is 07:25:32 but I'm not quite sure whether they take it externally or internally. There's one little blue bottle up there that might be useful to me, says Alexis with a touch of bitterness. He points to a dark blue bottle that stands in a corner by itself on the topmost shelf, in a recess by the fireplace, and away from the light, a bottle with a gilt label. Gracious! cries Jenny. That's prussic acid, deadly poison. A short cut out of a man's troubles, Jenny.

Starting point is 07:26:08 But I suppose a man who takes that way is something of a poltroon, and I'm not disposed to try it yet a while. Goodbye, Jenny. Goodbye, brother-in-law. I'm really very sorry for you, and I hope things will come right in the end. You may kiss me if you like, as we are such near-relevant. relatives. Thus privileged, Alexis imprints a brotherly kiss upon Jenny's forehead, and with a final sigh of disappointment, departs. End of Chapter 22. Chapter 23 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Mary Herndon Bell, Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 23

Starting point is 07:27:12 Will Fortune never come with both hands full? Baffled, where he had expected to succeed, Alexis Secretan is at a loss what to do next. No doubt of Jenny's truthfulness presents itself to his mind. Youthful candor beamed in that open countenance of hers. How could he imagine the craft of the serpent in a child who seemed simple as the sucking dove? What is he to do? Go to Jersey and hunt for Mrs. Yokohama Gray

Starting point is 07:27:47 on the chance of finding Sybil still with that lady, despite Jenny's assertion of her sister's fickleness. This seemed the most obvious course for him to take, and he loses no time in taking it. The journey from Red Castle in Yorkshire to the chance, Island is a long one, and it is only on the third day after his interview with Jane Fonthorpe that Alexis finds himself in St. Heliers. Vane are his inquiries for Mrs. Yokohama Gray, or for any Mrs. Gray with a name approaching Yokohama in sound. He finds a Mrs. Gray,

Starting point is 07:28:26 pure and simple, but she is a laundress, and certainly not in a position to afford the luxury of a governess for her children. Alexis pursues his inquiry in every quarter likely to afford information. He sees postmasters, lodging housekeepers, librarians, and tries to obtain tidings of any lady with the pretty governess residing in the island. Sybil might be remembered for her pretty face, he thinks, where her name was unknown or forgotten. All his efforts are vain. He starts upon various false sense, waste a great deal of time and trouble.

Starting point is 07:29:04 and leaves the island at last thoroughly dispirited. What more is there for him to do? Nothing, assuredly, unless he can extort the secret of his wife's whereabouts from that inflexible young woman, Jane Diamond. It seems such a hard thing to have Sybil's letter in his pocket, to know that she is within a day's post, and yet not be able to find her.

Starting point is 07:29:31 At Southampton, while he is loitering about waiting for the train that is to take him back to London. He remembers that he has, or ought to have, a kinswoman living in the neighborhood of Winchester. A maiden lady, his father's first cousin, has lived all her life on a small estate near that cathedral city. He remembers spending a month at Cheswald Grange with his father and mother during one of those rare visits which they made to their native country. He was a child at this time, and it had struck him since. It had struck him, that his father must have had some stronger motive than family affection in coming over to England to visit a quiet maiden lady living in an out-of-the-way village. His father had possibly some idea

Starting point is 07:30:18 of securing Miss Secreton's fortune for himself or his boy. Philip Secreton was assuredly the last of men to degrade himself by courting a wealthy relative, but he may have thought it his duty to his boy to keep on friendly terms with the owner of the only estate remaining to the family. As years went on, Mr. Secretan had grown more indolent in his habits, and less inclined to cross the channel. But one of his farewell injunctions to Alexis when the young man last visited him had reference to Matilda Secretan. Go and spend a few days with your cousin Matilda, now and then, Alex, said the father. She was very fond of you when you were a little boy,

Starting point is 07:31:05 and I know she'll be pleased to see you now you've grown into a fine young man. It's a quiet, out-of-the-way place for you to visit, but you will be made much of by the old lady, and I dare say you can get a little shooting there in October. Lord Starborough preserves their close by, and your cousin is always on good terms with her neighbors. Alexis promised most beautifully, and was always intending to perform.

Starting point is 07:31:33 But the visit to Miss Secretan was a business so easy to accomplish that it was deferred indefinitely. Alexis thought it would be a pity to go earlier than October, on account of Lord Starrboro's pheasants, and three octobers came and went, without his finding leisure for the visit. Then came the sale of his commission, and he felt he should hardly like to face his cousin Matilda under such awkward circumstances. He would have to explain things, and he hated explanations. Next came his entanglement in Cupid's fatal net, and he had not a spare thought for Miss Secretan.

Starting point is 07:32:12 Then followed his marriage and rapid descent in the social scale. He had sore need of a friend in those days, but as he had neglected his cousin Matilda in his brief day of prosperity, he could not approach. in his destitution. He might stoop to ask a favor of his Aunt Gorsuch at whose house he had been a familiar guest, but he could not beg of Miss Secretan, to whom he was a stranger. He had a faint recollection of her as an old lady with silvery hair in corkscrew curls, a high nose, delicate peach-bloom cheeks, a slim, straight figure, and a dress of rich black silk, like a clergyman's presentation gown. that she had been very kind to him and that his life had been made particularly pleasant to him at chesswold grange he could remember distinctly he remembered telling sybil about his rich maiden cousin as they sat by the fire in dixon street one november evening

Starting point is 07:33:13 building castles in a brief interval of hopefulness he had described that childish visit to cheswald and his girl-wife had been fascinated by his picture of the pretty english country-house and gardens the meadows and the trout stream, in which he had made his juvenile attempts at fly-fishing. Why shouldn't your cousin leave you her estate, Alex? Sybil had said eagerly. Wouldn't that be a happy thing? A very happy thing, love, but not a likely turn of the wheel by any means, he had answered. I have not seen my cousin since I was ten years old. Whatever chances I had in that direction have been forfeited by my neglect.

Starting point is 07:33:56 upon my word alexus you seem to have delighted in throwing away fortune sybil had answered with a touch of anger and after that she had given way to low spirits for the rest of the evening and had talked of Cheswald Grange as a property that must have come to her husband if he had not willfully flung away his prospect of inheritance. Today, Alexis, sorely perplexed which way to turn in the maze of life, is inclined to dwell upon the memory of his boyish pleasures at Cheswald. He is so near the quiet old place, within twenty miles at most. Why should he not go and see Matilda Secretan? He can approach her without degradation now that he is a prosperous money-earning man. He has no thought of that possible inheritance. It is not in his nature to calculate upon a thing of that kind. But being so utterly alone in the world just now,

Starting point is 07:34:56 he feels it would do him good to grasp the hand of a relative, to receive kindness and sympathy from one who had known his father and mother. The train that was to have carried him to London conveys him to Winchester. At the station he is told that Cheswald is three miles from the city, so he determines to walk the distance. It is between four and five in the afternoon when he turns out of the high street into the quiet country road, which is to take him to Cheswold. Light showers have refreshed the verdu, the low water meadows are looking their greenest, and the grassy hills yonder shut out the world beyond this fertile valley,

Starting point is 07:35:38 and give a look of security and repose to the landscape, so simply rustic, so thoroughly English in its character. An hour later, and Alexis stands at the entrance to the village churchyard, a turnstile at the corner of the wall. He remembers this very path across the churchyard as a shortcut to the Grange, and after nearly twenty years' absence, the scene, comes back to his memory as vividly as if he had left the place but yesterday. Yes, there stands the old yew tree, whose widely stretching boughs rustle and creak against

Starting point is 07:36:15 the window by the pulpit in boisterous weather. No busy work of restoration is going on here. The greenish glass of the old diamond-pained casements has not been exchanged for the brilliant coloring of the modern glass painter. The rough-cast walls are unchanged. There is the wooden dial that used to mark the flight of time when he was a boy. There stands the old family tomb, neglected, forgotten, under its ivy shroud. He lingers by the gate for some few minutes, in a contemplative mood, looking dreamily at the well-remembered picture. Then he turns the style and goes in. He crosses the churchyard, looking idly at the tombstones on either side of the

Starting point is 07:37:03 and within a few paces of the litch gate, he is brought to a standstill by a tablet that tells him his visit to his cousin has been deferred too long. A massive granite slab, surmounted by a cross in white marble, bears this inscription. In memory of Matilda. Only daughter, an heiress of Mark Horatio Secretan, who died at Cheswall Grange, August 14th, 1860, aged 82 years. Matilda Secretan had been dead exactly a year, and the friendly grasp of a kindred hand which Alexis has hoped for is not for him. Poor old lady, he sighs. Well, she has lived her life and a good long one, an easy, harmless, passionless existence, full of creature comforts and village dignity. She was a great person in Cheswald. Perhaps it is wiser to play at greatness in a

Starting point is 07:38:08 rural village than to struggle to be really great amidst the press of men. Pleasant to be born and die on one's own estate, to lie in one's shroud in the same room in which one was rocked in one's cradle, to look out with our dying eyes upon the green fields in which we learn to walk, our own fields not gained by toil or greed or overreaching our fellow-men but coming to us naturally as the blossoms come to the apple-trees in our orchard yes it must be a peaceful pleasant life affording no opportunity for sin satan must have had a bad time among small landed proprietors poor cousin matilda i wonder who has come in for her property the grange lies within ten minutes walk just on the outer edge of the village alexis crosses the green with its duck pond its groups of ancient elms before the good old villageed inn with the rising sun looking very much like a careful representation of a mustard plaster swinging for the old village in with the rising sun looking very much like a careful representation of a mustard plaster swinging from the signpost. A low white house this village in, with a sloping thatch and a wonderful display of intensely red geraniums in intensely red flower pots. A perfect blaze of scarlet floriculture.

Starting point is 07:39:32 Beyond the green and the rising sun, the road is shaded by fine old timber and has a secluded look, as if one had strayed unawares into a gentleman's park. The hedge rows are so neatly cut, the grass margin of the road looks as if it had been mowed and rolled. There is a pleasant odor of pine woods. A little further on, there comes an opening in the wooded screen, and across a running brook, Alexa sees the wide park-like meadow which lies in front of Cheswald Grange. A sunk fence divides the grassland from the old-fashioned Grange garden, and to the left of the long, low old house, with its many gables, its dovecoats and bell turret lies the orchard whose treasures are guarded by a thick holly hedge of two centuries growth how well alexis remembers the house a hospitable dwelling in the days of his boyhood but somewhat gloomy of aspect now

Starting point is 07:40:35 everything has a neglected air he can see that even at a distance i suppose miss secretan's air despises the old place he thinks and suffer the Grange to go to ruin while he squanders the revenue of the land in London. I wonder who the fellow is. Some low church parson, perhaps, or smooth-tonged doctor who got to the blind side of Cousin Matilda at the last. He is at the lodge gate by this time. Even the lodge has a decayed air, a broken pane conspicuous in the parlor window. Paint blistered, a bit of rotten gutter hanging from an angle of the roof.

Starting point is 07:41:16 it looks like an irish squirene's place in the bad old times fifty years ago thinks alexis the lodge-keeper's wife is spreading out the weekly wash on the sunward side of a quick-set hedge and to this busy housewife alexis addresses himself you've a pretty place here he begins with the casual air of an uninterested stranger pity it shouldn't be kept up a little better ah it is a pity answered the woman shaking her head over the family linen. Things were very different in Miss Secretan's time. She says this with a conviction that everyone upon earth, the wandering stranger included, must know all about Miss Secretan. They may not have had the honor of that lady's acquaintance, but she must be known to them by reputation

Starting point is 07:42:08 as one of the magnates of the land, just as Disraeli and Gladstone are known. She was a good mistress, Hazard Alexis. Ah, sighs the woman, seeming to wring her hands as she rings out a garment before unfurling it on the hedge.

Starting point is 07:42:26 Few like her. I won't say, but what she was near. A lady that wouldn't allow the waste of a candle end and wore a dress from years end to years end, but a silk is might stand alone. And them, as is nearest towards themselves, is oftentimes kindness to others. Miss Secretan was a kind friend to many.

Starting point is 07:42:49 She could do more kindness with sixpence than some people can do with half a crown, and she left a very pretty property. A pity it should go into chancery. Is it in chancery? Ask Alexis warmly interested. Well, I can't say as it is exactly, but it's something that way, I believe.

Starting point is 07:43:12 you see miss secretan she makes her will a good twenty year ago and she leaves all her property to a favourite nephew our cousin i'm not certain which entrust for him if she should die before he came of age but he was to have it handed over to him clear of everything if he was past twenty-one and she never altered that will she had thoughts of altering it i've heard mrs bablo the housekeeper say because of her nephew's her nephew's she had thoughts of altering it i've heard mrs bablow the housekeeper say because of her nephew few not paying her the attention she expected. But once having given a good bit of trouble to make her will, she didn't care about beginning all over again. I wait, says she, as I had it from Mrs. Barlow, and I dare say, she says, as one of these odd days, says she, he'll remember me, she says, and come and see me, says she. And if not, says she, I'm hailing hearty still, she says, and there's time enough to alter my will, says she. Which Mrs. Badlow repeated to me, word batem,

Starting point is 07:44:16 while she was lying a corpse in that room with the three windows, as you may see from here. Alexis has turned from red to pale, and pale to red again, during the progress of this prolix relation. The lodgekeeper's wife only pauses for breath ere she pursues her argument. So the will was let stand, she resumes, and Miss Secretan didn't so much as trouble herself to find out whether the young man

Starting point is 07:44:45 was living or dead. And lo and behold, when the will was made known, the heir was nowhere as to be found. I believe the lawyers and such like did all as was proper, and he was advertised to his advantage in the newspaper's continual. But he never answered none of the advertisements, which he couldn't have failed to do if he was alive and could write, unless he'd gone out to horse trailer and turned butcher like that simple-hearted young gentleman as you read of in the newspapers. How's them ever? There's the property, belonging to no one, as you may say, and things going to ruin. There's one gardener kept to grub about a bit, where there used to be two men than a buy, at work constant. And there's a poor, helpless old woman in the house,

Starting point is 07:45:31 with ardly strength to open a shutter, and let in a breath of air. So you may guess as the moths are having their free will of the damask curtains and such like. You didn't hear the name of the heir, says Alexis interrogatively. Not his Christian name. His other name was the same as Hearn. I'll have a secretan to come after me if I can, she says, and Mrs. Bodlow told me, as she believed, it was mostly on the count of the name as Miss Secretan left that young man the property. Alexis tries his hardest to still the troubled beating of his heart,

Starting point is 07:46:11 tries to persuade himself that it is too soon to feel the flush and pride of sudden unexpected fortune. Matilda Secretan may have had other cousins or nephews, he tells himself. He is not particularly

Starting point is 07:46:26 well posted in the family history, having heard his father prose about his kindred with youth's heedless ear. He tells himself it is too soon to be glad. yet he feels as if he were lord of the soil. He stands within the gate, and he plants his foot firmly on the ground.

Starting point is 07:46:46 I wonder if I am standing on my own land, he thinks. I feel as if there were a glow in the soil that communicates itself to my blood. It is the land that has belonged to my race for 300 years. The fact that for the space of a year, no one has come forward to claim the property encourages the supposition that he himself is the missing air. Would it be possible for me to see the house, he inquires? Seized with a feverish desire to examine the mansion which may or may not be his.

Starting point is 07:47:22 I dare say if you was to offer the old lady a trifle, she wouldn't mind letting you in to see it, sir. She's a little hard of hearing. Suppose I offer you five shillings to begin with, suggest Alexis, dropping two half-crowns into the matron's hand. You might take me up to the house and make things square with the old lady.

Starting point is 07:47:45 The lodgekeeper's face beams all over with delight. I'm sure I'm much beholden to you, sir. I'll dry my hands directly, minute, and step up to the great house with you. The Grange has been the great house at Cheswald for generations. Oh, Sybil, thinks Alexis, as he walks along the grassy path under the elms. If you had only waited for brighter days,

Starting point is 07:48:11 how happy we might have been. You abandon me in order to seek fortune, and you don't seem to have won it yet. Fortune falls into my lap, unsought. The fact of his wife's desertion seems harder to him in the face of this sudden turn of fortune's wheel than it has seemed before. That prosperity should come to him thus,

Starting point is 07:48:34 and find him a lonely man. If this estate of Cheswald has been actually left him, shall he lure his wife back to him by a golden bait? Shall he win from his altered fortunes, the boon that has been refused to a husband's entreaty? No, a thousand times no. If she comes back to me ever, she shall return to the pauper she abandoned,

Starting point is 07:49:01 he tells himself. She shall come back for love, of me her husband, and not to be mistress of Cheswald Grange. Yet how proud he would be having won her back to her duty, to point to this peaceful old English home and say, I am no longer an adventurer and a beggar. All this is ours, and our children's after us. He has quite made up his mind by this time that he is the missing air, and that these elms which screen him from the low Western sun are his very own. Cheswald Grange upon this August evening has a moldy smell, and wears the gloomy and

Starting point is 07:49:42 somewhat ghostly aspect of a house whose shutters are for the most part closed against air and sunshine. But it is a good old house, notwithstanding. The rooms are large, the staircase is wide and substantial, with fine carved oak balusters. And, open gallery above, with numerous doors, suggestive of ample accommodation for a family. The quaint old furniture remains just as Miss Secretan left it. Chairs and sofas are carefully shrouded in Holland, and the dust lies thick upon the old rosewood tables, the Canton porcelain and the crystal chandeliers, whose half-burned wax candles shed their light upon the vanished mistress of the Grange.

Starting point is 07:50:28 And nothing has been touched, says Burrtle. Mrs. Cramp of the lodge, as she follows Alexis and the old woman in charge from room to room. Everything is the same as in Miss Secretan's time, except that when she was living, you couldn't have found a grain of dust in the place if you'd offered a five-pound note for it. After having looked at the house, Alexis explores the stables and gardens. It is dark by the time his inspection is finished, and he makes up his mind to spend the night at the rising sun in Cheswold village. He feels attached to the place already. Is there much land belonging to the Grange? He inquires of Mrs. Cranp,

Starting point is 07:51:09 the old woman in charge being little more than a dummy, and Mrs. Cramp serving as interpreter. I can't say how many acres, sir, though I dare say my husband might know if he was home. There's Baker's Farm, and there's the Hollow Farm, and the Hill Farm. That must be a good bit altogether. Miss Secretan, a lady of the manor. This is pleasant to hear. Alexis gratifies the deaf caretaker with his bounty, and goes back to the gate with Mrs. Cranp,

Starting point is 07:51:41 who enlarges upon the beauties of the place, and ask him if he has any idea of taking the property, if it should be to let. Chancery might just as well let the great house, you see, sir, if it is only for the sake of having it took care of. It would be all the better for the heir, if he should come to claim his own. it went to my heart to see things so dusty and i hope sir if you should have any thoughts of the place you'll keep on me and my good man at the lodge we served miss secretan faithful above eleven years

Starting point is 07:52:14 i won't displace you mrs cramp you may rely on it if i should ever come to be master of chesswold grange good night oh by the way he adds just as he is turning to go do you happen to know the name of Miss Secretan's lawyer. Mr. Scrogers of Winchester, sir. Scroger's and son, it is now. Thanks. Good night again. He must be thinking of taking the place, muses Mrs. Cramp.

Starting point is 07:52:46 Or he wouldn't want to see Mr. Scroger's. Alexis finds the rising sun a comfortable old hostelry of a primitive style. Dinner resolves itself into tea and eggs and bacon. But the eggs eggs and bacon are admirable, the homemade loaf delicious, and the cream jug, which accompanies

Starting point is 07:53:06 the teapot, suggests a land flowing with milk and honey. The parlor in which the traveler enjoys this homely meal is clean and bright, and adjoins the bar so closely that Alexis can carry on a conversation with the landlord as he takes his refreshment. From this gentleman he hears that Cheswald Grange is one of the nicest little estates in the county, worth 1,500 a year at the lowest computation, and that Miss Secretan was a careful old lady and must have saved money. How could she spend much, you see, sir, living in her quiet way, never leaving home from year's end to year's end, growing her own meat and making her own butter, and having everything in a ring fence, as you may say. Ah, there'll be a pretty bit of rhinocene.

Starting point is 07:53:56 for that young man to come into if they ever find him. That young man, or the young man, who supposes himself to be the heir, feels a thrill of satisfaction at the idea, and is somewhat impatient for tomorrow morning and an interview with Mr. Scroger's and son. Do you know much about Mr. Scrogers of Winchester, the old lady's solicitor, asked Alexis. Not much, sir, I'm happy to say.

Starting point is 07:54:24 I keep's aloof from that cattle. Not as I've ever heard any harm of Scroger's and Son, but they're all tarred with the same brush to my mind. If you've got a bit of freehold property, they want you to mortgage it just to give them something to do. If you've got a bit of property to leave, they want you to throw it into hodgepodge, just to give them the handling of it. And if they can get you into chancery body and bones, they do it for the good of trade. No lawyers for me, sir. But I believe, as lawyers go, Scroger's and Son.

Starting point is 07:54:55 son are very decent fellows. Alexis sleeps peacefully that night, better than he has slept since he landed in the port of London, and is closeted with Mr. Scrogers, the elder, early next morning, in the quiet front parlor of a substantial old house in a side street in Winchester. The office has a respectable and well-to-do look, and Mr. Scrogers is white-bearded and venerable enough for an abbot. The grave cathedral overshadows his dwelling and increases the respectability of his surroundings. Alexis has sent in his card. Alexis Secretan.

Starting point is 07:55:36 Agent for Messrs. Keel and Screw. Sidney. The lawyer receives him politely, with a manner that is half friendly, half suspicious. May I ask what, Mr. Secretan, I have the pleasure of addressing? He inquires, looking at the card. I don't quite know how you would wish me to describe myself. I am the son of Philip Secretan, who died at Nice in 1858, and who was first cousin of Miss Secretan of Cheswald Grange.

Starting point is 07:56:09 I come to you, Mr. Scrogers, to inquire about my cousin's will. I have been in Australia for the last two years, acting as agent for a house in the city, and I only became aware of my cousin Matilda's death yesterday evening. evening. This is very serious, says Mr. Scroger's, looking at Alexis, as if he should like to convict him as an imposter. And pray, how did you come to hear of Miss Secretan's demise yesterday evening, not having heard of it prior to that time? May I ask how the intelligence reached you finally? Mr. Scrogers rubs his hands complacently after this address, and fixes Alexis with his large gray eyes, which are of the protuberant order.

Starting point is 07:57:00 The knowledge came to me in the simplest possible manner. I went over to Cheswald, intended to pay my cousin a visit, and found her name on a tombstone in the churchyard. Are you quite sure, sir, that the fact of Miss Secretan's death did not become known to you in Australia and did not influence your return to this country? inquires the lawyer severely. If you think me an imposter, Mr. Scroger's, I will thank you to say so plainly, and I will take means to establish my identity.

Starting point is 07:57:33 This beating about the bush is as insulting to my understanding as it is to my honor. This is a very serious business, Mr. Sectorton, a good deal more serious than you may suppose. We are entrusted with a great responsibility, sir. If we err, it must be on the side of caution. You mean that my cousin Matilda left the whole of her property to Alexis Secretan, and you doubt whether I am the man, although I put his name upon my card. It would be for you to establish your identity, Mr. Secretan. Nothing more easy. My father's solicitors, messrs. Gull and Sharp of Lincoln's Inn

Starting point is 07:58:17 Fields, have been familiar with every stage of my existence up to the time when I sold my commission about five years ago. They hold all family documents, certificates of baptism, and so on. My father was a careless man as to business manners, but he had infinite faith in his lawyers, and he committed all papers of any significance to their charge. "'Mrs. Gull and Sharp are a most respectable firm,' answers Mr. Scroger's, with a reverential expression of countenance, as if so old established a firm, ought to be spoken of with awe. I refer you to them for my identification, says Alexis, and I shall be obliged if you will let them have a copy of my cousin's will. I shall go to them directly I get back

Starting point is 07:59:06 to London and take all necessary steps under their advice. I have not offended you, I hope, Mr. Secretan, by my business-like manner of discussing this question. I had the honor to enjoy Miss Secretan's confidence for many years, and I am naturally, very naturally, quite proper. Good morning, Mr. Scroger's. Please lose no time about the copy of my cousin's will. The original document is in Doctor's Commons. Ah, then, gull and sharp, shall be able to get me a copy. Good morning. Alexis leaves the dull old office elate. He knows that. He knows. all that he wanted to know, knows that he is Lord of Cheswald Grange, that he need never go back to Australia, that his agency for keel and screw is at an end, that he is an Englishman of landed

Starting point is 08:00:03 estate, a gentleman by fortune as he is a gentleman by birth. He is eager to get to London, if it were only to communicate his good fortune to the friend of his adversity, Richard Plowden. Dear old Dick, how glad he will be. He shall have an acre of ferns at Cheswald, and his mother need never let lodgings anymore unless she likes. There is one thought that touches him most deeply, the thought of the child whose face he has never seen. End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 08:01:00 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Mary Herndon Bell. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braden Chapter 24 Startling Information aided by messrs gull and sharp of the fields, who put all things in train for him and take him under their parchment wing with affectionate protection,

Starting point is 08:01:31 Alexis has no difficulty in proving his right to Cheswall Grange, and all those meswages and tenements and various holdings thereto appertaining. It is a comfortable estate to inherit, for Miss Secretan has been an admirable woman of business, and has managed everything with fostering care, which has beautified and enriched all it touched. The land, save five and thirty acres of home farm, park-like pasturage, all of it, is let on long leases to tenants who are contented with their holdings, and do not grudge labor or money on improvements.

Starting point is 08:02:12 The gardens, the house, the stables, need only a little care to restore them to that perfection of, elegant precision and graceful order which distinguished them during Miss Secretan's lifetime. Alexis takes a singular mode of restoring things, and one which wins him much favor from the inhabitants of Cheswald and its immediate neighborhood. He contrives with considerable trouble to himself, to get back all his cousin's old servants, the butler, or indoor servant, pompous as the ruler over a retinue of powdered footmen, yet with only one small underling in the shape of a knife-boy. Mrs. Bodlow, the cook and housekeeper, who had served Miss Secretan five and twenty years,

Starting point is 08:03:02 the middle-aged housemaid, who had polished every article of furniture in the low-ceilinged bedchambers so often that each had become an object of affection and pride to her. the gardeners who knew every apple tree, every plum and peach, nectarine and apricot on the red walls, the coachman who had driven Miss Secretan about in the old-fashioned burouche, a serviceable vehicle yet, and in the old green pony chaise, and had ultimately subsided into drawing her along the shady lanes in a bath chair. Alexis feels a pride in restoring the scattered household.

Starting point is 08:03:43 seeing every bit of furniture, every quaint old ornament assume its proper place. How intensely had Matilda Secretan studied the fitness of things before she so placed them? The Chelsea Shepherdess at this angle, the wedge-wood teapot on that shelf, the figure of Quinn as Falstaff in Bo China to balance Kitty Clive in Worcesterware, and so on to the end of the modest collection. Alexis remembers how his childish eyes had gloated on the old China, how those household treasures had seemed to him more beautiful than anything he had ever seen before. He remembers the garden, the broad gravel walk leading to a Dutch summer house in red brick with stained glass windows.

Starting point is 08:04:33 The orange trees in square green tubs ranged along the closely shorn grass that had once served as a bowling green. the place is very dear to him for it recalls the happiest days of his childhood before the elms in the avenue have quite lost their summer green in the early days of a fine september alexus is established at the grange the old servants have come back and everything is in order full of delight in his new possessions the master of chesswold grange invites richard plauden to come and shoot his partridges they are my partridges he adds though they feed on the tenant's corn for the most part come and have a pop at them dick an invitation which startles mr plowden who has never fired a gun in his life dick comes to cheswald grange however and gladly not to pop at the partridges but to rejoice in the sight of his old friend and patron basking in prosperity's sunshine I always felt you must be born to good luck, Captain Secretan. Call me Alex, Dick, or I shall hit you. Well, then, Alex.

Starting point is 08:05:50 There was something so bright and genial about you. It seemed as if you couldn't long be under a cloud. Did it, Dick? The cloudy weather lasted quite long enough, though, old fellow, and the clouds are not gone yet. It's a hard thing to have this beautiful place and not be able to bring my baby boy here. here and establish him in the home which is to be his when I am dead and gone.

Starting point is 08:06:14 Have you told your wife of your altered fortunes? inquires Dick. Not a word. She shall know be only as the pauper she deserted, or I will at best own to the wages of a hard-working clerk. She shall come back to my poverty, Dick, if she and I are ever to be reunited. Not to my wealth. How pretty she would look at the head of this table by the

Starting point is 08:06:39 way. They are lounging over their wine after dinner. The diamond-cut decanters reflected in the polished mahogany as in dark water, golden egg plums from the western wall, and peaches from the southern, nesting among dark green leaves in heart-shaped dishes of old Derby China. Yes, I dare say, says Dick, more inclined to blame than to praise the absent wife. You never saw her dick, a pity. She is so lovely. A woman created for happiness and prosperity, not for toil and care.

Starting point is 08:07:18 And in marrying me, she wedded poverty and sorrow. It was very hard for her. I ought to have been more considerate. Can I wonder that she grew weary of the struggle, that she tried to cut the knot that bound her to my misfortunes? Poor child. "'Poor you, I think, to have wedded such a piece of selfish prettiness,' says Dick. "'Don't be hard on her dick.

Starting point is 08:07:45 "'Fortune was too unkind in those days. "'The outlook was so black. "'If there had been a glimmer of hope on our horizon, "'she would have stayed with me, I've no doubt. "'Think of her now, drudging as a governess, "'hiding her beauty in some back parlor or second-floor nursery, "'toiling for a pittance. while i enjoy all the comforts of this dear old place that's hard to think of isn't it old fellow merely retributive justice answers dick sturdily

Starting point is 08:08:19 But are you sure that she is a governess now? I have every reason to suppose so. Her last letter tells me that she is on the high road to fortune, fortune which she and I are to share. Taking this in conjunction with the information I got from her sister, I can only imagine that she is in the employment of some very rich person likely to leave her money. Rather an ignoble position that, says Dick, waiting for dead men's shoes.

Starting point is 08:08:51 Alexa sighs, and pours out another glass of his cousin's well-kept La Rose. What are you going to do to find her? asked Richard. I've put the business in the hands of a very clever man in London, to whom my lawyers recommending me. In the abstract, I hate the idea of a private inquiry office, but in my particular case, I can't get on without one. My man is to find out Sybil's whereabouts by hook or by crook. Once found, and face to face with her,

Starting point is 08:09:25 I don't think I should be long in bringing her to reason. She must have changed very much if she has ceased to love me. Dick ventures no reply to this. He has a very poor opinion of his friend's wife, thinks her stony-hearted, nay, almost inhuman. And in his idea, Alexa Second, secretan's future happiness would be best secured by sibyl's being kept at a distance what could be sweeter than life in this old country house among these fertile gardens these park like meadows and why disturb the serenity of the atmosphere by bringing a woman here the lovelier she is the more trouble she is likely to bring was it not helen's beauty which overturned a world mr secreton's new life is assuredly so full of pleasantness that if it were possible for him to forget the wife he has loved or to cease from longing for the sun he has never seen he might reasonably take his ease and enjoy the pleasures of a tranquil mind

Starting point is 08:10:32 chesswold seems to him just one of the most delightful places on the surface of this earth it is set in a landscape of rural beauty fertile luxuriant like a picture of constables there is plenty of sport a good pack of foxhounds in the neighbourhood to which alexis subscribes liberally there are pleasant neighbors who hasten to call upon the inheritor of cheswald grange and are eager to make themselves useful mr secreton finds himself received with such peculiar cordiality by fathers and mothers of goodly families of grown-up daughters that he takes an early opportunity to let it be known that he is that worst of detrimental's a husband without a wife he tells one of his new friends in the strictest confidence that he is temporarily separated from his wife in consequence of some family quarrel but he hopes for a reunion before very long, and in a week everybody within 20 miles of Chess Wald knows all about it. The disappointment is rather severe for the parents of marriageable daughters, some of whom have been hanging rather long on hand, like the winter pears on the wall. Mr. Sacriton is not a great catch in the matrimonial market, of course, a pretty old house

Starting point is 08:11:58 and grounds, and from fifteen hundred to two thousand a year. A very moderate alliance, but a comfortable and a respectable one, think the anxious parents. And then Miss Secretan had always ranked high among her neighbors. There is an odor of sanctity about the Grange. A pity the young fellow should have made such a mess of himself, remarked the fathers. The mothers go so far as to call it a shame. the daughters feel a sense of loss and are not quite so amiable to mr secretan the next time he takes them into dinner old friends whom he knew in his days of youthful extravagances find him out and rejoice in his restored fortunes a couple of old brother officers crop up in the neighbourhood colonel churton settled and sobered into a country gentleman great in the cultivation of mangold and turnips major tolley i've gothawed in the cultivation of mangold and turnips major tolly who breeds prize cattle, which help to eat the colonel's roots.

Starting point is 08:13:03 These are full of warmest friendliness. It seems to Alexis as if he had never been poor. He has spent some of his cousins' accumulated cash in the payment of his debts. Deats of honor and tradesman's bills have alike been repaid, with five percent interest in every case. There is now no one living who can say he has lost money to Alexis secretan. What a pleasant feeling it is, Dick, says Alexis, as he pockets the last receipt, with respectful thanks.

Starting point is 08:13:38 I really feel as if I had only just reached my proper number of inches, as if I had been half a head shorter than I ought to be for the last six years. There is a springiness in my step, too. Ah, Dick, this is the real worth of money, the glorious privilege of being independent. Alexis has settled down comfortably in the rooms he has chosen for himself, and begins to feel as if he has lived at the Grange all his life, by the time the first frost sparkle on the grass, and the leaves fall fast from the good old trees, and lie thick in grove and glade, despite of gardeners and wheelbarrows. He has put up new bookshelves in the library, where Miss Sacretan's favorite poets and divines in neat calf or vellum bindings, make but a small appearance, and has filled them with the books he loves, a truly cosmopolitan collection. He has bought himself a couple of clever hunters and a useful covert hack,

Starting point is 08:14:40 which he can also drive in a dog cart. He has shot over the stubbles and in the preserves of his noble neighbor, Lord Starborough, and has had two or three good runs with the foxhounds. He has made a large circle of new acquaintances and renewed several old friendships. But in all this time he has had no tidings of Sybil. He has, it is true, received numerous letters from the private inquiry office, some promising speedy success, others asking some questions of detail, which might help to confirm a suspicion or establish its falsehood, some declaring that the inquirer is on the right track.

Starting point is 08:15:24 But the result has been failure. so far private inquiry has affected nothing. Despairing of ever succeeding by this means, Alexis inserts an advertisement, which he means to be his final appeal to his obdurate wife. Dixon Street, Chelsea. I refuse to write to you through the faithful servant in L. Street. I consider such indirect communication degrading to you and to me.

Starting point is 08:15:54 I have no sympathy with your scheme. I decline any share in fortune so won. I claim you by my sacred right as your husband. You need not fear starvation or even the pinch of poverty. I have obtained employment which will enable me to keep my wife and child in decent comfort. Come back and be assured of my fondest affection. Prolong our separation and it may become eternal. this advertisement is quickly answered by another beginning with the watchword dixon street wait and hope a little patience and we shall be reunited you cannot wish for reunion more earnestly than i do

Starting point is 08:16:40 the fabric which has taken more than two years to build must not be destroyed by a moment of impatience alexis inserts a second advertisement dixon street give me the custody of our son and i will be content to which the answer is but one word impossible on this mr secreton loses temper and love gives way to resentment heartless inexorable he says to himself she loves money better than she loves me this sordid desire to inherit some weak-minded old woman's wealth is stronger with her than duty or affection is she worth all the pain i have suffered for her is she worthy the constancy i have given her the answer to these questions is a decided negative his love for his wife has been a foolish unreasoning passion wasted upon an unworthy object he now determines to forget that cold and cruel wife and to enjoy all the pleasures of his new position and in the various employments and engagements of country life his days glide by smoothly and pleasantly until the approach of christmas it is now three years since sybil left him he dines with colonel churton one bright frosty evening just a week before the christian festival the colonel's spacious old house longly mead is full of guests military and civil young people middle-aged people elderly people pretty girl with portly mothers and portlier fathers.

Starting point is 08:18:25 They sit down about thirty to dinner in a fine oak-paneled dining-room, and the board is a merry and noisy one. Quiet flirtation is going on doubtless in some quarters under cover of the general talk and laughter. The cross-firing of respectable old jokes, the remarkable anecdotes of horses, dogs, foxes, and birds. The discussion of that last troublesome case,

Starting point is 08:18:51 at petty sessions, and a good deal more genuine county talk. The banquet is long and splendid. But at last the ice puddings have made their round. The liqueurs have followed in fairy goblets, golden-starred. The hot-house grapes have been admired, and the ladies have left the rudder-sex to draw up to the host's end of the long table and enter upon that serious discussion

Starting point is 08:19:19 of the merits of various Burgundy and Bordeaux, which appears to afford so much delight to the masculine mind. You used to be a pretty good judge of claret in your time, Secreton, says the Colonel cheerily. Give me your candid opinion of this Margot. About as good a judge of Claret as he was of a pretty woman, says Major Tollinson, while Alexis gravely sips the Chateau Margot.

Starting point is 08:19:47 And he had a wonderful, eye for beauty. Oh, come now, remonstrates the Colonel. Sacriton was never a ladies' man. He left that kind of thing to you, Tollinson. Oh, I grant he was too lazy a beggar to play croquet on a blazing July afternoon, or to dance at tendons at picnics or tea-fights, or to make himself useful at a school feast, carrying baskets of buns and jugs of boiling tea. But he was a great admirer of the for all that, and at a county ball he always got the most dances with the prettiest women. A nice clean wine, says Alexis, ignoring these remarks. Talking of pretty women, says a young man who sits furthest from the host.

Starting point is 08:20:36 I think I had the pleasure of meeting one of the prettiest girls you could ever hope to see down in Yorkshire a week before last. The word Yorkshire catches the ear of Alexis. so large a county must needs be rich in female beauty but he remembers that redcastle is in yorkshire and thinks of sybil or perhaps it is that instinct which in some moments of our lives warns us that some word vital to our interests is about to be spoken Plenty of pretty women in Yorkshire, says the host, and curiously. How did you find the grouse this year, Danvers? You were staying somewhere near the moors, I suppose. No, I was in rather a poor country for grouse. I was at Mr. Holford's place between Hillsborough and Redcastle. Alexis grows pale and refills his glass with a hand that shakes a little.

Starting point is 08:21:36 May we ask for the beauty's name? He says. says? She is a Miss Fonthorpe, an heiress, I believe. At least there is a rich old East Indian party she goes about with, and I conclude she's to have his money by and by. I met her at a dinner at Sir Wilfred Cardinals, and the rumor is that Sir Wilfred is going to marry her. He's uncommonly sweet upon her. That's a fact, patent to the meanest comprehension. Alexis tries to check. Alexis tries to check, the tumultuous beating of his heart, tries to steady himself and compose his countenance, and by a great effort succeeds. Why should this be his false wife? asked the voice of reason.

Starting point is 08:22:23 Sybil has a grown-up sister, whom he has never seen, a sister who may be as lovely as herself, although his wife always disparaged Marion's charms. Or this Miss Fonthorpe may belong to some other family. Nay, must so belong, since she has spoken of as an heiress. You have roused my warmest interest in this Yorkshire beauty, he says with assumed languor. Could you not draw up on your powers so far as to describe her to us? Yes, by all means, indulge us with a little word painting. Give us a verbal photograph of your beauty, says Colonel Cherton.

Starting point is 08:23:06 Who can describe the indescribable? exclaims Mr. Danvers, pleased at having made himself the object of general attention, after having languished in the shade during the rest of the entertainment. Picture to yourselves. Oh, come, we want you to do the picturing. Imagine an oval face, framed with dark brown hair, loosely braided. I believe that's the word, isn't it? hair with a glimmer of gold and a natural ripple eyes of darkest brown complexion ivory pale save when excitement flushes the cheek with a lovely pink like the inside of those pomegranates features almost grecian sounds rather like a face and a fashion plate says major tollenson i'd rather hear of a re truce nose red hair and freckles are a tonicent little gypsy with murderous black eyes. Not to admire Miss Fonthorpe would be to despise perfection, says Mr. Danvers, slightly offended. You haven't told us her Christian name, says Alexis.

Starting point is 08:24:21 It fits her to a nicety, for there is a mystic look about her pale face in dark brown eyes. Her name is Sybil. And she is going to be married to a Yorkshire baronet. sir wilfrid cardinal one of the wealthiest landowners in the west riding mind i don't say the match is a settled thing it hasn't been formally announced you know people haven't begun to congratulate her but the marriage is talked of i dare say the local papers will get hold of it soon we understand etc and there is a rich uncle in question asked alexis he has recovered his self-command by this time, and makes the inquiry with the air of a man

Starting point is 08:25:10 who only talks for the sake of keeping up the conversation. Yes, a shriveled old fellow, who eats any amount of Nepal pepper. An artful old bird looks as if he had made his money in slaves or opium, or something contraband. Sort of man who would have done well in Warren Hastings' time when John Company had things all his own way in the East. Do you remember his name?

Starting point is 08:25:39 Let me see. Hmm, uh, Travers. No. Rather an odd name. Trinder? No. Trinchard. Yes, that's it.

Starting point is 08:25:54 Stephen Trenchard. Pretty niece called him sometimes Uncle Stephen. Sometimes Uncle Trenchard. Stephen Trenchard, repeats Alexis, staring blankly at the tall a pairn in front of him. This is a shock he was not prepared for. Stephen Trenchard, his father's bitter enemy, the man whose arts disinherited him, Alexis, while yet unborn. The man whom his family religion taught him to execrate. And it was this man's niece, a daughter of this detested race,

Starting point is 08:26:31 had married. It was to court and cherish his father's enemy that his wife had left him. This is the fortune she is to inherit, and we are to share. This is the scheme of her life. It is for Stephen Trenchard's ill-gotten wealth, I am to wait. It is for this, I am to be patient and trust her, and she shows herself so true to her trust that common rumor gives her to another man. It is time for me to make an end of this farce of fidelity. End of Chapter 24. Chapter 25 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 08:27:25 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Adrian Stroet, Turks and Caicos Islands. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Brahe. chapter twenty five town talk before the close of the next day alexis is once more in redcastle this time however he goes straight to the chief inn or hotel as it proudly calls itself the institution which supports and sustains the languishing spirits of the half dozen or so of idle young men who adored red castle by their residence the hotel affords them a porch or portico in which to lounge and gossip with one another or for ones of more aristocratic company, with the landlord of the establishment who appears to have nothing to do, from morn till dewy eve, but stand in the threshold, and survey the varieties of life as presented by below bar, and the marketplace, where a pedestrian may be seen pass once in five minutes,

Starting point is 08:28:27 and a vehicle of some description may be reckoned upon once in half an hour. Besides this portico, or school of conversation, which is in the manner of free institution, the coaching horses furnishes its patrons with a bar in which to imbibe mild admixtures of soda water and brandy, appetising, cherry and bitters, or the more economic refreshment of a glass of ale, while two lively barmaids, gifted with a considerable power of repartee, stimulate the native youth to intellectual efforts. On one side of the hotel is the bidded room, where awful contests of skill go on under the shaded lamps,

Starting point is 08:29:11 and money is won and lost. On the other side is the reading room, where besides a variety of useful information in the way of Bradshaw's guides, the county history, almanacs, and timetables, the lounger may enjoy literature as fresh as the day before, yesterday's evening standard, or a punch, not quite three weeks old. At the coaching horses, Alexis deposits his small valise, this dark December evening at five o'clock, the universal tea time among the Burgessies, and lower classes of Redcastle, the witching hour at which

Starting point is 08:29:46 Mrs. Stormont and her friends discuss the morals and finances of their neighbours over harlequin cups of orange pico. He has come to the hotel in order to draw breath, before swooping down upon that false wife of his, and with a view perhaps to making himself better acquainted with the ground he stands upon. From Mr. Danvers, he may have heard something less or something more than the truth. Here, in the place she inhabits, he is likely to make himself acquainted with the best or the worst that men and women can say of her. He bitterly resents the falsehoods told him by Jenny Faunthorpe nearly six months ago. That instance of juvenile depravity is only a new proof of the bad blood that flows in the veins of the trenches.

Starting point is 08:30:37 Alexis looks upon it as a hereditary vice. They are all cold-hearted and falsehood-like, he tells himself. The man robbed my father of his rights and wore a smooth face. all the time and pretended to be his friend the child looks in my face and lies to me who could have suspected a child of such a falsehood being set upon by an elderly waiter and be sought to order his dinner mr secretan expresses a provoking indifference to that meal he will have anything they like to give him in an hour's time a private sitting-room yes by all means in a good fire he will I'll go for a walk while the dinner is preparing, and by the way, which is Mr Trenchard's house? Mr Trenchard's house? Lancaster Lodge.

Starting point is 08:31:31 The waiter mentions it with respect in his tone. Straight up the street, sir, and through the bar. It's the third house on your left, above bar. You can't miss it, sir. A noble-looking mansion, with a lodge entrance, one of the finest houses in Redcastle. Alexis strolls up the street in the winter dusk. Lamps gleam redly behind fan lights. There is a rosy fire glow on some of the windows.

Starting point is 08:32:00 Her respectability at the scene strikes the stranger. It is so different from that dilapidated, untidy end of the town in which Dr. Faunthorpe's house is situated. So, my wife has a rich uncle as well as a poor one, and she came back to her native town's about her native town's pay her court to the rich man, not to seek a homely shelter with the poor one, and she knew that she was my enemy's niece, and had not candour or courage enough to tell me the truth. It seats her humour better, too, to leave me in sneaking fashion and fasten herself onto the wealth

Starting point is 08:32:40 of a scoundrel. So muses the outraged husband as he walks up the street and under the old Gothic archway. Yes, there is Lancaster Lodge, ponderous, gloomy, looking like a moneyed man's house. There is no gleam of light in the upper windows, and the wall hides the lower. Jailora reformatory would look more cheerful. Is she happy within those walls? Yes. Or is she like an enchanted princess shut up in a golden prison? She has bartered all things for the hope of wealth. Humour, truth, affection, just as her uncle did before her. He has no mind to lose much time before standing face to face with his wife, but he wishes first to hear what the townspeople have to tell about her.

Starting point is 08:33:30 How much truth is there in that rumour of an intended marriage? How much encouragement has she given to her admirer? At the coach and horses, they are likely to be well informed of all the local gossip, and at the Cochin Horses, he intends to make his inquiries. He is shown into a sitting-room spacious enough for a party of 12, and brilliantly illuminated. The number of glasses various, in colour and shape, which adorn the dinner table, might be taken to imply that he is expected to drink deeply of the Cochin-Hawson-Hawes' wine. On receiving his modest order of a pint of claret, the waiter sweeps off champagne and hawk glasses,

Starting point is 08:34:13 in a low-spirited way, and relieves his disappointment with a faint cough. The dinner is served in very good style, the elderly waiter receiving the dishes at the door from his subordinate, and sliding about the room stealthily as if he were attending to the wants of a dying traveller, whose ebbing breath he was appointed to watch. Alexis dawdles over his fish and dallys with his cutlet and tomato sauce. Do you see much of Mr Trenchard? He asks. Mr. Trenchard, sir, no, sir.

Starting point is 08:34:51 Mr. Trenchard is a very reserved kind of gentleman. He's much sought after a Redcastle, and I believe he do intend a good many dinner parties among first-class people. But as to plain bidders in our room downstairs or taking his glass of wine or brandy and soda, he's quite the last kind of gentleman, besides which, one may say, that his age precludes that sort of thing, although we have older gentlemen than Mr. Trenchard in our bidded room, but he has a very fine table of his own, you see, sir. Indeed, I may say that he drawed off one of our best customers with his table, young Mr. Stormer, which used to come here

Starting point is 08:35:29 almost every evening, a poor player, but a genteel young man, very much taken with Mr. Trenchard's niece he is. There's not much hope for him in that quarter, adds the waiter as he lowers the cover on the cutlet dish with a twirl of his arm like a movement in the broad sword exercise? Why not? Asked Alexis Because the young lady looks higher, sir, as well she may, seeing that Mr Frederick Stormwood hasn't won sixpence to run against another, as the saying is, Miss Thornthorpe is a beauty, sir, a regular beauty, and she's been told of it often enough.

Starting point is 08:36:11 I'll later know how to say. set a right value on herself. And then the old gentleman's sure to leave her his money. He's adopted her, you see, sir. There's other nieces downtown, but this one's his fancy, and he's adopted her. Everybody knows she used to come into all his money. And now they say, Sir Wilford Cardinal's going to marry her, and she'll hold her head as high as any in West riding.

Starting point is 08:36:37 But there isn't a final gentleman than Sir Wilford between here and York. who says that as she is to marry sir wilford everybody says town talk there's been plenty said about it downstairs in the bidded room they've chaffed young mr stormon about it and he do look uncommon miserable poor young gentleman when they go on at him and tell him he's missed his chance with miss fawnthorpe and if you don't marry an heiress whatever are you to do to get your living fred says they blessed if i know says he i'll tell you what fred says mr staples the vet you'll have to eat that horse of yours or you'll have to eat you it'll come to that sooner or later for you'll never be able to keep him i'm afraid it will answered mr stonlott as meek as a lamb alexis is not warmly interested in the impression which sybil's intended marriage or the rumour of such an intention may have made upon Frederick Stormont, he is more concerned in its effect upon himself. And pray, what kind of man is this Stephen Trenchard? He asked presently. Is he liked in your town? I don't know about liking, replies the waiter dubiously. The townspeople would hardly go to take

Starting point is 08:38:06 such a liberty. He's very much looked up to. Does he or the young lady, this pretty niece of his, do much good in the place. Mr Trench who subscribes to our local charity, sir. Good in the sense of district visiting, on Sunday school teaching, or anything in that line the young lady does not do. Her position raises her above that, you see, sir. I understand.

Starting point is 08:38:35 Active benevolence of that kind occupies a lower level, decidedly, sir. Young person who have such call upon their time can naturally devote themselves to school teaching and such like miss faunthorpe moves in the highest society she visits a great deal it would be quite out of the question that she should trouble herself about the welfare of her fellow-creatures of course well i'll go and call at lancaster lodge it's rather late but as a traveller i may be excused that informality you know mr trenchard sir exclaims the waiter alarmed lest he should not have expressed himself carefully enough about that great man although he has echoed those accents of adulation which prevail in redcastle whenever stephen trenchard is mentioned my father knew him intimately replies alexis it is between seven and eight when he rings the bell at the lodge gate of mr trenchard's mansion a father knew him intimately replies alexis it is between seven and eight when he rings the bell at the lodge gate of mr trenchard's mansion a fine winter's night the stars are shining on lawn and plain trees shrubbery and empty flower beds as the lodge-keeper shows mr secreton the way to the solemn pillared doorway here a footman and livery warned by the lodge-keeper's bell receives the stranger

Starting point is 08:39:59 very silent is the lamp-lit hall where a bust of wellington on a porphyry pedestal keeps company with a bust of pitt the younger on a column of malachite crimson cloth curtains hang before the tall doors and keep the draught from the chilly east indian is mr trenchard at home asked alexis and can i see him on particular business he has come to this house determined to keep no bounds to exercise a husband's authority to the uttermost if that stretch of power be needed to claim his wife from his father's deadliest foe stephen trenchard scarcely worth the claiming perhaps, with that false blood in her veins, that some remnant of the old faithful love still lingers in his breast. If she will come back to him, if she will surrender all hope of her uncle's ill-gotten wealth and come back to him, believing him still one of the humble toilers in life's great hive, he will take her back to his heart of hearts and cherish her for all his life to come.

Starting point is 08:41:09 End of chapter. Recording by Adrian Stroett, Turks and Caicos Islands. Chapter 26 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 26.

Starting point is 08:41:44 between love and gold. The footman surveys the stranger doubtfully and rings a bell to summon Podmore, the butler, feeling unequal to cope single-handedly with this eruption of an unknown visitor at eight o'clock in the evening. Mr. Trenchard is not very well, sir. He is confined to his room, in fact.

Starting point is 08:42:07 But if your business is anything important, here Podmore comes to the subordinate's relief. He enters on the seat. with a stately slowness, breathing heavily, having just awakened from the pleasant slumber of repletion, in front of the fire in the servants' hall, where buttered toast, eggs and ham, the daily papers, and a quiet game at cribbage, are his evening solace. Mr. Trechard is indisposed, sir, he observes severely, as if the stranger ought to have been aware of the fact. But if you wish, I can carry him a message. The intruder looks

Starting point is 08:42:44 like a gentleman and podmore remembers that other mysterious visitor of last summer who came and went like the wind no one knowing quents or whither if miss faunthorpe is at home and will see me i need not trouble mr trenchard replies alexis after a moment's consideration be kind enough to give her my card podmore stifles a yawn and receives the card on a salver which he takes from the hall table and carries into the drawing-room where sybil is sitting in solitary grandeur dreaming over a volume of tennyson a gentleman ma'am wishes to see mr trenchard but i told him my master was indisposed would you favour him with a few minutes conversation ma'am is that the gentleman's card inquires sybil languidly yes ma'am sybil takes up the moment's morsel of pasteboard with the tips of her fingers, and that elegant air of listlessness, which is so provoking to Marion. She looks at the name a little curiously, notwithstanding her

Starting point is 08:43:54 languor, for it strikes her suddenly that this visitor of tonight may be her uncle's mysterious guest of the race night. One glance at the card shows her the name of all others most appalling to her, and yet there is, in that first moment of surprise, a thrill of race. A thrill of rapture in the thought that the one man she loves is near her. Where is he? She cries, starting up from her easy chair with the display of animation that awakens Podmore's suspicions. In the all, ma'am, shall I show him in? Certainly, how fortunate that Uncle Trenchard should be out of the way tonight!

Starting point is 08:44:37 Think Sybil too bewildered by the one startling fact of her husband's coming to be able to take in at a glance all the consequences of such an event stephen trenchard has been slightly ailing during this last week and has kept himself hermetically sealed as it were against east winds in the seclusion of his bedchamber he has suffered from such trifling and dispositions touches of cold and rheumatism several times during the late autumn and early winter and mrs stormont has confirmed in her opinion that dear mr trenchard is breaking fast or as the colonel puts it in the friendly gossip across the walnuts and the wine there can be no doubt the old fellow is going off the hooks podmore ushers mr secretan into the drawing-room and retires leaving husband and wife standing some yards apart face to face yes there she stands the wife lost so long regretted so bitterly there she stands unchanged by care of her she stands unchanged by care sorrow far lovelier than when he saw her last with the pinch of poverty on her cheek and the wan pallor of care tarnishing the ivory whiteness of her complexion she stands before him tonight the focus of all that is fairest in the luxurious room amid all the upholsterer's gilding and color

Starting point is 08:46:01 she is the highest spot she is pale as marble but the large dark eyes shine with a vivid light as she stretches out her hands to Alexis, as if in fondest welcome. Alex! she cried. Alex! You have found me, in spite of all my care. Found me too soon. She is ready to throw herself upon his breast and pour out her pent-up love and sobs and kisses, but his countenance does not invite this gush of feeling.

Starting point is 08:46:38 He surveys her with a little bit of love. look in which there is more contempt than anger. Yes, I have found you, he says. Found you in the comfortable nest which you discovered for yourself when you turned your back upon starvation and me. Found you in the house of my father's deadly enemy. Of mine. But before I could speak plainly, I'd learn to hate him. Yes, Mrs. Secretan, I have found you, and the clue to your mystery.

Starting point is 08:47:08 Alexis, you are too cruel. It was for your sake as much as my own I came here. Yes, as heaven hears and judges me, I thought of your happiness as much as my own. Why should we both starve, when there was my uncle's fortune waiting for me to claim my share of it? I knew that he was an old man, that we could not have many years to wait.

Starting point is 08:47:34 And you left me to think you false, dishonoured or dead while you played out this paltry game of waiting for a dead man's shoes. I spoke as plainly as I dared in my farewell letter. I was obliged to act secretly, knowing your prejudice against my uncle. Don't give me my sentiments so mild a name. It is hatred, or, at best, a sovereign contempt. He has been so good to me, Alexis, pleads Sybil. No doubt.

Starting point is 08:48:05 Vipers and scorpions and other noxious reptiles are kindly to their offspring, I dare say. You are his own treacherous blood, there is sympathy between you. Alexis, how can you be so cruel? Did you come here only to torture me? I came here to discover whether you are my wife or no. I came to offer you your choice between Mr. Trenchard's fortune, a fortune founded on treachery, remember, and my love. I am ready to forgive you all, I have suffered at your hands, your desertion of me in my bitterest need, my suspense and pain of these three years past, if you will place your hand in mine to-night, and leave this hateful house, and abandon all hope of profiting by the master's bounty.

Starting point is 08:48:56 And my uncle is dying, perhaps, Sybil thinks despairingly. In a few weeks I might inherit his fortune. The choice is simple, says Alexis. You can not have much difficulty in deciding either way. On one side, your uncle's garnered wealth, a midden perhaps. There is no limits to the opportunities of a man who begins unscrupulously. On the other side, my affection, a husband you once pretended to love. Pretended? Oh, Alexis, what more real than my love?

Starting point is 08:49:33 When have I ever ceased to love you? if you could only know i know nothing except that after three years severance i find you here my enemy's adopted daughter the centre of all those fine things which women of small minds value i ask you as many a man has asked many a woman before to-day to leave all unreservedly for my sake i do not ask you to return to starvation remember or to the genteel adventurers hand to mouth I have learned to earn my daily bread. The pinch of poverty need touch you no more. Not till health fails you, or we grow old, returned Sybil. I know what the workers for their daily bread have to look forward to when that day comes. The workhouse or the river, Alexis, for pity's sake, be reasonable.

Starting point is 08:50:28 If my uncle trench its fortune was founded on money that ought to have been your father's, He makes the story tell against your father mind, so much the more reason that he should come to you and me when he is dead. He is past 70 and his health has been failing during the last few months. He cannot live much longer, and I am as certain as I can be of anything that he means to leave me the bulk of his fortune. Why should I throw away such a chance? Simply because money so obtained would be odious to me as it should. be to you. You are as false to Stephen Trenchard as you have been to me. Your presence in this house is a fraud. Do you think your uncle would leave that money to the wife of Philip's

Starting point is 08:51:15 secretan son? Perhaps not, falters, Sybil. But for his money to come back to you would be an act of restitution. Providence works in that way sometimes. Providence never works through lies and hypocrisies. I want none of Stephen Trenchard's money. All of it tainted with fraud and lying, old warrant. I want you, the penniless girl I married four years ago. I had no thought of fortune when I asked you to be my wife, Sybil. I have no thought of a fortune now. No, Alex. You were always reckless, and your recklessness brought us to the threshold of starvation. And it would bring us there again, no doubt, if I let you have your way. that means you are not coming with me.

Starting point is 08:52:06 You hold by your rich uncle in preference to your husband. Alex, I love you with all my heart. You are never absent from my thoughts. The hope of our reunion is one hope that brightens my life. I will believe that. If you put your hand in mine and say, I am yours, husband, come will or woe. I might claim you by law, remember.

Starting point is 08:52:32 claim you as my chattel, but I am too proud to do that. You must follow me freely, or not at all. You shall have your choice. In a few months my uncle may be dead. I will come to you then. I will not have you then. Neither you nor your ill-gotten wealth. Revel in it, fatten on it,

Starting point is 08:52:55 but you shall be no wife of mine unless you leave this house with me tonight. It would be too great a folly to abandon every chance when success seems so near. You decide for the rich uncle. Alex, cries Sybil, wringing her hands, how can you be so cruel to me? Can't you understand that it is for your sake, as much as for my own, that I want to be rich? I cannot, for I have told you plainly that I despise wealth so one. I see you have made your choice, and I have now only one more thing to settle before I leave you in the fulfillment of your destiny. What have you done with our child?

Starting point is 08:53:40 He is in safekeeping. I can believe that, but it is not quite enough. I want the custody of him. How could you take care of so young a child? A boy of scarcely three years old. I would take excellent care of him. He would be a burden to you. you i should not think him a burden alexis exclaimed sybil bursting into tears i have deceived you i did not like to tell you the truth our boy is dead he died within a week of his birth

Starting point is 08:54:18 heartless woman you have fooled me with a false hope i've built all my schemes of future happiness upon that child and now you tell me he is dead Which am I to believe? Your letter or your assertion of his death. I have no motive for deceiving you in this matter. You offer to take the charge of him off my hands. If he had lived, I should be glad to accept such an offer. Perhaps. For you who have so little of a wife's affection cannot have much of a maternal instinct. Alexis, she cries despairingly. she runs to him and throws herself into his arms and sobs upon his breast distract her between love and ambition the glittering prize seems too near for her to let it go she cannot bring herself to say farewell fortune welcome love she clings to her husband as if she could not part with him yet means all the while to be steadfast in her devotion to stephen trenchard and his money alexis if you would only be patient let me stay with my uncle to the end it is not far off every one tells me he has not long to live trust in my devotion to you my fidelity yes trust in your devotion your fidelity while the town gossips are busy with the rumour of your approaching marriage with sir wilford cardinal the merest folly sir wilford has done me the honour to admire me and my uncle has given him some little encouragement you have nothing to fear from such a rival alexis or from any rival my heart belongs to you my love has never wavered and as a proof of this unwavering love you refuse to leave this house all this crimson satin and gilding for the humble home which i can offer you i refuse to throw away a fortune

Starting point is 08:56:26 which only a lunatic would consent to sacrifice, replies Sybil with a touch of impatience. The worthy Podmore enters at this juncture to replenish the fire. He approaches the hearth of slow and ponderous steps, taking note of all he sees on his passage. Sybil's agitated, tear-stained face, her visitors pale and angry looks. Goodbye, Miss Thornthorpe, says Alexis,

Starting point is 08:56:55 while the butler is doctoring the fire with deliberate care, as if every flame were a precious life in danger of extinction. I think I have explained all I wish you to convey to your uncle. Yes, she falters. Good night. Good night. Are you going to leave Redcastle soon? By the first train tomorrow morning.

Starting point is 08:57:22 Goodbye? she would give much to say more to entreat him once again to be patient and to look forward to their reunion later to accept her by and by burdened with the weight of stephen trenchard's wealth but the astute podmore having heard the note of leave-taking waits to show the visitor out and alexis is presently escorted to the hall door as if by the warder of a prison he goes out of that house well-nigh heartbroken, though pride has enabled him to bear himself quietly enough, and even to make light of his disappointment. I loved her so well that it is hard to find her worthless, he tells himself. Not one spark of generous feeling, all sordid greed of gain, had I told her of my altered fortune, she would have come to me.

Starting point is 08:58:20 Yes, she might, perhaps, have surrendered Stephen Trench. its larger wealth. But I thank God I had resolution enough to keep that secret. And so goodbye, my dream of domestic life, my hope of an heir to inherit my name. I stand alone henceforth, wifeless with a wife, childless though a child has been born to me, whose baby face I was not permitted to see. End of chapter. Recording by Adrian Strohet, Turks and Caicos Islands. Chapter 27 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Libravox recording.

Starting point is 08:59:14 All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibrovox.org. Recording by Adrian Stroot, Turks and Caicos Islands. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 27. Sir Wilford has his own way. When her husband is gone, and the full significance of that meeting and parting comes home to her, Sybil feels as if all the hope and glory of her life were departed with him.

Starting point is 08:59:54 She does not repent her decision, were Alexis to offer her the same choice again, she would decide in exactly the same manner. In her limited way of looking at the question, there is no possibility of arriving at any other determination. It would seem to her utterly unreasonable an act of absolute lunacy to throw away a fortune which is ready to drop into her lap, for which she has waited patiently, living her false life suppressing the truer instincts of her heart and mind for nearly three years. She wonders that a man of the world can demand such a sacrifice, can cling so foolish a prejudice as hereditary hatred, and even, and even carry that passion so far as to hate his enemy's money to her mind the inheritance of stephen trenched's fortune by alexis secretan's wife appears a wife and beneficent settlement of an old debt

Starting point is 09:00:50 no doubt her uncle stephen was right and that philip secretan was a spendthrift who deserved to be disinherited his father's fortune held over quadrupled increased tenfold perhaps in stephen's prudent hands would pass to alex and justice would be done to the dead father through the living son. Sybil cannot believe that Alexis will be obdurate when the hour of her freedom comes from Stephen Trenchard's death. No, I will not despair, she says to herself drying her tearful eyes and looking at her white face in the glass over the low marble chimney-piece. Crawl as he was tonight. He loves me too well to repudiate me, by and by, when I am free to. to return to him? Poor fallow! How could he reject fortune if it were mine to give him?

Starting point is 09:01:43 He who has suffered the sharp stings of poverty, and who has to work for his daily bread? How could he turn his back upon the bright new life that would lie before us if my uncle's money were mine? Not life within the four walls of a handsome dungeon like this house, but life wherever earth is loveliest. In Paris, in Italy, sailing in a home. our yacht on the mediterranean free as birds without a care or other thought except how to get the most pleasure out of our youth and wealth and freedom comforted by reflections like these civil calms herself and prepares to continue her part of ministering angel to stephen trenchard illness makes the old man irritable and the character is not the easiest in the world to perform she trembles at the thought of what would happen if her uncle and her husband were to meet

Starting point is 09:02:35 of what might have happened this very evening, but for Mr. Trenchard's most fortunate in disposition. What limit would there be to the old man's fury if he were to discover that he had been cheated of his affection, that the niece he had loved and favoured was the wife of his enemy's son? That revelation would have destroyed her hopes, beggared her, of that golden chance, which seems to have her scarcely, less than the actual possession of his fortune. she has no easy part to play this evening when she goes up to her uncle's room and finds him sitting by his fire awake and watchful the times lying uncut on the little table beside his capacious armchair

Starting point is 09:03:17 what have you been doing all evening child he asked testily i've been waiting for you to read me the city article waiting upwards of an hour by that clock he adds with a glance at the gilded timepiece on the man angel shulph i'm so sorry dear uncle i thought you were asleep you might have taken the trouble to come and ascertain the fact i have not closed my eyes since podmore brought me my beef tea who is this gentleman pray who has detained you so long sybil is unprepared for this question she had hoped her uncle would have known nothing about the untimely visitor a gentleman uncle yes podmore told me you had a gentleman with you. Someone who wanted to see me on particular business, and being told that I was ill, asked to see you instead. What did the fellow want? He wanted you to subscribe to a fund for building

Starting point is 09:04:15 a new church at Cremston, uncle, replies Sybil, with a desperate plunge. Some lies she must need invent, no matter what shape it took. Some new sect, if I understand him rightly. I told him I did not think you would care to subscribe, but that he might call again if he liked when you are well. Humph. You might have given him a decided negative at once. There are churches enough in the world and new sects enough, without my squandering money on the fools who want more.

Starting point is 09:04:48 The fellow was with you a long time. Why couldn't you get rid of him sooner? He insisted upon showing me plans and a list of subscribers, and he told me a good deal about the church. you ought to know how to keep such fellows at a distance some swindler no doubt and he was with you nearly an hour according to podmore shall i read you the city article uncle trenchard asked sybil anxious to end this embarrassing discussion she seats herself a little way behind mr trenchard's chair well in the shadow yes you can read but come nearer the lamp child it makes me uncomfortable to know that you are straining your eyes in the dark there sybil obeys reluctantly fearing that the traces of agitation may still disfigure her countenance luckily the lamp has a velvet shade which cast the light on the paper in her hand and not on the face bending over it mr trenchard scans her curiously notwithstanding his suspicions have been aroused by that evening visitor a handsome young man according to podmore a lover perhaps and that story of the crampton church all of fable

Starting point is 09:05:59 mr trenchard has employed too much fiction in the course of his own career to be easily deluded by a figment of the female brain he says nothing however content to suspect and to keep his suspicions to himself for the present he languishes for some days more under the burden of what dr midson calls a slight bronchial attack and at about a week is able to come downstairs again and seems almost as active and alert as ever civil things wondering whether there is really any foundation for that idea about his breaking up. Dr. Mitzin is Mr. Trenchard's medical attendant. It is not to be supposed that the precious life of a mid-in-air could be trusted to poor little Dr. Formthor, who has the care of the parish and goes his rounds in a positively disreputable pony carriage. Dr. Mitzin's neat single brown and fine pair of bay cobs are a, standing evidence of his respectability and his skill.

Starting point is 09:07:03 If he were not a clever doctor, how could he afford those cobs? Wonderful constitution, your uncles, Miss Formthorne, says Dr. Mitsum, cheerily, on the occasion of his last professional visit, quite set up again, you see, complexion clearer, eye brighter, liver in better order. I congratulate you upon having an uncle who ought to live as long as Linthurst or Brown. Sybil tries to look glad, but her heart sinks at the thought that this fine constitution of her uncles

Starting point is 09:07:37 places the hope of reunion with Alexis very far off. What a miserable situation mine must be when such horrid thoughts are forced upon me, she reflects. I almost wish I was Marion, dawdling away life in that old house at the bottom of the town, without a care.

Starting point is 09:07:58 sybil's cares are rendered heavier just at this time by the marked attentions of sir wilford cardinal the tensions which however delightful they might be in her vanity in the beginning of things have now become hateful to her but more so as her uncle will not allow her any way of escape from this entanglement she sees before her the inevitable end in a proposal from sir wilford and her rejection of it which act of seeming idiocy will doubtless provoke her uncle's anger perhaps forfeit his good graces for ever and then all her patience all her pretty little flatteries and gentle ministerings to an irritable old man will have been wasted she will have grieved and offended her husband perhaps alienated his affections for nothing she will be bankrupt both ways these possibilities occur to her mind sometimes difficult is crowd upon her and hem her in from every side the dread of sir wilford taking that decisive step which he evidently intends to take sooner or later is always before her and she has another ever-present fear in the the thought that Alexis may reappear at any moment and reveal himself to Stephen Trenchit. There are hours of her life in which she feels sorely tempted to run away from wealth as she ran away from poverty, and it is possible that if she had known where to find her husband,

Starting point is 09:09:29 she would have acted upon this impulse. But he has vanished out of her existence. In the fear and confusion of that brief visit of his, she did not even ask his place of abode. Prudence and that deep-rooted worship of wealth which is sometimes engendered by a long apprenticeship to poverty keeps civil constant to the rack of her daily difficulties despite these occasional longings for escape she contrives by a certain distance of manner which is in no wise ungracious to defer sir wilford's declaration of his passion the bluff and genial baronet is as shy as a girl in the presence of the woman he loves and so long as he can enjoy civil society is in no hurry to precipitate matters. Smallers are the tokens of favour which she has bestowed upon him, Sir Wilford has no apprehension of being refused by her when it shall please him to ask the fateful question. He is too good a match for the possibility of the refusal. It does not enter into his notion of possibilities that he, Sir Wilford Cardinal of the how, could be rejected by any

Starting point is 09:10:41 woman out of the peerage. He is kept at a distance by Sybil's coldness, but in no wise disheartened. I'm in no hurry, you know, he says to himself. I like to know something about a woman before I ask her to be my wife. I should like to make sure she cared a little about me in a quiet way. So many women have thrown themselves at my head, that I like this one, all the better for not going so fast. More likely to be a good stayer, I should think. I don't want to win with a rush.

Starting point is 09:11:16 I'd rather take my time and come in quietly. Thus muses Sir Wilford in the solitude of his study, a room chiefly devoted to treatises, on the turf and thallery, whips, single sticks, gloves, favourite bits and bridles, a small menagerie of stuffed dogs, from Sebastian the favourite old hound

Starting point is 09:11:37 defunct at a ripe old age, blind of one eye and short of one ear to mite the smallest terrier ever seen in the west riding a minute white animal with pointed pink paws and a strong lightness to a rat i ought to see more of her thinks sir wilford it's no use asking her and the old party to dinner or dining with them i shall never make the running that way i feel as strange with her when i haven't seen her for a week or two as if i've been i I'd only just been introduced to her. It's like beginning our acquaintance over again. I must make Phoebe ask them here to stay. That'll be the best plan. A week in the same house with her will show me what kind of girl she is, better than a twelve months morning calling and dining.

Starting point is 09:12:27 And having made up his mind, Sir Wilford is not slow to act upon his decision. Hi, Jess, old lady. He calls to his favourite, a splendid red setter, graceful and lady-like enough in her habits to be admitted as a house-dog, though not without protest from Phoebe. Jess vanquishes Miss Cardinal's objections by pretending to adore her, is as artful as a court favourite, and as is many prerequisites. Sir Wilford goes straight to the morning-room, where his two sisters employ themselves industriously between breakfast and luncheon,

Starting point is 09:13:01 writing innumerable letters, examining the housekeeper's weekly accounts, the head gardener's book, and other household volumes, working point lace, practicing classical sonatas which reduce them to the verge of lunacy, and making winter clothing for their various pensioners. Christmas is just over, and the Christmas gaieties and benevolences done with. It is beginning of the new year, fine, healthy weather, the ground not too hard for horses or hounds, and Sir Wilford in good humour with the arrangement of things. well Phoebe, what people are you going to ask for Tilbury Steeplechase? He inquires as Miss Cardinald looks up from her desk where she is just declaring herself

Starting point is 09:13:45 to remain her dearest Cecilia's ever affectionate friend, Cecilia being the fifth dearest friend she is addressed this morning. Tilbury Steeplechase is an important fixture in this part of the world. It is a race at which gentlemen jockeys to support themselves. It comes in the winter when outdoor amusements. are rare. Altogether, Tilbury's Steeplechase is a benefaction. I've written last of my invitations this morning, replies Phoebe, who is somewhat inclined to forget that she is prime minister and not the king, and to commit herself to

Starting point is 09:14:20 important measures without the preliminary formula of consultation with her sovereign. I've asked General and Mrs. McTower, and Belinda, the eldest you know, and I thought we ought to be civil to the vicar of Redcastle for once in a moment. away, so I've asked Mr and Mrs. Chasurable and the son. He won't make much difference, and you can put him in the barracks. The barracks is a range of small bedrooms over the offices devoted to bachelor visitors of indistinction. Very well.

Starting point is 09:14:50 I have no objection to the Chasdribles. Who else? The Radnors and the Vernans. And Cecilia Hortry. Too many women, says Sir Wilford. Cecilia is my particular friend, remarked. Miss Cardinal with dignity. Oh, well, let her come.

Starting point is 09:15:10 She's coming the day after tomorrow, observes Miss Cardinal. I have just written to say, I shall send the omnibus to meet her. What the deuce can one young woman want with a family bus built to carry ten? exclaims Sir Wilford. She will have her maid,

Starting point is 09:15:27 replies Miss Cardinal, and her portmanteau. Ah, box is enough to load a goods train, I dare say, mutters Sir Wilford. Well, that's all your list, I suppose. Yes, Wilford. Then I'll give you mine. Do you want to ask anyone else?

Starting point is 09:15:45 exclaimed Miss Cardinal with an injured air. I fancied I thought of everyone you would have cared about asking. You've thought of a good many I don't care about. But my dear Wilford, I don't see how I can possibly ask anymore. I've filled all the best bedrooms. Then you must empty some of them. I want you to ask Colonel and Mrs. Stormont, and that son of theirs on the grey.

Starting point is 09:16:10 But, Wilford, Mrs. Stormont is such a horrid old person, so pushing. Never mind that. We often have horrid old persons. And the son. I don't know what he's like off that grey, but is utterly odious on it. Stupid young cad, rather, but good fun. be sure to tell him to bring the grey. Why should we have the store-mots to stay with us, Wilford?

Starting point is 09:16:37 demands Lavinia, the youngest sister, looking up from an easel, upon which she has been copying a drawing master's landscape and fondly deluding herself with the idea that she can paint. It's all very well to ask them to dinner once in a way, or to a garden party, but why have them in the house? Simply because I wish it, Vinnie. I don't often indulge. and whims, say that this is one, if you like. Oh, of course, if you really wish it,

Starting point is 09:17:07 but I think it's rather a dangerous precedent, replies Phoebe. All the Redcastle people will be expecting to be asked to stay here. The butchers and the bakers and the candlestick makers, well, they can go down to their graves in the state of expectation, says Sir Wilford. And now, Phoebe, I want you to write a particularly nice letter, cordial, and all that kind of thing, you know. To Miss Farnthorpe, asking her and Mr. Trenchard, over for the race week. I ought to have known what was coming, exclaims Phoebe. Well, naturally, I shouldn't be civil to the Stormonts without a motive. Mrs. Stormont introduced me to Miss Fornthorpe, you see. I shouldn't like the old lady to think I make a cat's paw of her. Phoebe is inwably rebellious, but too wise to

Starting point is 09:17:57 revolt outwardly. She has seen the sun set on her twenty-ninth birth, and has been mistress of the how the sole and sovereign domestic power for the last ten years. It will be a hard thing to lay down her sceptre, to retire from that lordly dwelling place, and to become Miss Cardinal of nowhere in particular. A young lady whose non-success in the matrimonial line sympathising friends will lament over. And Phoebe feels that the day when her sceptre must be resigned is not very far off. now that Wilford, who has his father's obstinate temper, poor dear fellow, has taken a ridiculous fancy to this Miss Fawnthorpe, a mere nobody, with nothing but a pretty face and a rich uncle to recommend her to notice. Sir Wilford waits, while his sister writes the letter of invitation, which she is obliged to make much warmer in tone than inclination would prompt, the baronet looking over her shoulder all the while.

Starting point is 09:18:57 when the letter is in its envelope, he surprises Phoebe by taking it from her and putting it in his pocket. I am going over to Redcastle this afternoon, he says, so I can deliver the letter and bring you back an answer. I should like you to give Miss Fall thought the tapestry room. My dear Wilford, what are you thinking of? I have ever so many married couples coming.

Starting point is 09:19:22 I must put her in one of the small rooms in the Nella Gallery. Oh, very well. replied sir wilford she'll off the pick of the rooms perhaps some of these days hi jess old woman with which awful threat sir wilford withdraws leaving his sisters free to discuss the calamity that lowers over their house End of Chapter 27, recorded by Adrian Stroet, Turks and Caicos Islands. Chapter 28 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 09:20:14 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Lena Emsley. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary a. Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 28. Marion is raised to distinction. Sir Wilford, clad in the latest fashion in Czechs, a rough and fleecy raiment, which his father would have deemed better suited to clothe his gamekeeper or groom than himself, and mounted on Bull of Bashan, is a sight to behold this winter afternoon, as he trots gaily down the wide avenue at the howl, and emerges

Starting point is 09:20:57 therefrom on a bold and open country. The bull is a little fresh this afternoon, which, being interpreted, means that the grooms have been too lazy to take the superfluous energy out of that amiable animal for the last two days, whereby the bull behaves like a quadruped newly introduced to a strange country, where all sights and sounds, colours and shapes of objects, lights and shadows, are new to him. He shies ferociously at every trunk in the long line of elms, and indulges in a serpentine movement for the length of the avenue. He takes objection to the colour of the gravel, where the road has been mended, and on suddenly beholding the white gate, which he ought to know as well as his

Starting point is 09:21:47 own manger, recoils on his haunchers, and curls himself up into a ball, and in this shape, canters furiously into the road. startling the lazy wagner asleep on his wane, and rousing a flight of rooks from their afternoon repose by the clatter of his iron shoes. The coying of the rooks finishes the bull altogether, and sends him off like a maniac or demoniacly possessed animal. But Sir Wilford, having now got him into the open country, is able to take it out of him, over a fine stretch of Moorland, and brings him back to the high road a couple of miles further off, a subdued and subjugated beast, willing to settle into a comfortable trot,

Starting point is 09:22:33 which, with an occasional interval of walking, carries Sir Wilford into Red Castle by afternoon tea-time. That pleasant hour betwixt day and night, when labour rests, or should rest, from its cares, and the household music of the kettle singing on the hob speaks peace to the soul of the weary. Mr. Trenchard is taking afternoon tea with his two nieces, Sybil and Marion, in the fire-lit drawing-room at Lancaster Lodge.

Starting point is 09:23:06 A room, which, like most other rooms, looks its best by that uncertain light, now gorgeous in the glow of crimson and gold, anon wrapped in shadow. Marion has been invited to spend the day. The two girls have employed the shrewd the shrewd, short winter afternoon in a review of Sybil's last new dresses, an inspection which has not been conducive to the younger sister's peace of mind or good temper. At the announcement of Sir Wilford

Starting point is 09:23:37 Cardinal, however, Marian brightens a little and is glad. How lucky he should have called today, she thinks. Sybil is too mean to ask me here on purpose to see him, and now he must be introduced to me, and I can talk about knowing him as well as Sybil. What will Mariah Harrison say, I wonder, when I tell her that I'm quite intimate with Sir Wilford Cardinal? Marian little knows the mighty honour which fate has reserved for her. Little dreams that by the happy accident of her presence at Lancaster Lodge this afternoon, she is to be raised to a giddy height of grandeur, from which she will hardly be able to glance downwards without vertigo. Sir Wilford is presented to Miss Marion Fornthorpe in due form by Mr. Trenchard,

Starting point is 09:24:28 and the conversation becomes at once general and sprightly, glancing upon such original topics as the probability of a hard frost before long, the advantage of the present weather from a sporting point of view, the health and well-being of the baronet's stud, the superlative virtues and capabilities of his latest equine purchase, the probability of a day's good racing at Tilbury. You ought to see the Tilbury Steeplechase, says Sir Wilford. Tilbury Commons only three miles from the Howe, you know, and it's an uncommonly good-day sport, gentlemen, jocks, and that kind of thing. I've ridden there myself, but I didn't enter anything this year. You ought really, you know, Miss Fawnthorpe. In point of fact, I came over here this

Starting point is 09:25:18 afternoon on purpose to ask you and Mr. Trenchard to come and stay with us next week. My sister gave me a letter for you. She's dreadfully anxious for you to come, and I think the change of air would do Mr. Trenchard good. We stand a good bit higher than you do, you know, and get a sniff off the moors, remarkably healthy, that kind of thing, I'm told. Do say yes now, Mr. Trenchard, he urges, handing Sybil the letter. I'm afraid my dear uncle's health won't permit him to leave home, answers Sibyl. He has been quite an invalid lately, you know, Sir Wilford. All the more reason he should have a change of air.

Starting point is 09:25:57 Brace him up, you know. Capital thing for invalids, moorland air. And if Miss Marianne, Marian, interjects that young lady. Not even by Sir Wilford Cardinal will she submit to be called Mary Ann. If Miss Miriam, Marion, I beg your pardon, I'm sure. "'If Miss Marion will come, I shall be delighted, "'and I'm sure my sister will be quite awfully glad.' "'Marion blushes crimson with delight at such an invitation.

Starting point is 09:26:29 "'You are too kind,' she gasps. "'I positively don't upon races.' "'I shouldn't have thought your passion for them "'had had time to reach such a height,' said Sybil, sneeringly, "'since you are never at a race in your life "'before last year's summer meeting. "'She is provoked at Marion's evening. eagerness to accept an invitation, the acceptance of which can only bring embarrassment upon

Starting point is 09:26:53 her, Sybil. "'That means you'll come,' exclaimed Sir Wilford, answering Marion. "'And of course, if you say yes, Miss Fornthorpe can't say no. Sisters always think alike. Two cherries on one stalk, like Juno's swans, together and inseparable, you know. And now we only want Mr. Trenchard's acquiescence. "'I should be a churl to refuse so hospitable an invitation "'and deprive these girls of so much pleasure,' replies Stephen Tredschard.

Starting point is 09:27:25 "'Bravo!' cries Sir Wilford. "'Then it's all settled. "'You'll come next Saturday?' "'I don't think I can be ready by Saturday,' "'murmurs Marion, with an awful fear upon the subject of her wardrobe, "'which will need Herculean labours of cutting and contriving and some expenditure of cash before it can be fit for the halls of Cardinal.

Starting point is 09:27:50 Pray, dear uncle, do not think of us, says Sybil. I don't at all care about races, and much as I appreciate Miss Cardinal's kind invitation, I really would rather not accept it, for fear the fatigue and the excitement should be too much for you. Nasty thing, thinks Marion. She refuses just because I'm invited. "'artful puss,' thinks Stephen.

Starting point is 09:28:17 "'She keeps him on by holding him off.' "'Don't be afraid about your uncle, Miss Fawnthorpe,' says Sir Wilford. "'We shall be awfully careful of him.' "'I'm not quite so decrepid as my niece thinks me,' says Mr. Trenchard, "'and I shall quite enjoy a few days at the howl.' "'That's glorious,' cries Sir Wilford. "'On Saturday, then. "'You'll drive over in time for luncheon?

Starting point is 09:28:42 "'Be sure to bring your habit, Miss Fawnthorpe. "'I have a chestnut mare that will suit you to perfection. "'And I can mount you, too, Miss Marion, if you like riding.' "'I positively adore it,' gushes Marion. "'Sibble and I used to take it in turns to ride Uncle Robert's pony when we were little things. "'I was so sorry when the pony grew too small for us.' "'Sir Wilford, having settled this important question, and drunk three cups of tea, chiefly for the pleasure of having his cup and saucer handed him by Sybil,

Starting point is 09:29:17 departs, leaving the elder sister heavy-hearted, the younger in a state of wild excitement, which her natural awe of Stephen Trenchard can hardly subdue. "'What am I to do about my things, Sybil?' she whispers, as the two girls sit side by side on a sofa by the fire. "'What things?' my dresses jackets gloves hats boots everything i've hardly a rag that's fit to wear at the how then you oughtn't to have accepted the invitation you might have seen that you were only asked because you happened to be here and so wilford could not very well leave you out how unkind of you to say that it's preposterous to accept an invitation when you have no clothes fit to be worn at the house you are asked to visit you ought to have refused ought I? That's very nice and sisterly of you, I'm sure. Very much like twin cherries and Juno's fiddlesticks. Just the only chance I ever had of enjoying myself and seeing life,

Starting point is 09:30:25 going into society, in fact, and a chance that would give me quite a new position in Redcastle, bring those horrid stormants and that disgusting Mrs. Groshen to their senses, and you expect me to refuse it. It's positively unnatural. "'Truel of you, Sybil.' "'And Marion relieves her bursting heart with a gush of tears. "'Why, what's the matter, girl?' "'cries Stephen Trenchard, "'starting from that placid slumber

Starting point is 09:30:53 "'into which the fire-glow and subdued murmur of the girl's voices "'have beguiled him. "'You don't come here to cry, I hope, Marion. "'If we make you unhappy, you'd better stay away.' "'Mr. Trenchard is not the kind of man to allow his afternoon repose to be disturbed by a whimpering niece. His young kinsfolk must make themselves agreeable if they hope to retain his favour. It's all Sybil's unkindness, says Marion,

Starting point is 09:31:24 swallowing her sobs in an unpleasantly convulsive manner. She hasn't a bit of heart, she never had. When Sir Wilford Cardinal has invited me in all, she throws my poverty in my face and says I must refuse the invitation on a count of my things. What does a girl mean by things? I simply reminded, Marion, that the invitation gives us very short notice, and that her wardrobe is hardly fit for visiting at the Howe.

Starting point is 09:31:54 Oh, is that all? exclaims Mr. Trenchard. That shan't stand in your way, Marion. You can get whatever you want for this visit at Carmichael's, and have it put down to Sibyl's account. Oh, Uncle, you were too... "'Good! Too generous!' gasps Marion, "'forgetting how often she has invade against Mr. Trenchard's meanness. "'Don't make a fuss, please, Marion,' says Stephen, closing his eyes again.

Starting point is 09:32:25 "'Sibyl is gloomy. She would do much to prevent this visit, "'were there any way open to her by which it could be prevented. "'She feels that to visit at Sir Wilford's house "'is a kind of treason against her. husband. True that the baronet is not yet her declared admirer, but his admiration is not the less obvious, and the town gossips have already been busy with her name and Sir Wilford's. How provoking Uncle Trenchard is, and Marion too, she hates them both, and preserves a sullen manner towards Marion all the evening, a sullenness which that young lady imputes to jealousy.

Starting point is 09:33:09 perhaps she thinks that sir wilford might be fickle enough to admire me a little muses marian elated beyond measure by the prospect of her visit and the idea of getting things at car michael's of course sybil is the beauty we all know that but i flatter myself i have a little more animation than she has and in the long run fascinating manners are more admired than good looks Fortified thus in her self-esteem, Marion departs in the highest spirits, after having made Sybil promised to go shopping with her next morning. Sybil makes her preparations for the visit with a heavy heart. She assists Marion kindly enough, now that she has resigned herself to the inevitable. She lends her sister the aid of her counsel, and considerably chastens Marion's taste in colours and patterns. a taste which inclines to the loud and fast, large checks, big metal buttons, yachting jackets, and small pork-pie hats. Sybil takes care that her sister shall be dressed like a lady, which may be done cheaply,

Starting point is 09:34:23 and not like a fashion plate, the latter involving lavish expenditure, and often resulting in disappointment. Sibyl selects hues which harmonise with marriage. hair and complexion, and not the last new colour, which the shopman presses upon her, as if novelty and beauty were convertible terms. I'm afraid you'll make me an awful dowdy, remonstrates Marion, who is inclined to object to the combination of rich brown and soft cream colour, which Sybil recommends for a walking costume, and this languid shade of blue, relieved by rushings, pipings and flouncinges of palest salmon.

Starting point is 09:35:05 which Sybil declares will make a lovely dinner dress. See what Miss Islet will say to my choice, says Sybil. Oh, of course that old Islet will side with you. She knows how to flatter a good customer. Choose for yourself, then, Marion, and be happy. Well, upon my word, I don't know what to have, says Marion, surveying the counter, and biting the tip of her gloved forefinger to assist cogitation.

Starting point is 09:35:35 there's that lovely peach i should like of all things and that heavenly maze think of it trimmed with black lace charming for a brunette but odious for a blonde and to trim it properly you would want at least fifty pounds worth of lace that apple-green brocade then with the lovely rosebuds admirable for a dowager but quite unsuited to you i wonder if uncle trenchard Would mind by having a ruby velvet? I've always fancied a ruby velvet. With a diamond tiara, of course, most appropriate for a country surgeon's niece, especially when he's the parish doctor. Well, I suppose you better choose.

Starting point is 09:36:23 I'll have the blue and salmon, but it's horrid thin silk. Quite good enough for an evening dress, which will be done for when its freshness is gone. So, Marianne, find, finally accepts Sybil's superior judgment. Her purchases include a pretty grey merino for mornings and walking, a rich brown silk, the pale blue dinner dress, and handsome black cloth jacket,

Starting point is 09:36:50 garments which are judiciously bought for something less than 30 pounds. With these materials, the two girls drive straight to Miss Islet, who, with much persuasion from Sybil, is induced to promise the three dresses for Saturday morning. And now all you have to do is to get Hester to wash and iron your white muslins, says Sibyl, so that you may have some simple dresses for the quiet evenings. I'll lend you a sash or two. Pond my word, Zib, you're quite a darling!

Starting point is 09:37:24 What made you so disagreeable last night? I do not want to go to the howl, and I was vexed with you and Uncle Trenchard for snapping at the invitation. "'Don't want to go to the how,' cries Marion, with as much astonishment, as if Sybil had said she didn't wish to go to heaven. "'Don't want to go to the how, when it's the grandest chance you ever had in your life, "'and people are beginning to say that you can be Lady Cardinal, if you like. "'People are idiots and busy-bodies.

Starting point is 09:37:58 "'I don't want to be Lady Cardinal or Lady anybody else.' "'Sibble, don't be so effective. exclaims Marion, disgusted by a repudiation which he believes thoroughly insincere. Mr. Trenchard's carriage deposits Marion at the shabby old house beyond the Minster, and Jenny comes rushing out into the wintry air. Last year's tartan frock a good deal too short for those obtrusive legs of hers to kiss Sybil, to the disgust of the coachman, who looks upon this branch of his employer's family as a low lot. that's the worst of living with easier novel riches he complains to john the footman they may climb a ladder of fortune themselves but they leave their relations a grovelling at the bottom

Starting point is 09:38:48 what do you mean by novel riches inquires the simple john well pow-new stupid if you must have the vernacular hester and jenny faunthorpe have a rather hard time of it for the rest of this important week hester at the wash-tub and the ironing board jane engaged in darning socks and sewing on tapes and buttons her sister's wardrobe requiring more small repairs than are consistent with a notion of order and industry in its owner well you have let your things go to seed marian remarks jane if it hadn't been for this visit of yours i should think you must have dropped to pieces altogether before long "'You're an impertinent chit,' exclaims Marion, frowning over a complicated darn. "'Well, you might be civil when I'm toiling like a slave for you.' "'You may help me or leave it alone just as you please. "'It's no pleasure to be under an obligation to you.' "'As far as inclination goes, I'd much rather leave it alone,' replies the argumentative, Jane.

Starting point is 09:40:02 "'But for the credit of the family I shall do my best to prevent you.' you going into society with your heels coming through your stockings. But I can't help saying that I think you'd find it better for the health of your stockings to down them before they come to this. And Jenny emphasizes her remark by thrusting her hand through a yawning chasm in the stocking she is operating upon. Keep your opinions to yourself, and don't make the holes bigger by sticking your enormous hand through them, says Marion.

Starting point is 09:40:34 This is a grateful world, murmurs Jane resignedly. Dr. Faunthorpe is pleased at the idea of his younger niece's pleasure, though the visit to the Howe will drag a pound or two out of his scantily furnished purse, pounds already engaged for tax or water rate, as the case may be, and a subtraction of which will throw his financial arrangements out of gear for ever so long. But Robert Faunthorpe is one of those good little men whose mission upon this earth seems to be to suffer and be patient

Starting point is 09:41:12 if not to suffer and be strong Nay, is there not exceeding strength in this quiet patience this placid endurance of loss and deprivation this uncomplaining surrender of all that the selfish live for Humboldt wisely says that if every man is said to have his own destiny in his hands,

Starting point is 09:41:37 that saying must be read to mean, not that he has the power to alter fate, but rather the power to make the best of bad fortune, and by his gentle acceptance of ill, to transmute evil into good. Depravations, small acts of self-abnegation, which would have hurt another man, gave Dr. Faunthorpe a pleasant feeling,

Starting point is 09:42:04 a genial sense of warmth and comfort in the region of the heart, which had the effect of whiskey toddy or any other comfortable stimulant. End of Chapter 28. Chapter 29 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Librevox recording. All Lebrovoc's recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 09:42:41 Recording by Judy Mason. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 29 At the How Saturday shows bright and fair A fine winter day. Hore frost on the hedges. The roads are dry, but not too hard for the horses.

Starting point is 09:43:05 The Minster Towers stand out, sharply defined against the clear cold blue rooks are screaming loud in the ragged embows robins singing merrily a blithe day in the new-born year a day which inspires red castle with the idea that trade is brisker than it has been and things in general looking up so potent is the influence of the fine weather never has marian faunthorpe felt so proud or happy as when her uncle's carriage calls for her and her boxes and she takes her seat opposite mr trenchard who by right divine of his threescore years and ten occupies the post of honour wrapped to the chin in sable and with a tiger rug over his knees did you shoot that tiger yourself dear uncle asks marian bent on making herself agreeable no child replies the dear uncle rather snappishly i had something better to do in india than to shoot tigers but it's very nice shooting big game isn't it uncle some people go to india on purpose for that don't they fools do perhaps there's no accounting for their taste the little surgeon has come out to the gate to see his niece off nay he has actually stolen an hour from the parish in order to behold the glory of her departure he seems as pleased to see her happiness as if he himself were going to the how and at the last moment the girl feels touched you dear darling old uncle she says hanging round his neck and forgetting the possibility of damage to her new hat how good you always are always always always and i'm an ungrateful wretch my love you are not ungrateful and you have very little to be grateful for everything you mean uncle robert i shall think of you ever so many times a day at the how and if the dinners are very nice i i i'll think of you ever so many times a day at the howl and if the dinners are very nice i

Starting point is 09:45:16 i shall so wish you could be with us thank you my dear i shall think of you and miss you very much i'm going to keep house exclaims jenny lolling against the gate and swaying to and fro distractingly as she talks and make tea and all nobody to tell me not to take too much butter and hester will give us my favourite puddings i know if i quill her cap borders so after a embracing the doctor in this demonstrative fashion marian enters the carriage with tears in her eyes to the aggravation of stephen trenchard who hates tears and fuss and emotion of all kinds except of the thrill of delight which accompanies a successful stroke of business crying again he exclaims tessaly what's the matter now there's nothing the matter dear uncle only i'm so happy and i feel a little overcome at leaving uncle robert it's a pity you should leave him at all if the parting is so pathetic sneers mr trenchard oh sybil i've had such a nice little note from miss cardinal to confirm sir wilford's invitation says marian and she exhibits a formal note in which the polite phoebe expresses her satisfaction at having heard from her brother that miss marion fawnthorpe has promised to accompany her sister on saturday. The drive is delightful for anyone with an unburdened mind, and even Sybil feels the sweetness of the clear winter air, and determines to make the best of an awkward concatenation of events.

Starting point is 09:47:02 After all, it is better to be lolling in Uncle Trenchard's carriage on one's way to a delightful old country house than to be grinding at French or German verbs in Mrs. Hazleton's cheerless second-floor schoolroom, badly warmed by a fire that seems always made of the dullest coals that ever came from the bosom of the earth. And all this is but the filling of a gap in her life. This chasm of time bridged over, and she will be with Alexis once more, and they will have Uncle Trencher's money to spend and be happy ever afterwards. She has persuaded herself that, let Alexis make what protestations he pleases in the present, he will take her to his heart again gladly, when the fitting time comes. And in the meantime, there's no use in my moping and making myself miserable,

Starting point is 09:47:59 reflects Sybil, her spirits elevated by atmospheric influences, and the prospect of being the object of general admiration. I wonder if there will be many people there, she speculates presently. people with titles suggest marian a duke perhaps i should like to see a duke or a duchess that would be better still think of her dresses sib mustn't they be magnificent sybil smiles the languid smile of contempt at her sister's simplicity as if there were a sliding scale for the toilette she says why cotton-spiners wives dress as well as duchess's nowadays. They employ the same milliners and pay their bills quicker. It's dreadful to think of, replies Marion. It seems like turning things topsy-turvy, you know. They are at the how, by this time, a domain which Marion enters open-eyed and dumb with awe. Sir Wilford comes out into the porch to receive them and gives directions about their luggage and makes himself generally busy.

Starting point is 09:49:10 then he calls out Phoebe and introduces Marion to her, at which Marion, being almost tongue-tied by shyness, says, Thank you. You show the Miss Fonthorpe's their rooms, Phoebe, says the hospitable baronet, but this is the length to which Miss Cardinell will not go, though she conducted her dearest Cecilia to her apartment half an hour ago with her arm around Cecilia's severely trained waist. perker knows all about the rooms she says whereupon appears the essence of respectability in a black silk gown and smart cap otherwise mrs perker the housekeeper

Starting point is 09:49:51 sybil and marion follow this personage up the broad oak staircase to a long perspective of corridor in which mrs perker opens two doors next to each other and reveals twin bed chambers neatly furnished with maple and chintz i thought you two ladies would like to be next to each other remarks the housekeeper obligingly as if the choice of rooms were entirely her own we do very much exclaims marian who regains her power of speech in this inferior presence i'm very glad i'm to be near sybil i should be awfully afraid of ghosts in this great rambling house mrs perker smiles condescendingly as if she were a superior order of being accustomed to large houses and family spectres it is a rambling old place she says but i shouldn't fancy myself in one of your fine lightsome modern houses all glare and gilding and there is a ghost i dare say says marian with thrilling interest the housekeeper screws up her lips and smiles significantly as if she could and if she would tell of as many apparitions as appear in the tragedy of Macbeth. There has never been a ghost owned to at the how, she says, and I wouldn't breathe the name of such a thing in Miss Cardinal's hearing, but people have been frightened. Strangers, it may have been rats, or it may have been the wind. I can't say, but there are friends of the family who wouldn't

Starting point is 09:51:31 sleep in this corridor, no, not for a thousand pounds. Marion's show. and almost wishes herself back in the shabby old house at the end of red castle so here are your rooms young ladies opening into each other how nice exclaims marian never in her life has she felt more warmly attached to sibyl than she does at this moment fires burn cheerily in both rooms and each apartment has that thoroughly comfortable and convenient air only to be seen in a well-ordered country house and altogether distinct from the cheerless precision of an hotel bedchamber. There is the nice little writing table with all things needful for correspondence in front of the fire, the Casey Chair, the candles and pincushion, and a hot-house flower or two in a slender vase on the dressing table. All smiles a welcome to the stranger, not Miss Cardinell's welcome, by the way, but Mrs. Perkers.

Starting point is 09:52:37 i've given your maid a nice room on the second floor within easy reach of this ma'am says the housekeeper at which marion's eyes open wide with wonder i have no maid replies sybil unabashed by that humiliating fact i am accustomed to wait upon myself indeed ma'am some young ladies prefer it i know for my own part i couldn't bear anybody fidgeting about me and if you should require any assistance miss cardinal's made will be very happy thanks no my sister can help me if i want her and sybil proceeds to open her handsome portmanteaus while marian contrives to stand before this shabby receptacle which contains her property lest the scrutinising eye of mrs perker should behold its dilapidation the housekeeper bustles off and leaves the two girls to themselves it's rather like going to school again isn't it sybil inquires marian whose spirits have sunk a little oppressed by the unfamiliar splendours of the how i feel just as i did the day we went to miss worries and i can't help fancying we shall be told off into our different classes when we go downstairs the sound of the luncheon bell reminds the sisters that they have no time to waste and they go downstairs together presently conscious that they are looking nice enough to face even unfriendly criticism sir wilford is lounging in the hall and they go into luncheon under his wing fred stormont is near the dining-room door and rushes to meet sibyl and her sister and mrs stormont gives a friendly bow from the other end of the table where she sits among the stately matrons and the bald-headed fathers of the land and they begin to feel themselves more at home as marion whispers to her sister the conversation at luncheon runs more continuously upon the present companies

Starting point is 09:54:37 absent brothers and sisters and cousins and nieces and sons and daughters-in-law than is quite congenial to the feelings of a stranger totally unacquainted with these relations but marian manages to get up a little talk about nothing particular with fred stormont which beheld from afar looks like flirtation and causes the young man's anxious mother to put up her gold-eye-glass and look at him through it wondering how that silly frederick can be so ridiculous as to waste his attentions upon the wrong sister i suppose mr trenchard will leave the girl five thousand pounds or so thinks mrs stormont but what would be the use of that to a young man with fred's expensive habits end of chapter twenty nine chapter thirty of dead men's shoes this is the lebravox recording all lebrovacs recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org Recording by Judy Mason Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 30

Starting point is 09:55:59 Tilbury Steeplechase The guests assembled at the Howe soon divide themselves into sections or groups like the various members of the Lower Animal Creation Mr. and Mrs. Chazoville draw around them them are seriously minded of the younger visitors, Lavinia Cardinal, Cecilia Houghtry, who has a poetical mind, and is Anglican to the verge of Romanism, Laura and Mary Radner, who are great upon church decoration and choir singing,

Starting point is 09:56:32 and some others. General Mack Tower attracts the young men, as it were, into a focus of sporting talk, varied with anecdotes of the London world, which, according to the general, is about as vile a world as could well exist without calling down a burning, fiery rain for its destruction. Sir Wilford contrives to be attentive to all his guests, but shows himself so particular in his devotion to Sybil that other people cannot afford to be uncivil to her, even were they disposed to snub so lovely a girl. the matrons and their daughters admit the fact of miss fawnthorpe's beauty but with certain reservations they admire her complexion but opine that its transparent purity of tint argues a consumptive tendency

Starting point is 09:57:25 and what a dreadful thing for poor sir wilford to marry a consumptive wife my dear says mrs radner in an awful voice and to have consumptive children adds her daughter lords poor little dears exclaims miss hawtree compassionating the sorrows of these unborn infants in advance i think it quite wicked of consumptive people to marry don't you mrs radner yes my love there ought to be a law against it what pretty manners miss faunthorpe has remarks mrs vernon whose daughter possesses every attraction except good looks and agreeable manners so sweet so caressing but don't you think i hardly like to say it for it sounds so uncharitable and i should be the last to say anything uncharitable after dear mr chazabel's moving discourse this morning don't you think she seems rather artful as deep as garrick says the outspoken mrs radner she actually seems to discourage sir wilford's attentions quite pretends to avoid him makes believed to prefer ladies society when we all know that she must be delighted at the idea of making such a brilliant match when we know that the girl is brought here on purpose to marry him rejoins mrs radner the old uncle has set his heart upon it of course and will leave her the whole of his property to the detriment of her two sisters there's another girl at red castle mrs stormont tells me very unjust i call it This conversation takes place on Sunday afternoon in a cozy circle around the morning room fire,

Starting point is 09:59:15 while Sybil and some of the younger guests are walking in the park. Sunday evening affords an opportunity for the display of musical genius or talent, as the case may be, and after the daughters of the land have done the most they can with Miss Lindsay's sacred ballads, Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Chopin, Sibyl takes her turn at the instrument, and surpasses all her forerunners not so much by the brilliancy of her singing or playing as by the thought and feeling which pervade both in the long empty days at lancaster lodge her piano has been her friend and companion the confidante of all her vague regrets and fears her sorrowful love for her absent husband memory and hope have spoken to her in many a tender strain of mozarts in the deeper pathos of beethoven or mendelssohn's dreamy melody sir wilford cardinal knows very little about music save that of his hounds giving tongue in the chill morning air that blows over heath and more but he is not the less pleased that sibyl should excel in the musical line his future wife ought to be an accomplished person

Starting point is 10:00:31 he is glad too that she should take the shine out of phoebe and vinny neither of them highly gifted by apollo though both have laboured hard and flourished at a quickish pace through unmelodious phantasias arpeggioing up and down the piano with a movement which their brother calls a rough gallop altogether sibyl is a success at the how no one can dispute that marian looks on and wonders at her sister's calm acceptance of the general homage she wears her honours as to the manner born while marian feels overpowered with shyness all through that aristocratic sabbath and says thank you for everything from an introduction or a compliment to the too hasty removal of her plate by an all-accomplished serving-man by monday morning however even marian is quite at her ease save for an inward awe of phoebe and lavinia who behind their brother's back give her a little of the deotamba manner by which intrusive commoners are crushed but fred stormont takes her under his protection and finding sibyl unapproachable amidst her various admirers consoles himself with a mild flirtation with mary to which even his watchful parent reconciles herself reflecting that after all a dower of five thousand pounds or possibly ten is better than nothing and that no heiress being forthcoming dear frederick might make marian happy by proposing to her after breakfast on monday there is a general inspection of the stables at which even mr chazabel the high church parson assists and in the course of which he entertains the company with anecdotes of his hard riding days at oxford and his prowess in the hunting field the horses are let out for admiration and the guests commit themselves to various opinions at which the netherlips of the yorkshire grooms

Starting point is 10:02:38 work convulsively in the respectful endeavour to avoid a grin tuesday's race day and there is a consultation as to how people are to go the faster of the party including all the young ladies inclining to the saddle the middle-aged and portly being satisfied with a seat on the drag or in miss cardinal's barouche you will ride of course says sir wilford to frederick oh by all means i shall go on the dutchman here he is poor old fellow looking as fresh as paint an officious boy has just led the bony grey into the quadrangle where every eye is now directed to him why where the deuce did you get that beast from cardinal cries general mactower as the lad whisks off the dutchman's cheeked raiment and exhibits his angular haunches and dejected neck never saw such a screw in your stable it is mr stormont's horse said the boy grinning beg your pardon stormont says the general i dare say he looks better in action very good for leather no doubt he may not be much to look at says fred wounded yet apologetic but he's a devil to go i dare say those bony ones are sometimes well stormot you'll ride the dutchman resumed sir wilford that's capital you can take care of miss marian faunthorpe ah delighted i'm sure gasped fred with an inward sinking he knows too well that on the dutchman he has enough to do to take care of himself and that a whole hunting-field might be spilt around him without his being able to afford to help the fallen you haven't ridden much lately i think you told me miss marion says sir wilford to that young lady who has been going into raptures about all the horses with long mane and sleek skins

Starting point is 10:04:41 not since i was quite a little thing but i idolise riding and you'll not be afraid to ride tilbury to-morrow it's a nice quiet road i shall like it of all things very well chanter you must find me a safe mount for this young lady she hasn't been riding much lately one of the old ones asser wilford yes old and steady but something good to look at you know oh there's a brown fixtures sir wilford an uncommon good a-aw since safe as a church yes fixture'll do nothing like an old steeple chaser fixtures as steady as a christian says the groom and such a memory too nobody think ow that horse do remember he ain't forgot the day he bolded with jem kirk though it's nigh seven year ago he never do pass that corner of the eath but what he'll prick up his old ears and stick em backwards and give a bit of a quiver as if he'd like to have another lark well he mustn't have any larks with miss faunthorpe says sir wilford lord bless you no sir wilfr that's seven year ago fixtures as steady as a house the smallest of our boys rides in beautiful well miss marion i think you'll be safe on fixture especially with stormont to take care of you marion looks gratefully at frederick with a vague idea that he is going to escort her with a leading rein and that under his care she would be safe upon the winter of the ledger and now let's have a look at juno says wilford that's the mare i mean for you miss faunthorpe and i think every one will allow she's a perfect beauty my sister phoebe wants her badly but i'm afraid of phoebe's eleven stone that substantially built damsel gives her brother an indignant look at this brutal remark which could only come from one's own flesh and blood when i want a horse i shan't ask you to choose him for me wilford

Starting point is 10:06:49 she says juno is led forth and unveiled a chestnut glossy as the nut itself when it bursts from its green casing and beautiful in form with a small head and a greek profile oxide like her mighty namesake how lovely exclaim all the young ladies envying sibyl this selection of the best horse in the stud for miss fawn thorpe is tantamount to a proposal thinks every and from this time forward sybil is regarded as the future lady cardinal and honoured accordingly has he or has he not proposed the council of matrons ask one another by and by in the comfortable morning-room where they have assembled to write their letters and read the newspapers the majority opine that the offer has been made and accepted and that mr trenchard is here to arrange about settlements phoebe cardinal must know has hers mrs chause-debel this conversation taking place in the absence of the miss cardinales who are playing billiards with their younger guests she may but she's such a reserved girl there's no getting anything out of her and as it's evident that she and lavinia hate the idea of their brothers marrying it's a subject we can't approach very well i feel sure he has proposed says mrs radner he looks as if it was a settled thing he may have settled it all in his own mind but not yet declared himself responds mrs chasabell he must know that there is no chance of rejection mrs chauzebel is right sir wilford is fixed as fate but has not yet found an opportunity to ask the fatal question sybil is always in a crowd she contrives to avoid

Starting point is 10:08:44 anything approaching a tete-a-tete and a man can hardly propose during a game of pyramids or on a crowded drag with a spirited team in his hand or as he hands his beloved a cup of tea at kettle-drum time or on the stairs or in church sir wilford bides his time therefore and is patient the important tuesday is a fine clear day with a high wind but no frost tilbury racing places begin at half-past one so there is no time for luncheon at the how and a necessity for picnic baskets on the drag very much to the delight of all the younger guests who prefer to take their refreshment uncomfortably out of doors to the commonplace convenience of the dining-room at a quarter before one the horses and carriages are brought round to the porch and marion in a borrowed habit and chimney-pot hat which is balanced rather hazard on a small mountain of padded hair, awaits, with some faint apprehension. Her first ride on anything larger than Tommy, the old pony. She's not yet seen brown fixture, and as she stands on the top step with Fred Stormont at her side, she surveys the animals timorously.

Starting point is 10:10:06 There is Juno, satin-skinned and proud of bearing, arching her graceful neck, and gazing pensively at the company with her ox eyes pawing the ground a little with one delicate hoof as if eager to take flight and here is sibyl looking her prettiest a small slender prettiness in neatly fitting riding habit and hat poised at exactly the right angle sir wilford is at hand to mount her and there is the usual careful adjustment of stirrup and skirt curb and snaffle i wonder which is my horse says marian with an appealing look at mr stormont which is fixed your boy asks fred of an attendant lad this here sir answers the youth this here is the animal in his charge a tall brooch with a neck a yard long and in the language of the stable too much daylight underneath good gracious cries marian appalled at the aspect of this animal am i to go up there he's a big one isn't he responds fred capital stride i should think you get over plenty of ground in his gallop looks like an old steeple chaser doesn't he he looks very dreadful says marian dubiously oh you needn't be afraid of him he's steady enough depend upon it sir wilford's head man wouldn't put you on an unsafe horse i hope not says marian but you'll take care of me won't you mr stormont i'll do my best answers fred ah here's the dutchman rather fresh i'm afraid this last remark has reference to an uncouth attempt of the dutchman to back into an adjacent shrubbery on being dragged out of which he entangles himself clumsily with the other horses the drag and barouche have driven off by this time and everybody is mounted except marian and her swain mounting marian upon fixture is not the easiest operation in mechanics

Starting point is 10:12:12 she gives a tremendous spring but always at the wrong moment and after two or three falls starts she is hoisted to a level with fixture saddle only to remain there suspended in mid-air until allowed to slide gently to earth again i'm afraid i'm not a good hand at mounting a lady murmurs the patient frederick after he has made himself almost apoplectic in the endeavour and now an experienced groom comes forward tells marian exactly at what angle to put her left leg and throws her up into the saddle as if she were a ball gracious she exclaims i'm here at last but oh how high it is she surveys the earth beneath her with a sense of awe it is like being on a mountain top and not half so safe she gives a little cry of surprise when fixture begins to move as if motion were the last thing one might expect from a horse the rest of the riders have gone down the avenue sir wilford riding bull of bachan keeping close by sibyl on juno frederick now clambers upon the dutchman who to the last moment struggles to elude his half proprietor as if desirous to prove that a horse cannot serve two masters fix your caracoles gently upon the gravel sweep while fred is mounting but even these gentle movements strike terror to the unaccustomed soul of marian i'm afraid he's very spirited she remarks to one of the grooms lord mum he's nigh twelve-year-old there's none too much spirit in him you'd best ride him on the curb if you're any ways timid which is the curb inquires marian the man shows her and adjusts her reins which she has been clutching in her right hand in an inextricable tangle but do you think i can manage him with the reins in my left hand she asks it seems so left-handed i'm afraid i shan't have any power over him

Starting point is 10:14:21 you can hold on with both hands if you're timersome miss but the lighter you handle fixture the better he's got a very nice mouth and he don't stand being sawed at write him on the curb if you like but the lighter you handle fixture the better he's got a very nice mouth and he don't stand being sawed at write him on the curb if you like but but let your ann follow his ed this language is as dark as hebrew to marian she has but one thought and that is that she would fain be at rest in the barouche or the drag nay safe at home in the obscurity of domestic life with cross hester and impertinent jane anywhere anywhere off the back of brown fixture who has just caught sight of some obnoxious object and has made himself into an arch from which mary feels as if she were sliding fred has now brought the dutchman so far into subjection as to turn his nose toward the avenue and fixture being clutched and jerked in the same direction by marian the two set out as uncomfortable a couple as ever enjoyed the delights of equestrian exercise when they are well out of earshot the grooms and boys burst into a simultaneous guffaw after this we must have some beer says the headman i'm blessed if ever i see such a brace ocockneys i ain't had such a laugh since chrysalmas fixture proves himself worthy of his reputation and goes down the avenue with an amiable sobriety nay would be perfect in his conduct were it not for that brute the dutchman who shies at the side of a rabbit wheels around altogether at sight of a rook and otherwise disgraces himself by convulsive movements and collapses which distrances which distrances disturb fixture's equanimity though he evidently regards them with contempt the brown horse behaved so well however that when they've walked down the avenue and emerged upon the road marian begins to feel quite easy in her mind and to think that after all she really does dot upon riding but for the dutchman's evil example fixture would behave admirably all the way to tilbury a nice level road with little to alarm a reasonable equine mind the

Starting point is 10:16:36 the dutchman is however a creature without reasonableness of mind and contrives to see objects of horror in the clearest road whereby marian is every now and then startled from her equanimity by a sudden bouncing of mr stormont's horse against hers a movement by which she narrowly escaped being pushed into a ditch isn't your horse a little wrong in his mind mr stormont she asks after one of these encounters he puts puts his ears back in such a dreadful way and starch and plunges so awfully only high spirit replies fred all thoroughbreds do it well then i think i'd rather ride an unthurrow bread says marian when they have walked for about half a mile frederick suggests a gentle trot to which proposal marian acquiesces smilingly but the very beginning of the gentle trot makes her breathless and she finds herself jersehers worked about in her saddle in a most ferocious way she holds on to the reins however with both hands and endures stoutly till fred in charity reigns in the dutchman whereupon fixture stops as if some spring had been touched in his eternal economy and nearly pitches marion out of the saddle by the suddenness of his stoppage i'm afraid you don't quite enjoy trotting says fred marian pants for a little while struggling with the innumerable hairpins which sustain her pyramid of plates before she can recover breath enough to answer i dare say it's very nice she replies at last but it jerks one don't you think perhaps fixture is not a good trotter i think if you were to rise with him and sit a little more in the middle of your saddle you might find it more comfortable suggests frederick do you think so i'll try next time fred and devours to explain

Starting point is 10:18:36 the theory of trotting which although he has not quite conquered the practice is firmly oppressed upon his mind now he says flattering himself that he has made it all clear suppose we try again a shake of the reins makes the dutchman lunge violently forward as if he wanted to dash his brains out upon the road and starts fixture in a really delightful trot if poor marion only knew it she bobs up and down as if she were bathing but when she was she rises the horse doesn't and the effect is even more jerky than before she is just beginning to despair when the red glow of a cottage fire shining through an open door appalls the dutchman's soul and sends him into a wild canter in which fixture immediately joins the horses tear along the road like a herd of swine driven down a steep place and marion frightened but rather enjoying the swinging pace finds herself rising in her saddle as high as anyone could desire. Inspired by the clatter of their hoofs, the brutes rush on for some distance. Fred as powerless to pull up the Dutchman as he would be to stop a steam engine at express pace, or stay the passage of the north wind. When the horses have had enough, they stop. I think I rose pretty well then, remarks Marion self-complacently. Just now when you were cantering? Yes. But you oughtn't

Starting point is 10:20:06 rise in the canter you know says fred you must sit as if you were part of your horse sit down on him and ride him as the jockeys say good gracious it's very puzzling exclaims marian all practice you must contrive to ride more yes i should like it above all things uncle trenchard has bought sibyl a horse but i am not so favoured ah it's a good thing to be the favourite isn't it that canter has brought them nearly to the race-course they overtake the rest of their party sybil looking as cool and comfortable upon juno as if she were sitting in her favourite easy-chair at lancaster lodge while marian is painfully conscious that the last half-hour's unaccustomed exercise has made an object of her how have you enjoyed your ride asked sybil coming to her side oh pretty well replies marian rather crossly i'm not accustomed to riding like you you you know i haven't a horse of my own isn't my hair dreadful it's rather rough but that doesn't matter oh not in the least to you how do you like fixture asked sir wilford coming up to them very well thank you but i think he uses the wrong legs when he trots tilbury racecourse is a long strip of meadowland by the side of a river rather a dreary scene on a grey winter's day where it not from the carriages horses tax carts and various vehicles which enliven it and the eager crowd on foot so wilford and his party are the most important group upon the ground the rest of the assembly consisting chiefly of tenant farmers and their families with a sprinkling of the red castle tradespeople and a few smart carriages belonging to the manufacturing classes chiefly noticeable for the newness of their harness the splendour of their liveries and the indifferent quality of their

Starting point is 10:22:05 horses. Sir Wilford pat's fixture's neck with a friendly air as he stands beside Marion. Poor old fixture. Capital fellow he used to be six or seven years ago. I've ridden him many a time over this very course. Won a cup with him once, poor old chap. I wonder if he remembers. Where's the steeple, Sir Wilford, asks Marion, looking round at the landscape. The what? The steeple. It's a steeple chasing. It's a steeple chasing. isn't it? So Wilford smiles at the damsel's innocence. Steeple chase. A cross-country, you know, and all that. There's no necessity for a steeple. Oh, I thought you chose a steeple, and then rode straight to it over hedges and ditches and everything.

Starting point is 10:22:55 We've sunk the steeple, but we go over the hedges and ditches. There's the saddling bell. Yes, fixture does remember. I wish she didn't, says Marianne. nervously as the animal pricks up his ears and begins to curvet in a restless manner which makes it rather difficult to hold him the equestrians are drawn up in a line by the side of the race-course there are no railings to divide the course from the rest of the meadow it is only marked out by a line of sods turned up by the spade and a post at intervals the timber jumps are by no means desperate and all well guarded by firs bushes the water jump is a muddy ditch about twenty feet broad i wish you'd hold him for me says marian appealing to mr stormont he's been so dreadfully excited since that bell rang fred clutches at fixtures rain for a minute or so and tries at the same time to soothe the dutchman who has just expressed his antipathy to a very small child in a pinafore eating a large piece of parliament fixture shuffles about a little and then seems to grow calm sir wilfrid and his party ride up and down impatient for the beginning of the sport marian and her protector keep together by the course the bell rings again louder this time there is a gust of excitement in the very wind the signal is given the gaily-coloured jackets blaze out against the cold grey sky the horses are off with a rush ficture following them he has stood like a statue to see them go by then as they passed him he has gathered himself together and pursued them like a maniac the old steeple-chaser has not forgotten his trade

Starting point is 10:24:41 there is a cry of horror from sir wilford and his party a roar half terror half laughter from the crowd as marian is borne along her arms frantically encircling the animal's neck her plates flying in the wind her shrill shrieks ringing out upon the air she dropped something at every stage of her journey first her whip then her handkerchief then her hat then one of the plates and artificial enrichment which she has deemed a necessary appendage to a very good head of hair on flies fixture struggling for a place feeling that he must win or perish in the attempt marian with her face buried in his mane sees nothing knows nothing except that she is miraculously holding on somehow and that sudden death is imminent the timber jump is before them and the spectators hold their breaths anticipating a fearful fall perhaps a deadly one when sir wilford gallops across on bull of buchan and contrives to catch fixtures bridle just as he is lifting himself to the leap the old steeple chaser swings on one side and lands mary and comfortably on the turf where she lies motionless till kindly hands raise her she is only stunned and comes to her senses after a minute or so to find herself the centre of a sympathetic crowd poor dear says a woman she did hold on well didn't she it was beautiful sybil is on the scene by this time and dismounts to assist the followed one you're not hurt are you dear she inquires anxiously i don't know whereabouts it is replies marian clutching her dishevelled plates but i feel as if i was all but killed somewhere randy flasks are produced and the sufferer is persuaded to take two or three sips of the spirit back all right i hope says sir wilford who has delivered over the excited fixture to a groom i feel as limp as if it was broken replies marian when did i fall was it the day before yesterday or longer ago than that

Starting point is 10:26:55 my love it was just this minute then i've had a long dream replies marian putting her hand to her head such a long dream i feel as if i had been riding steeple-chases on horrid runaway horses for the last three weeks. I shall never forgive myself for putting you on fixture, says Sir Wilford, with a conscience-stricken air, but I really thought he was the quietest old horse in the stable. Oh, I don't mind it a bit, answers Marion, who enjoys being the object of general attention. In fact, I rather like it.

Starting point is 10:27:32 It's very exciting, you know. Uncommonly, muttered Sir Wilford, who has had as bad a fright as he ever experienced, in his life i thought you were done for when he came to that fence if it hadn't been for the bull well we won't talk about it here a small boy brings marian the fallen plate of false hair which looks something like a defunct snake as he hands it to her whereat there is a faint titter after twisting herself about in the arms of her supporters marian announces that she has no bones broken to her knowledge my spine may go all wrong tomorrow and make me a cripple for life she says but i think i can walk now shall i mount you again ma'am asked the groom who is holding fixture that codrip head in perspiration stands like a block of wood and droops his head despondingly as if fully aware that he has made a fool of himself you might ride him home safe enough ma'am he's quiet now what get upon him again cries marian no thank you bring her the barouche says sir wilford and marian is led to that vehicle where the miss cardinales inform her that they've been suffering agonies of anxiety on her behoof though neither they nor mr mrs radnor have left their seats we knew we could be no use phoebe remarks apologetically and we should have only increased the confusion if we have had only increased the confusion if we have had

Starting point is 10:29:06 come to you it's such a dangerous thing to ride when one is not used to it remarks vinny soothingly wilfrid ought to have known better than to put you on that dreadful old horse marian who felt herself a person of importance amidst the crowd on the race-course shrinks into dire insignificance amongst these fine ladies in the carriage she is screwed in bodkin between phoebe and mrs radner she knows she is looking an object in her battered hat and disordered tresses, and she can see nothing whatever of the race. The four ladies talk their usual family talk of uncles and cousins, nephews and nieces, and people they know, discuss the domestic affairs of the niece who was just married, review the prospects of the nephew who is going to marry, talk about the cousin who has just had a baby, and the unjust will of the uncle lately deceased, until Marion absolutely wishes herself away from these privileged ones, and thinks, how much a little.

Starting point is 10:30:06 nice it would be to be reading a novel on the parlour sofa at uncle roberts the sofa wheeled cozily up to the fire and jenny kneeling on the hearth toasting muffins if my back is broken it'll be a comfort to be a doctor's niece she tells herself consolingly it is dusk when the last races run and the how party turned their faces homeward a three-mile ride in the winter twilight lies between them and kettle-drum an excellent opportunity for a tete-a-tete with sybil thinks sir wilford who has found it impossible to secure half an hour of that young lady's society at the how there she is always surrounded he contrives to leave the course close at her side and to keep well in front of the other equestrians bull is quiet enough now and quite content to lapse into a lazy walk having been indulged with half a dozen tearing gallops across the level ground near the race-course juno and bull step side by side solemnly as a pair of flemish funeral horses which have never done anything but black work since they were foiled it is a fine level road a copse on one side the more upon the other wintry stars begin to twinkle in the grey cottage fires gleam now and then across the road now is my time thanks sir wilford i hope you are not frightened at writing in the dark he begins with a gush of originality not at all in the first place i don't call this grey twilight darkness and in the second place i feel myself quite safe in your care i am glad of that says sir wilford i'm very glad you feel yourself safe with me sybil this is the casting of the dye after this utterance of her christian name

Starting point is 10:32:02 so wilford feels he has committed himself to the deed receding now or as difficult as to go on yes sybil i am glad for i want to be your protector all the days of my life i want this dear little hand taking the hand that droops carelessly at her side with gold-handled whip lightly held i want this hand for mine oh i think you must have seen ever so long ago that i love you i love you i i love you i i love you i've made no secret of my attachment sibyl you were the first woman i ever met that i would care to make mistress of the how you are the only woman i have ever asked the only woman i shall ever ask to be my wife oh stop stop so wilfrid not one word more cried sibyl forgive me for having let you say so much while he has been talking she has decided on her course a bold step but the only one open to her this young man is honourable generous-minded she will she must trust him with her secret forgive you sybil for what forgive me if you ever can i have been so wrong i have acted so meanly forgive me for not having understood you better for not having told you the truth about myself i have led you on perhaps most unwillingly but still i may have led you on to make this generous offer generous be hanged cries the impetuous sir wilford there's no generosity in a man trying to get the thing he most desires don't talk about leaving me on sybil of course you led me on that is to say you couldn't help seeing that i love you to distraction and you've let me go on loving you there's no leading a fellow on in that you're like one of the stars up yonder and just let yourself be admired.

Starting point is 10:34:05 But you're not going to reject me, Sybil. I can't believe that. He does not believe it. Upon his own personal merits, he has formed no decided opinion. He knows that he is tolerably good-looking, does justice to his tailor's handiwork, ride straight to hounds, and is free from vice, but he puts himself out of the scale altogether

Starting point is 10:34:26 and reckons upon his position and surroundings, that there is any woman in Yorkshire who would refuse to be mistress of the how and the how stables is more than he can believe you won't reject me sybil he repeats indeed sir wilfrid i have no alternative i can make you but one answer and that is no oh come you can't mean it sybil i do mean it you're in love with some other fellow not that cur, Fred Stormont, I hope. If I thought about Mr. Stormont at all, I should detest him.

Starting point is 10:35:10 Who is it, then? Sir Wilford, will you keep a secret if I confide one to you? Have I any claim to be considered a gentleman? Yes. Yes. I know I may trust you. Go on,

Starting point is 10:35:27 says Sir Wilford, sunk in gloom. You know very little of my history i think sir wilford began sybil in a low but steady voice although you've done me the greatest honour in your power to confer upon me perhaps all you know is that i've been adopted by my uncle stephen and that he is likely to leave me a fortune i have no certainty that he will do so but i have every reason to believe it yes yes i know about all that but you do not know perhaps that when my uncle came from india i was absent from redcastle i had gone to london to get my living as a governess it was a dreary life and would have seemed drearier i say but for one event which happened to diversify it i was weak enough to fall in love with the gentleman who had as little to marry upon as i had poor child passing fancy romantic attachment you'll outlive that sybil it will outlive me for we contrive to make the bond lasting without the knowledge of any of my family i was foolish enough to get married the man i married is the son of mr trenchard's worst enemy my only chance of inheriting my uncle's fortune was the concealment of my marriage i have therefore contrived to keep the secret and you are the first to whom i have ever revealed it if you betray me i am ruined betray you what do you take me for cries sir wilford you are a married woman and your husband is living yes

Starting point is 10:37:10 and he suffers you to keep up this deception to stoop to this meanness forgive me for calling things by their right names yes i forgive you there are are no words too hard for my conda and yet perhaps if you could measure the depths of misery i had sunk into before i made it my mind to try for uncle trenchard's fortune even you might pity me pity me yes sybil i pity you with all my heart but i can't help despising your husband do not despise him what i have done has been done without his knowledge or consent he only traced me to my present home a very little while ago and then he told me that he would repudiate me in my fortune when the day came for me to possess it and yet you continued the deception would it not be positive idiocy to abandon it just now when the end is in all probability very near my uncle has not many years to live he looks rather shaky poor old fellow liver i dare say he looks rather shaky poor old fellow liver i dare say why should i make a revelation that would be a shock to him and do no good to any one else if my husband really loves me he will be true to me as i am to him and all will be well for us by and by and you'll secure the old man's money says sir wilford trust a woman for looking after the main chance you despise me sir wilford faltered sibyl humiliated no no nothing of the kind. Only when one comes to talk of money, it takes a little of the bloom off,

Starting point is 10:38:58 you know. I had looked up to you as an angel, something quite ethereal, you know, and when one comes down to pounds, shillings, and pence, well, it's rather a long way to come, you know. You'll keep my secret? Consider it buried in the deepest grave that ever was dug. And if you are tempted to despise, if you do despise me as you. I fear you must. Try to remember that you have never known what it is to be poor, that there is a depth of misery, abject fear for tomorrow's bread, the dread of being turned out of one's wretched shelter into the street, the horror of being clothed in rags driven to the workhouse. Consider that you have never known these things. I have, and my deception grew out of them. If I told the

Starting point is 10:39:50 truth tomorrow. I might have to go back to all those unforgotten horrors. If I play my part steadily to the end, I may secure a happy future for my husband and myself. Upon my word, it's a very trying position, Miss Fontthorpe. I feel for you with all my heart. It would have been kinder to me if you had given me a hint of the truth a little sooner, and spared me, well, spared me a very bitter disappointment. yet i can but thank you for having trusted me at the last one word more sir wilford pray do not let my uncle suppose that you have asked me to be your wife he would never forgive me for my rejection of you

Starting point is 10:40:35 i'll take care of that he shall think me the most miserable object in creation a male flirt a man who dangles about a pretty woman meaning nothing but his own amusement i'll bear the brunt of a i'll bear the brunt of the old gentleman's anger, Miss Fondthorpe. Rely upon it. And if ever you want a friend, remember that, in spite of his disappointment, Wilford Cardinal is yours to the death. End of Chapter 30. Chapter 31 of Dead Men's Shoes.

Starting point is 10:41:11 This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librevox.org. Recording by Adrian Stroett, Turks and Caicos Islands Dead Men's Shoes By Mary Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 31

Starting point is 10:41:31 Joel Pilgrim That evening after Tilbury races Is the gayest night there has yet been at the Howl. There is a dinner party. Matrons and maidens wear their finest dresses, each assuming that one last and newest fashion which the Princess Maternic or someone of equal importance has made the rage in Paris.

Starting point is 10:41:54 Even poor Marion, revived by strong tea in an hour's comfortable slumber, puts on her blue and salmon dinner dress, and feels that she is looking lovely. Yet, although most of the ladies at the How are tolerably satisfied with their own appearance, there is none among them who had ventured to deny Sybil Formthorpe's claim to that apple of discord from whose pips sprang Troj's fall and the slaughter of many heroes. She is paler than usual this evening, but her eyes are bright with a feverish excitement, and there was more brilliancy in her power than at other women's carnation. Mr. Trenchard observes that look of unusual excitement, and sees that the hand which waves the large white fan trembles a little now and then. He has heard from some friendly gossips how Sir Wilford and Sybil rode on ahead of all the others during the return home, and he draws his own conclusions from Sybil's suppressed agitation,

Starting point is 10:42:50 and this fact. The baronet has proposed, he tells himself. Sybil is to all intents and purposes, Mistress of Fortune, and the how. Mr. Trenchard rejoices in this consummation as if it took a load off his mind. He smiles sweetly upon his niece, and once, when he is near her for a few minutes before they go to dinner,

Starting point is 10:43:12 he ventures to hint at his thoughts. How pretty you were looking, my pet, he whispers, but a little over-excited. you do have something to tell me haven't you nothing out of the common dear uncle what not about your ride home come you see a little bird has been before you little birds are generally more inventive than voracious uncle at this point the bachelor appointed to that honour offers sybil his arm and the procession files off to the dining-room the long drawing-room once a chapel is at its fullest about an hour after dinner Sybil has just risen from the piano where she has played Chopin and Schumann to the delight real or affected of her auditory. Stephen Trenchard stands with his back to the low marble chimney-piece, surveying the room in which his lovely niece forms so important to feature, flattering himself with the fancy that this room will be hers before long, that she will be its acknowledged mistress, as she is now its queen.

Starting point is 10:44:16 He looks round for Sir Wilford, wondering not to see that, captive of love exhibiting his fetters more conspicuously, but Sir Wilford is standing on the hearth rug at the other end of the room. There are two fireplaces in the drawing-room, talking hunting talk, with a brace of Rubicon sportsmen who look as if their systems were permeated with old port. While Mr. Treacher is wondering that Sir Wilford should not hold himself thus aloof from the object of his devotion, the butler throws open a distant door and announces, Sir Joel Pilgrim, everybody looks up at the announcement and at the entrance of the person to whom the name belongs. The name is strange to all ears, save Mr. Trenches.

Starting point is 10:44:59 The person is a stranger to all eyes save Mr. Trenches and Sybil's. Not a welcome announcement by any means, judging by the sudden angry look that darkened Stephen Trenching's countenance, spreading over it an additional shade of sourness, deepening the bista beneath his eyes, hardening the lines about his mouth. He crosses the room hurriedly, and takes the stranger by the hand. My dear Pilgrim, what brings you here? At so late an hour, too. I have to apologise for what must naturally appear in intrusion, replies Mr. Pilgrim in a voice which is peculiarly soft and conciliatory. But the commercial man's habitual selfishness is my only excuse, if a vice can be an excuse for a solacism. I want to

Starting point is 10:45:47 I wanted to see you to ask your advice upon an affair of considerable moment. I went to Redcastle, found you were staying here, and hide a fly to bring me on. The roads were dark, the horses slow, and the flyman stupid. Thus, I'm above an hour later than I need to have been, though in any case I must have been late, as I only reached Redcastle at seven o'clock. You might have waited till tomorrow, says Mr. Trenchard, unappeased by this apology. I was too anxious to wait. I hope Sir Wilford Cardinal and his family will pardon by impertinence.

Starting point is 10:46:20 He looks towards Sir Wilford, who has come forward at the announcement of a guest. Very happy to see any friend of Mr. Trenches, says the good-natured Baronet. I'm afraid you have had a cold drive. It's not particularly warm upon your mares for a man born in Calcutta. Have you dined, by the way? I dined, by the way. I stopped in Redcastle, just long enough to dine. You mustn't go back tonight, says Sir Wilford, hot.

Starting point is 10:46:45 hospitably. You can have your chat with your friend Mr. Trenchard in the library, and then come back to us to finish the evening. I'll order a room to be got ready for you. You are really too good, replies Mr. Pilgrim, hesitating, and with a glance at Mr. Trenchard. But you have no valise, interject Stephen Trenchard. Impossible for you to stay. Come to the library, and I'll soon settle this business for you. Mr. Pilgrim smiles a subdued smile, murmurs his grateful acknowledgement of Sir Wilford's kindness and bows himself out after Stephen Trenchard. There is a general sense of relief among the company when that sleek head and swarthy face are withdrawn from their midst.

Starting point is 10:47:27 What a peculiar-looking person, exclaims Mrs. Stormont, who is sitting near Sybil. What an unpleasant-looking person, responds the outspoken Mrs. Radner. Do you know him, Sybil? inquires Mrs. Stormont. I have seen him, once before. He's an Indian friend of my uncles. He's never stayed at Lancaster Lodge, I think, has it Mrs. Stormont? No, he's never stayed there. He only called one evening on business.

Starting point is 10:47:57 He must live in the neighbourhood then, I suppose. I should hardly think so. Curiosity has been awakened by this late visitor. There is something out of the common in his appearance, and Mr. Trenchard's vexation at his coming has been tolerably apparent to everyone. Mr Trenchard and his friend are closeted in the library for about an hour. Then a bell rings, and the stranger is conducted back to his fly, whose departing wheels are heard in the drawing room half an hour after other guests have gone,

Starting point is 10:48:27 and just as the house party are bidding one another good night. It is a quarter past twelve. I wonder Mr. Trencher does not let that poor man stay, says Mrs. Stallant. A nasty drive back to Redcastle at this time of night. such a horrid road after dark, and those flymen are tipsy half their time. Perhaps Mr. Trenchard wouldn't much care if the man were turned over into a ditch, rejoins Mrs Radner. He's the most unpleasant-looking person I ever saw. Did you see how those black eyes of his seem to take us all in?

Starting point is 10:49:02 He's just my idea of a thug. This is Stormant has no very clear notion of thugs, but amidst that the stranger's expression has impressed her unfavourably. At breakfast the next morning there is a general surprise when Mr Trenchard announces his intention of returning to Redcastle in the course of the day. He has had letters from India which demand his attention. He has some property over there which the government talk of buying, and it would be very advantageous for him if the transaction comes off. It is a matter which requires prompt negotiation. I'm extremely sorry to curtail such a pleasant visit,

Starting point is 10:49:37 especially on account of these girls, he adds. The Mrs. Cucetail, cardinal express their deep regret but do not urge mr trenchard to reconsider his decision sir wilford expresses his sorrow but even he does not press his guests to remain much to the surprise of the look is on who speculate curiously on mr trenchard's motive for going and sir wilford's reason for taking his sweetheart's departure so easily don't you see that it's all settled between them says mrs radnor to mrs chashebel he has made her an offer and been accepted and i dare say that it's all settled between them says mrs radnor to mrs chashebel he has made her an offer and been accepted and i dare say that the old man wants to consult his lawyers about settlements. He'll give her a fortune on her marriage, no doubt. Sybil is very glad to go, though she feels much more comfortable in Sir Wilford's society now that he and she understand each other. Marion is bitterly disappointed at this abrupt determination to her visit, as is inclined to grumble about the money wasted on those lovely dresses, till she reflects that the money was not hers, and it is something to have

Starting point is 10:50:37 secured the dresses. There will be some pleasure in sporting herself. before Maria Harrison in that brown silk costume. So the sisters go upstairs and pack aided, or in some measure hindered by Miss Cardinal's maid, whose services that young lady politely offers for the occasion. Mrs. Parker is rewarded for her civilities, morning cups of tea and other small attentions, and before luncheon all is ready for departure. Mr. Trenchard has sent a groom to Redcastle to order his carriage to fetch him at three o'clock. Sir Wilford is absent from the last.

Starting point is 10:51:11 luncheon table for the first time since the coming of his guests. Phoebe and Lavinia are unusually cheerful. Indeed, Sybil fancies that there is a general accession of cheerfulness among the feminine portion of the community. The gentleman, on the other hand, deplore Miss Formthorpe's departure with a flattering vehemence. They declare that a star is about to vanish from their sky, and a good deal more to the same effect. Even Mr. Chajibyl has admired Sybil and has told people in confidence, that she is the image of a Madonna by Guido in the Vatican, a nice way of telling people that he has been in Rome and is an art critic in his way.

Starting point is 10:51:50 Fred Stormont sits next to Marion and bewails his loss. We ought to have gone out riding together ever so many more times, he says. I should have made you a first-rate horsewoman, an assertion that savours of rashness when it is remembered that Mr. Stormont has yet succeeded in making himself a capable horseman. At three o'clock, Mr. Trent, carriage is at the door the portmanteaus are in the servants feed and all things ready just at this last moment sir wilford appears looking very much like his own gamekeeper in velveteen coat cords and leather gaiters and with his gun in his hand i hope you all excuse me for forgetting the luncheon bell he says to the company generally most of whom have come into the hall to say good-bye to mr trenchard and his nieces the birds are very wild and glennie and i forgot the

Starting point is 10:52:41 progress of the enemy. I made quite a rush home to say goodbye to Mr. Trenchard. It will not be long parting, I hope, replies Stephen Trenchard. He must come and dine with us. Directly you are free. I shall be charmed. Goodbye, Miss Fornthorpe. Sybil and Sir Wilford shake hands at least 30 pairs of eyes watching the operation. They shake hands in a formal and orthodox manner, and no one can detect so much as a secret pressure, loves Masonic grip. He leads her to the carriage, and when she is seated and the coachman has gathered up the reins, he leans over for the last word, and one last pressure of the little hand he had hoped to make his own. Trust me, he says.

Starting point is 10:53:22 You have almost broke my heart, but you may trust me. Mr. Trenchard is silent and gloomy throughout the Homeward Drive. Sibyl, although glad to be separated from Sir Wilford, looks forward despondingly to the solitude and monotony of her life at Lancaster Lodge after the gaiety and veraity. variety of the last few days. At the howl she has not had leisure for sad thoughts. No time for self-reproach, regret and all the illness that attends her selfish course. She has been the centre of an admiring circle, her vanity gratified to the uttermost, and life has seemed one round of pleasure. Marion is loquacious as usual, and rattles on with her criticisms upon the how and its

Starting point is 10:54:06 visitors, from Mrs. Radnor's exaggerated aquiline nose, which always blushed after luncheon, as if it was ashamed of belonging to anyone who drank so much sherry, says Marion, to the Miss Vernon's high-heeled boots, in which I know they suffer agonies, adds Marion. Neither Stephen Trenchard nor civil response to these remarks, but the babble runs on intermittently till they come to the lower end of the town and to Uncle Robert's Green Garden Gate. Jenny, the omnipresent, rushes out at the sound of the carriage wheels, her hair flying in the wind and receives her sister with a volley of, goodness, goodnesses, and, numerous embraces which are like the gambados of an infant hippopotamus, or the friskings of a friendly sea lion. Mr Trencher gives a sigh of relief when Marion and her boxes have been deposited, nor a civil sorrow to dispense with her sisters for very muchings. society.

Starting point is 10:55:06 You will find a visitor at my house, Sybil, says Stephen Trenchard, as they drive towards the bar, a visitor whom I expect you to treat with all consideration, as he is a particular friend of mine. Mr Pilgrim uncle, says Sybil startled. Yes, Mr Pilgrim, I did not wish him to take advantage of Sir Wilford's hospitality, nor did I want him to go back to London without proper entertainment, so I invited him to spend a week or so at Lancaster Lodge. And that was the reason you left the house.

Starting point is 10:55:35 so soon. That and other reasons influence me. There is that property I spoke about at luncheon. To be sure, I forgot that. I hope my leaving so suddenly has not been a disappointment to you, Sybil. What at all, dear uncle? And that I have in no way prevented the triumph, which I fully expected you to win. Pray be candid with me, my dear child. Sir Wilford has proposed to you, and you have accepted him. You ought to have hastened to tell me of an event which you know must give me unalloyed pleasure. My dear uncle, I have nothing to tell. I'm as far from being Lady Cardinal as ever I was in my life. I am very sorry to hear it. What was Sir Wilford talking about when you rode home from Tilbury together last night? Mr. Stormont told me that you and he

Starting point is 10:56:22 rode ahead of the others. We were talking about the commonest subjects in the world, Uncle. Horses, races, Marion's adventure on fixture, and the merits of Juno, the mayor of I was riding. I fully made up my mind that he had taken an opportunity proposing to you. I am sorry you should feel disappointed, Uncle, but I really don't understand why you should wish me to marry. It's not very flattering to me. You ought to understand, child. My time is growing short, and I should like to see you established in a brilliant position before I go. My position will be brilliant enough when I am in possession of your wealth, think civil, but she acknowledges her uncle's anxiety for her welfare with a tender murmur, expressive of the desire that he should live forever.

Starting point is 10:57:11 Mr. Pilgrim comes out to the door to receive Mr. Trenchard and his niece, and for the first time in his life, Sybil touches his hand. It is curiously soft and flaccid, and gives her an unpleasant sensation, as if she has touched some strange animals, some member of the stout or mole tribe. So glad to see you back, he says to Mr. Trenchard in the blandest voice. I was afraid the attractions of that fine old country house. You ought to know that when I say a thing I abide by it, answers Mr. Trenchard currently. Mr Pilgrim, my niece, Miss Thornthorpe, if you knew how I've been longing for this opportunity, Miss Fornthorpe.

Starting point is 10:57:51 Don't waste time on compliments, Joelle. Sybil will scarcely have time to change her dress for dinner. Sybil runs upstairs to her room, cheerful with blazing fire and lighted candles. a very different chamber to return to from the dark first-floor front of Mrs. Bonnies, where one had to grope for Lucifer match and candlestick in the winter dusk. Yet so unreasonable a thing is human nature that on this January evening, Sybil would gladly exchange these luxurious surroundings of hers for the one-peer-room in Chertie,

Starting point is 10:58:24 could the wheel of time make a backward revolution and give her back her husband's confidence and love? The stranger's presence has impressed her disagreeably. There is something in her uncle's manner to Mr Pilgrim, and in Mr Pilgrim's manner to her uncle that inspires distrust. The evening at Lancaster Lodge is very quiet and dreary, after the life and bustle of the how. Mr. Trenchard and his Indian friend retired to the study after dinner to talk business,

Starting point is 10:58:52 and Sybil is left alone with her books and piano. She finds comfort in neither, and perhaps were Alexis to appear before her tonight on the same errand that brought him to Redcastle a few weeks ago, she would exchange all her chances of wealth to follow his uncertain fortunes. End of Chapter 31. Read by Adrian Stroet, Turks and Caicos Islands. Chapter 32 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Librevox recording.

Starting point is 10:59:32 All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to voloniality. Please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Adrian Stroet, Turks and Caicos Islands, Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 32, Alexis comes to grief. That interview at Redcastle has embittered Alexis Secretan's feelings towards his mercenary wife.

Starting point is 11:00:00 Love has given place to contempt. A woman who can set the hope of wealth against her fidelity to him is unworthy of another thought of his. He goes back to Cheswald, reckless, angry, wounded to the core of his heart, and he tells himself that he is indifferent to his wife's fate, that he cares not if he never see her false face again. The blow that has hit him hardest he thinks is the knowledge of his boy's death. That son whose fair young face he is pictured in many a daydream,

Starting point is 11:00:31 seen vividly in many a vision of his sleep. The son who was to inherit Cheswold in the day's day's day. come, the son for whose sake it would have been so proud and pleasant a labour to add field to field and extend the boundaries of that modest manner. This unknown but fondly loved son is lost to him. Nay has never lived save as the infant of a day old. The chubby yearling, the bonny boy of two summers whose image, limned by fancy, has been almost a living thing for him, has had no existence.

Starting point is 11:01:03 The loss of this shadow hangs upon him heavily. He is no longer the gay young squire who enjoyed the novel pleasures of wealth and social status. He is gloomy and absent-minded, and avoids all intercourse with his neighbours, save in the hunting field, where he rides like a man who holds his neck as a trifle, not worth his care. In this desolation of his mind he turns to two sources for comfort. The first, his faithful friend, Richard Plyle, whom he detains at Cheswald for an unlimited period, to the peril of the Brampton Furnary. the second his stable to which he devotes himself a good deal at this time his two hunters are considered the handsomest animals and the straitest goers in this part of the country and his reputation is advanced upon the rustic population of his reckless riding

Starting point is 11:01:52 i know you'll come to grief some of these days alexus says the faithful dick who looks on his friend's proceedings with much dread blokis the gardener told me yesterday that you ride what he calls a plaguey loose rain and that you don't know the country well enough to run such risks i don't like that tall brute of yours a bit not bay yard exclaims alexis who resents this abuse of his last acquisition a fine bay horse sixteen two and a half and described at tattisles as the cleverest thing in hunters why he's the best horse i ever rode such a mouth you might ride him with a skein of silk but you see you haven't ridden many horses responds the prudent richard your half of fo'rower you haven't been brought up like these country squires who have spent half their lives in the pigskin it is pigskin isn't it yes dick and do you suppose i didn't ride when i was in the army and hunt into the bargain and do you suppose i didn't ride in the colonies or a man thinks nothing of forty miles in the saddle i don't know anything about the colonies alix but you weren't brought up to the following of hounds like these hampshire gentlemen and i feel wretched every day you ride that new horse of yours expected to see you brought up to you home on a shutter. And if I were, Dick, would it matter to anyone except you? Alex, cries Dick reproachfully. Yes, old fellow, I know you'd be sorry, but not so sorry as the heir of law would be glad. Who is my heir of law, by the way? I must make a will, Dick. Some part of all these good things of ours must go to the only being I care for.

Starting point is 11:03:29 His wife, thinks the simple-minded Dick. Alexis rides over to Winchester that very afternoon, and is closeted for an hour with Mr Scroggers, the lawyer, to whom he gives instructions for a concise and simple will. He leaves his real estate to his next of kin on his father's side, who shall bear the name of secretan, or, in the absence of any such secretan, to his next of kin on his mother's side, exclusive of Mrs. Gorsuch and her children, who shall assume the name of secretan. I feel myself bound to do this much out of reverence for the good old name, he says. out of gratitude to my cousin matilda who honoured the name in my unworthy person but my private property i shall leave to the one friend whose sincerity i am assured of and who stood by me when i was at the bottom of the ladder i owe it perhaps to him that miss secretan's bequest found to be an honest man and not a blackguard or a swindler very right very proper murmurs mr scroggers wondering whether he is to be put down for a morning ring or a

Starting point is 11:04:34 legacy of a hundred guineas or so. He is old and Alexis is young. It is true, whereby the chance of his inheriting any such legacy seems slender, but then Mr Scroggers is careful of himself, and these young men hunt, and drink more brandy and soda than is good for them, and shoot with newfangled guns, and drive tandem with untried horses after dark. There might be a chance of his getting the legacy, should so proper an idea occur to his client. But Alexis furnishes his instructions without remembering the claims of Mr Scroger's, he leaves Richard Ploughed on all his personal property, furniture, books, horses, and pictures. They ought to realize enough to make that honest fellow independent for the rest of his days, thinks Alexis. And now if Bayard makes an end of me

Starting point is 11:05:21 some fine morning, I shall at least have done one good thing in my life. Mr. Scroggers drives over to the Grange next morning in his highly respectable four-willed chase and the will is executed, but Mr. Secretan tells his friend nothing about its contents, nor is Richard Plowden curious. There breathes not on this earth, a less mercenary creature. He is grateful beyond measure for his friend's affection, proud and happy that his presence at the Grange can give pleasure to Alexis. He plods on at his school books every morning in the snug quietitude of the study, and in the afternoon takes long and solitary walks, while Alexis spends his day in the hunting field.

Starting point is 11:06:01 The neighbourhood is full of rustic beauty, even in winter, and Richard, who has spent almost all the days of his life amidst a wilderness of brick and mortar, is delighted with these country lanes, these noble old trees beautiful in their leafless majesty, these grassy hills crowned with dark pine trees, the blue river that winds through the green valleys, these peaceful English homesteads nestled in sheltered spots, and here and there a picturesque old watermill with a big brown wheel that never seems to go round. Like many lame people, Dick can get over a good deal of ground and get along as fast as those who have the full use of their legs. He grows strong in this pure air and gets young again. His complexion loses its sickly tint. Those transparent hands of his lose much of their delicacy. If you go on this way, Dick, I shall find my refined and intellectual friend of the Brompton Road developing into a Hampshire chore bacon, says Alexis jocosely as they breakfast together luxuriously in front of the blazing wood fire one hunting morning. The master of the grey-gerade in pink and tops ready for the day's sport, Dick in a comfortable

Starting point is 11:07:11 suit of grey homespun. I do so enjoy your lovely scenery, replies Dick. There's only one thing that makes me uneasy. Your mother, no, it's not about my mother herself. She is some extra good lodges in the drawing-room floor and is as happy as the day is long. What I'm afraid of is that she'll give the ferns too much water. Mother is such an idea of watering plants. She thinks the more you drink them, the better they grow. And she's rather self-opinulated than those matters, dear soul. I tremble for my polypodeum. I'm glad it isn't any other kind of poly that you tremble for, Dick, replies Alexis. What a close old fella you are, by the way. You never told me about your experience in that tender passion, which makes fools of the wisest of us sooner or later.

Starting point is 11:08:01 simply because I've had nothing to tell. Nonsense. Were you never in love? Never. I've admired feminine loveliness and goodness in the abstract, but it never came near enough to me to tempt me to fall in love with it. Happy man! exclaimed Alexis, to escape love is to shun man's worst peril. For soon or late, love is his own avenger. It is the middle of February,

Starting point is 11:08:27 one of those days on which the mists of morning linger on the face of the land as if they loved it. Glems of sun pierced that silvery veil, and the westerly breeze seems rather autumnal than wintry. The two friends part in excellent spirits, Alexis riding off gaily on his cavort hack, titmouse, a pretty little grey mare, Bayard has been sent on before.

Starting point is 11:08:51 How's the bay this morning, Joe? Asked Mr. Sackerton as he mounts. Fresh as paint, sir, but I think as how you ought to have had him exercised a bit yesterday. nonsense joe i don't care a straw for a horse when all the spirit has been taken out of him that boy of yours gallops like the deuce when he gets the chance i know i don't care about having bay yard spoiled that way i hope's bayard won't spoil you mutters the groom as titmouse carries his master down the drive i hope you're not afraid of that bay horse marshal says richard when titmouse and her rider are out of sight no sir i ain't afraid of no horse going, and I don't say there's any arm in Behard, but the ost's young and silly, and my master, well, I ain't going to be disrespectness to so good a master as him, or I should

Starting point is 11:09:44 say he's young and silly too. But he's a good rider, isn't he? He's good and at sitting on the horse, Mr. Plowden, but there's somewhat more nor that wanted to make a good rider. This conversation super-added to honest Dick's own fears, makes him feel rather uncomfortable, but when he has started on his rustic ramble, the sun shines out of the mist, the west, the west wind is so balmy and caressing, Earth is altogether so lovely in her wintry garb, that Dick's spirits rise, and he tells himself that a bold, brave fellow like Alexis is not the kind of man to come to harm in the hunting field. It is your timid writer, rather, who is liable to misfortune. So,

Starting point is 11:10:27 Dick goes his way, and his way of late has generally been the same way. There is a tiny village about three miles from Cheswald, a village so small that compared with it, Cheswold is quite an impulsive settlement. This other village consists of a cluster of labourous cottages, with whitewashed walls, thatched roofs steeply sloping, and long strips of garden, which would be quite an acquisition to many a suburban villa. There was a queer little old church of which there is service every alternate Sunday after noon. And there are a water mill and a homestead with a farm about 30 acres appertaining there too.

Starting point is 11:11:04 This mill is the chief feature of the scene, and it is to the mill that Dick has come. It is a picturesque old place, big water-wheel, gurgling mill-race and placid pool. The willows that lean across the water look centuries old. The low white dwelling-house, with its steeply sloping thatch, its white plastered walls crossed and recrossed by timbers painted black, must have been here in the days of a the snowdrops peeping over the toolbox border yonder are half a century old and have spread and multiplied in the shelter of the southern wall there is a roomy old porch with wooden benches and it is in this porch dick takes his rest after his three miles walk it is about a month since he came here one biting january afternoon the roads white with snow the hedges loaded with a fine crop of icicles the ditch is ice-bound and black as ink on so cold a day it surprised him a little to see a girl of delicate and refined appearance at work with garden

Starting point is 11:12:02 scissors and basket in a little bit of ground in front of the homestead by the mill. She was plainly dressed in the grey stuffed gown and black apron and wore a little scarlet shawl tied across her chest, but her head was bare. A very pretty head, Dick thought, with dark brown hair that made a rippling line across the forehead and was gathered in a loose knot at the back. He was not quite clear in his mind as to whether the fair gardener was pretty or not. Her features belonged to no regular type. Her nose was neither severely Grecian, nor commandingly Roman, but rather inclined to the retro say, but it was an inoffensive nose at worst. Her complexion, heightened to a rich bloom by the nipping air, was a thing for poets to rave about, for painters to vainly imitate.

Starting point is 11:12:50 her eyes were dark grey with thick black lashes her eyebrows dark and strongly marked her mouth beautiful though dick was not wise enough to know it he only saw that her smile was sweet and his chief impression was of a look of goodness which pervaded the face or so he thought she looked so amiable that he the shyest of men ventured to address her rather a cold day for gardening he said i don't find it so she answered smiling if my poor arbiter's can stand the cold i don't think it will hurt me and she went on snipping off dead leaves and smartening the garden by those little touches which maintain order and beauty even at a flowerless season we shall soon have the snow-drops she said cheerfully ah said dick they bloom about this time of year do they he had made himself acquainted with the habits of ferns but had very vague notions about flowers the girl looked at him wonderingly and then as he walked away a little further contemplating the picture of the mill-wheel and water she perceived that slight lameness from which he suffered would you like to rest after your walk she asked timidly You have come some distance, perhaps. From Cheswald. That's a good three miles.

Starting point is 11:14:12 Our porch is quite at your service if you'd like to sit down. She opened the gate as she spoke and Dick walked in. He felt as if he could not for worlds have resisted the invitation, so he went in very shyly and seated himself on the bench in the porch. The door was open and opened straight into the neatest, prettiest sitting room Dick had ever seen, or, at any rate, ever remembered having seen in his life. Everything was so bright and fresh. The brass fender, the cheerful fire, the old cups and saucers and the mantelpiece, the white ceiling, the painted walls, the shins covered sofa

Starting point is 11:14:48 and chairs, the small round table with neatly arranged piles of books, not show books, but looking rather like volumes than the daily use of a student. At a drawing board, actually a drawing board, the old engravings, the little cabinet of shells in the corner yonder. All the furniture in the room might hardly have realised five and twenty pounds at an auction, but the general effect was delightful to Richard Plowden's eye and mind. The young lady, he felt sure now that she was a young lady, in spite of her homely dress and that lazy old water wheel, went on with her gardening, nailed up stray shoots here and there against the plaster wall and took no more notice of Dick than if he had been a hundred miles away.

Starting point is 11:15:34 Dick was much too shy to make conversation, so he sat in silence, lazily watching the girl's graceful figure as it moved about the garden in a pleasant reverie. Presently, there came a sound from within, a small shrill voice calling, Mammy! An inner door opened, and a little toddling thing just emerged from babyhood came running out to the porch. At sight of the door, it was a little, Dick it screamed as if it had seen lions and stood stock-still, paralysed with terror. A significant evidence that a stranger was a rare bird at Dauley Mill. The girl ran to him, took him up in her arms and smothered him with kisses. Mammy, said Dick to himself.

Starting point is 11:16:16 Then this charming girl is a married woman. I didn't observe the wedding ring. He glanced at the hands which were clasped around the child. No, there was no ring there. What a dear little thing! he said doubtful about the sex. Yes, he is a darling little fellow. Your nephew, I suppose.

Starting point is 11:16:36 No. And the girl's cheek crimsoned. He's an adopted child. This was all Dick ever heard about the boy. He might have known more, perhaps, had he been curious enough or audacious enough to inquire. But he was neither. Yet he wondered a little,

Starting point is 11:16:53 adopted children being rarities, to have stumbled upon one in the tiny village of Dauley. he came to dolly several times finding this particular walk the most picturesque of all his wanderings and he rested for half an hour or even longer in the porch while linda chalice he had found out her name in due course sat at work in the pretty parlour and chatted with him pleasantly quite at her ease there was something about richard plowden which made people friendly with him at once they talked about the country which linda knew by heart and about london which was a strange and wonderful city she had never beheld they talked to books and flowers and ferns and by this time they had become as familiar as friends of long standing linda had never invited mr plowden to come beyond the porch however she was not quite sure whether her grandfather a funny little old man who was always in a flowery condition on week-downe but she was not quite sure whether her grandfather a funny little old man who was always in a flowery condition on week-dard but would approve of such a step on her part. And now, on this fine February morning, Dick makes his appearance, Rosie with his brisk walk, and takes his accustomed seat in the porch.

Starting point is 11:17:59 If you come to Dolly some Sunday afternoon, says Linda after a little while, you can make grandfather's acquaintance. He's always in the mill on weekdays. He seems a kind old gentleman, says Dick, who had received a friendly knob from the little miller. He is kindness itself. There never was such an indulgent grandfather. And you have lived with him all my life. My mother was his only daughter.

Starting point is 11:18:25 She married an artist who came to dolly to fish and sketch one summer. She was very pretty, they say. I can easily believe it, murmured Dick. Oh, much prettier than I, says Linda, blushing. If you are trying to pay me a compliment, I have a portrait of her in my room painted by my father. It was quite a love match, and I dare say people said my. father had degraded himself by marrying a country miller's daughter, for he was what people

Starting point is 11:18:51 call a fashionable artist, and might have made a very different marriage. But they were very happy, and I believe my father was almost broken-hearted when my mother died a few months after my birth. I suppose he didn't quite know what to do with me, poor fellow. So when my grandfather and grandmother offered to take care of me, he consented to my being brought up by them until I was old enough to go to school. I was a sickly baby, they say, and that's a child. decided them. Well, my good grandmother brought me down here within a month of my mother's death, and it has always seemed as if I was born here, for I can remember no other place. My first memories are of the garden and the mill, the big black wheel and the firming race, and those snow drops

Starting point is 11:19:34 growing within the box border. And you were sent to school? Never. Before the school time came, my poor father had died in Italy. He had earned a great deal of money at one time, but his reputation had not lasted as long as his life, and he left very little behind him. I never went to any school except the Little Village Day School, where I learned to read and write, and if it had not been for the last vicar of Cheswald, a dear old man, I must have grown up in ignorance. But one day, when he came over to see my grandfather, he heard my father's name mentioned and was interested in me directly. He was a great admirer of my father's pictures. He asked how I was being educated, and when he found that I was not being educated,

Starting point is 11:20:16 at all. He offered to give me a couple of hours' instruction twice a week if I would go as far as Cheswald Vicarage. I was only too glad, for I was 15 years old at this time, and felt the burden of my ignorance, and for four years I was that dear old man's pupil. He taught me Latin, French, and Italian, and gave me the best books in his library to read. I owe it to him that I never wasted an hour upon a worthless book. He was indeed a friend. His memory is dearer to me than words can tell. Dick listens with profoundest interest and is about to express his admiration of the good vicar when a noise in the distance startles Linda and him. It is the sound of several voices talking in excited tones. Linda throws down her work and follows Dick to the garden gate. A laborer in

Starting point is 11:21:05 smock frock comes running round the corner by the brief row of cottages which the inhabitants dignify with the name of street. What's the matter, John? asked Linda. Anything wrong with your children? No, miss, they'd be right enough, but there's an accident yonder with some gentleman hunting. A young gent chucked over an edge among the rushes in that there ditch just beyond your grandfather's field. Is he much hurt? His arms broken. There's something wrong inside of him, miss. Some of his internal bones scrunched on a fear, for he's been a spitting blood like one o'clock. What are they going to do with him, poor fellow? The other gents are bringing him here, miss, and I ran on a fore to telly.

Starting point is 11:21:48 Dick is pale as death. Those terrible presentiments of his, have they been cruelly verified? He can scarcely find voice to ask the question. Do you know who the gentleman is? One of them said, It were the young squire of Chesold. End of Chapter 32,

Starting point is 11:22:12 read by Adrian Strohers, Turks and Caicos Islands. Chapter 33 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Librevox recording. all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox dot org recording by adrian stroet turks and caicos islands dead men's shoes by mary elizabeth bradden chapter thirty three fallen by the wayside yes richard plowden's prognostications of evil are realized not quite so fatally as they might have been however for dick had seen in a very side vision of woe the figure of his friends stretched on a shutter, pulseless, lifeless, the generous heart at rest forever.

Starting point is 11:23:09 The figure which the gentleman of the hunt carry along the narrow path by the mill pool holds happily the spark of life still, but so white is the face lying on the huntsman's scarlet shoulder, that poor dick, running out to meet his friend, gives a cry of horror. Is he dead? he asked distractedly. Not a bit of it. he's only fainted i'm afraid there's a few of his ribs broken do you belong to benfield's mr benfield is the miller no but i've just come from there they are getting ready for him he's my dearest friend where's the nearest doctor none nearer than cheswald one of the men has ridden off after him they carry alexus to the pretty old house beside the mill and up a single flight of shallow oak stairs to the best bedchamber the freshest and the best bedchamber the freshest and the best brightest of rooms, with two broad latticed windows overlooking the mills stream and the willows,

Starting point is 11:24:05 with their background of green hills. A man might find worse quarters than these in the hour of distress. Even in the midst of the grief, Dick glances round the room admiringly, and thinks what a treasure old Ben Field, the miller, has in his granddaughter, for it is Linda's taste, of course, which beautifies his home. They lay alexus on the pure white counterpane and Linda sponges his temples with odour cologne, until presently the heavy eyelids are lifted and the patient looks about him, wonderingly. He recognises Dick and fancies himself at home at the Grange. This young woman in grey is one of the housemaids, no doubt. How soft and white her hand is! He did not think he had so pretty a servant in his staff. Well, old fellow,

Starting point is 11:24:55 He says faintly with a wan smile. You were right. Such a cockney as I ought to go across country with your born Nimrods. Bayard's youth and silliness sent me flying over rather a stiff bit of timber, and I'm afraid Bayard himself is demolished. By Jove, it was a thundering smash. I wonder if I have any bones whole. I feel as if they were all broken up in short lengths, like barley sugar.

Starting point is 11:25:24 Thank God you make a job. joke of it, exclaimed Dick. But he mustn't talk. You've been spitting blood, you know. I thought there was something unpleasant going on internally. How did they contrive to bring me home? I haven't the slightest recollection of the transit. Home? Echoes Dick, puzzled.

Starting point is 11:25:43 Yes, I am at home, am I not? Or how do I find you by my side? By fortunate accident, dear old fellow. You are at Daly Mill close by the place where you fell and in good hands, I'm sure, and now not another word till the doctor has seen you. Old John Benfield, the Miller, who has left his work on hearing of the accident, comes in at this moment, carrying a steaming glass of brandy and water, which he believes to be specific for all earthly ills.

Starting point is 11:26:14 "'Suppered up, sir,' he says, and Alexis is about to comply when a firm hand takes away the glass. "'Not on any account, grandfather. He has been spitting, blood. All the more reason why he should have something warm and comforting, says Mr. Benfield. You must get him some cold brandy and water, grandfather. Very well, little lass, it's always for you to order me to obey, and the old gentleman departs to perform his hospitable duty. Dick, says Alexis presently, I should feel happier in my mind if you'd go and see what has become of that poor beast bayed. I'll go, Alex.

Starting point is 11:26:55 But I execrate the brute. If I were to hear that all of his four legs are broken, I shouldn't care. Nonsense, Dick. The beast is only young and silly. We were both too ambitious. Wanted to fly too high. Richard leaves the sufferer unwillingly and goes in quest to the bay. It is not long before he discovers the horse,

Starting point is 11:27:14 a good deal chipped and knocked about, but in no wise seriously damaged, in the stable of one small inn which adorns Dauley village, a house which you would hardly recognise as one of public entertainment, were it not for a dingy board above the front door. Said door, having sunk into the yielding soil of Dauley, in a despondent and one-sided manner. Ah, says Dick, looking at him as ferociously as it is possible for the mildest of men to look.

Starting point is 11:27:43 Ah, you murderer! I wish there was a law for hanging such as you. He hurries back to Alexis and tells him that the brute is all right. Not a bone broken. He only broke your bones, the beast. The Cheswald doctor comes presently, having driven over at a slashing pace to see so important a patient. Richard supports his friend during the medical examination,

Starting point is 11:28:07 which is slow and painful. The ribs are much hurt. One bone has been pressed inwards, whence the blood spitting. It is altogether a serious case. I should like you to see crisis of Winchester, says Mr Scalpel, the local surgeon. I shall not set the arm till tomorrow. There is a little swelling and there's a slight tendency to inflammation. I'll send a lotion which must be applied continually.

Starting point is 11:28:33 You ought to have a trained nurse, by the way. I'd as soon have a gall, says Alexis, at which the surgeon fears his mind is beginning to wander. I detest hired nurses. Can't I nurse him? asked Dick. I'm strong and weightful, and I'll obey you instructions to the letter. You might be of use undoubtedly, but I think a skilled hospital nurse, send me to an infirmary at once, cries Alexis peevishly. I won't have a hospital hag near me.

Starting point is 11:29:04 See how the suggestion irritates him? Says Dick. Could not his old housekeeper come over from the Grange? That might do. Yes, she nursed Miss Secretan, I know. I'll call as I go home and tell her to come over. Do nothing of the kind, exclaims Alexis. I'll have no old women posturing about me till they come to lay me out. Mrs. Boblow is a very good soul in her place. Makes an admirable curry and fries potatoes to perfection,

Starting point is 11:29:33 but I won't have her at my bedside in the middle of the night. I'd as soon wake up and see the witches in Macbeth. Nervous temperament very, murmurs the surgeon. That Dick! My friend here, nurse me, and no one else, says Alexis. The surgeon gives away. The servant of the house will no doubt be able to assist. All may be well. It would not do to offend such a patient, and this promises to be a long business. A very long business, if it is to result in recovery. There is a possibility of the case being brought to a sad and sudden ending.

Starting point is 11:30:11 Mr. Scalpel takes Dick out onto the stairs. it is not a hopeless case, Fultus Dick, almost breaking down. Hopeless, my dear sir, far from that, but I will not disguise from you that it is very serious. There are grave dangers. The greatest care is needed. Much must depend on the state of the blood.

Starting point is 11:30:32 Mr. Secretan is a person of steady habits, or, to put it plainly, not a drinking man, I hope, not given to the pernicious practice which are modern slang calls pegging. Half a bottle of claret at and after dinner is about the extent of his dissipation. That's a good hearing. We shall pull him through, but remember that good nursing is the main point. If you find yourself unequal to the task, we must get a trained nurse. Foolish preges, very, not old hags by any means. Many of them nice-looking young women.

Starting point is 11:31:07 Downstairs, Mr. Scalpel sees Linda and inquires as to the possibility of assistance in the sick room. I'm quite ready to give my help if I can be of any use, says Linda, cheerfully. No one better, replies the surgeon. It was your good nursing that got your grandfather through that bad attack of bronchitis last winter. He'd have been in his grave, but for you. Dear old grandfather, says Linda affectionately. But you mustn't overexert yourself, you know. I don't want two patients instead of one. Don't be afraid, Mr. Scalpel. Elizabeth wore her. help me. Elizabeth is the maid of all work, a buxom girl who seems to be in a perpetual state of expansion, for her gowns are always too small for her, a girl with a brick-dust complexion,

Starting point is 11:31:55 big black eyes like damsons, a double chin and a countenance expressive of supreme good nature, says Mr Scarple. I don't know about Elizabeth. Elizabeth has enough to do to take charge of that troublesome adopted son of yours. Rather a queer look comes over the doctor's face as he speaks of the child, a look of some feeling closely akin to dislike. Trotter's never troublesome, replies Linda, and again her colour brightens, as it did when Richard Plowden questioned her about the boy's relationship to herself. End of Section 33. Read by Adrian Stroet, Turks and Caicos Islands. 34 of Dead Men's Shoes.

Starting point is 11:32:57 This is a Libravox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Judy Mason. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 34. Good Samaritans For many weary days and nights, the patient fluctuates between improvement and retrogression.

Starting point is 11:33:30 The business is a long one, as Mr. Scalpel prophesied. Alexis approaches that mysterious borderland, which lies between life and death. Mind and memory are dark. He sees shadowy forms at his bedside, sees the unreal more often than the real, knows not where he is or what he is, and slowly wakening at last,

Starting point is 11:33:55 as from one long, troubled dream, a dream of almost infinite duration and of wondrous variety. He feels like a child, newborn to life, seeking dimly to decipher the unknown characters of a strange alphabet. Who is this with the gentle face, the mild and thoughtful eyes, shadowy hair, and soft white hands who ministers to him so patiently, whose voice has such a soothing influence? Is it his white? A flash of sudden hope quickens the throbbing of his heart. He tries to raise himself up in his bed when a strong hand restrains him, and a familiar voice says, Alexis, dear old fellow, be careful.

Starting point is 11:34:40 Mr. Scalpel says you mustn't exert yourself. It is no longer winter. The lattices are open, and through the tender green of the willows, smiles the blue April sky. Birds are singing, there is a perfume of violets in the, the room blessed heralds of spring yes there they are violets and primroses on the dressing-table violets and primroses on the little table by his bed oh welcome spring welcome sense of new created life in his own frame it was good of you to come to me he murmurs with half-closed eyes good of you to nurse me all forgotten all forgiven we shall be very happy no sybil he thinks his wife is at his side melancholy delusion which makes richard plowden very uncomfortable my dear alexis he says soothingly it is not sybil we didn't know where to send for her the lady who has nursed you was a stranger to you until the day of your accident but if she had been your sister she could not have done more

Starting point is 11:35:50 alexis closes his eyes with a heavy sigh she is very good he murmurs resignedly and i have reason to be grateful i took her for my wife a foolish mistake i ought to have known better but i am afraid my mind has been wandering a little he turns restlessly on his pillow opens his eyes again and looks wonderingly around violets he exclaims how good of you to get me violets at this time of year what a blue sky for february february cries richard my dear fellow it is the nineteenth of april april and i have been lying here a little over two months alexis feels inexpressibly shunely shunct of this revolution what the days and nights had been passing sunrise and sunset moons waning and he's been lying there like a log or like a madman full of strange fancies and unconscious of the flight of time this loss of two months seems to him in some wise terrible it is as if he had been lying dead i suppose i have been very ill he says at last very ill dear boy so near death's door that we have often feared the door would open and you would pass the threshold thank heaven we were able to keep you fast on this side you have to thank miss chalice for your life there never was such a nurse you forget that you've done more than half the nursing mr plowden remonstrates linda who sits with her face somewhat shrouded by the dimity bed-gerton i nothing of the kind i've tried to obey your instructions but at best i'm a clumsy assistant you are the best of fellows says alexis stretching out his feeble hand to clasp his friends

Starting point is 11:37:51 as for miss chalice he continues i haven't the faintest idea who she is or how she comes to be interested in me but i'm intensely grateful he falls asleep after this and slumbers peacefully for some hours when he awakes it is tea-time The lattices are closed, and a young moon shines in through the diamond panes. The fire burns cheerfully in the old-fashioned fireplace opposite the foot of the bed. Firelight and moon beams shine into the room, flashes of silver and gleams of ruddy gold light up the old furniture, the cups and saucers and the old silver teapot on the round table by the fire. They shine, too, on a quiet figure by the hearth, the graceful form of a girl dressed in grey who has fallen asleep in an old bamboo arm-chair by the hearth that's miss what's her name i suppose alexis says to himself curious business very

Starting point is 11:38:51 where am i i wonder this hardly looks like the grange he tries to raise himself into a sitting position in order the better to inspect the premises process is painful enough to ring a grown from him, and the groan awakens his nurse. You mustn't do that, says the gentle voice, which has argued and pleaded with him so often in his delirium, but which seems quite unknown to him tonight. You mustn't try to sit up yet a while. Not yet a while, repeats Alexis. I've been ill over two months and I'm getting better. I believe you will.

Starting point is 11:39:31 I am getting better. You are much better. you are getting well very fast. Oh, this is getting well very fast, is it? And after two months, I am not to try to raise myself in bed. Do you know it strikes me that's getting well rather slowly? Oh, you mustn't be impatient. The injury to your ribs brought on inflammation of the lungs.

Starting point is 11:39:56 You've been in great danger. And you, a stranger, have nursed me? Not a stranger. Providence brought you to our door. are our neighbor which of these think you murmurs alexis yes you have been verily my neighbour in the gospel sense of the word how shall i ever thank you enough miss chalice says linda as he pauses at a loss for the name believe me mr secretan i need no thanks my grandfather and i are very happy to have been of use to you dick plowden says you've saved my life where is dick by the way he's gone to lie down for a short time he has had very little rest of late poor fellow and now shall i give you some tea yes if you would be so good i should like some tea she pours out a cup and brings it to him and raises his head upon the heaped-up pillows which sustain his weary frame and puts the cup to his lips

Starting point is 11:41:01 it is a curious sensation for him this awakening to life curious to look into this strange face in the uncertain firelight to hear this gentle voice to feel the soft touch of these white womanly hands if this were but my wife it would indeed be awakening to new life and new happiness he thinks and the thought that another can so minister to him while his wife treads her selfish way ignorant of his pain is very bitter i think i could hold the teacup myself he says and he makes the attempt feebly with a tremulous hand capital exclaims linda how strong you are getting oh this is getting strong is it inquires alexis i should like to have seen myself when i was weak i must have been a pleasing spectacle he falls asleep by and by in the firelight and sleeps long, for he has, at this stage of his illness, a wonderful capacity for sleep. When he awakes, the fire is burning low, and the dim glimmer of a night-lamp suggests some sepulchral hour betwixt night and morning. Richard Plowden occupies the easy-chair by the fire.

Starting point is 11:42:23 Where is Miss Chalice? Ask the invalid. In bed, and sound asleep, I hope, she has. sat up night after night to watch you, Alex. She's very good. She is an angel, or is near an approach to the angelic, as one can hope to meet with upon earth, replies Richard, with enthusiasm. Who is she, Dick? And by what concatenation of events do I find myself in a strange house, watched over by a strange young lady? Richard explains. Indeed, this is Dorley Mill, and my fair nurse is the Miller's granddaughter. If I were a bachelor now, this might be the opening scene

Starting point is 11:43:07 of a charming romance, but I should have taken that young lady for something superior to a miller's granddaughter. She has an air of refinement. She belongs by inheritance to the world of art. Her father was a painter. Chalice. Yes, I remember. I have seen pictures of his. He died young, think. He did, and left this young lady an orphan. Mr. Secretan, finding himself able to sit up in bed and hold a glass or a cup, during the next two or three days, shows great anxiety to be taken back to the Grange. He's anxious to resume the business of life, to see his horses, his gardens, to be within reach of his library. He is quite horrified when Mr. Scalpel informs him that he is likely to,

Starting point is 11:44:01 to be obliged to remain at Doarly Mill for three weeks or a month before he will be strong enough to bear the shaking involved in the easiest journey. You need not be in a hurry to leave, says the surgeon. You have been well taken care of, I'm sure. I should be an ungrateful hound if I were to forget that for a moment, replies Alexis, but I should really like to relieve this house of my presence. I have given so much trouble. that is all past says linda our only trouble was the fear that you would not recover mr benfield must consider me an intolerable nuisance he does nothing of the kind says dick he is looking forward to your going downstairs as if it were some grand holiday alexis sighs the comforts and indulgences of a sick-room pall upon his active temperament but he resigns himself to the inevitable and linda and richard do their utmost to make his life happy now that bodily strength begins to slowly return he suffers from extreme mental depression he feels as if this coming back to life were something of a mistake that it might have been better to have slipped quietly through the dark portal he feels that he feels that he has been better to have slipped quietly through the dark portal he feels that he feels that he has nothing to live for, neither wife nor child, no kith nor kin, only the beaten round of a prosperous

Starting point is 11:45:28 man's existence. I who have tasted the bitter cup of poverty ought to find contentment in prosperity, he tells himself, but as the days lengthen slowly to their lingering clothes, he is not content. He is dreadfully low-spirited, says Dick to his assistant nurse. What are we to do to cheer him up a little. Linda sighs and looks doubtful. But in the course of the afternoon, she brings up some of her favorite books, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Dickens, and offers to read to the invalid. He is delighted. Any relief is welcome that will take him away from his own thoughts. He chooses the midsummer night's dream, and Linda reads at his bidding. We'll have one of the tragedies when I'm stronger, he says. I couldn't stand Hamlet or Lear yet a while.

Starting point is 11:46:18 from this time forward the reading becomes an institution linda is a good reader her voice round and full her emphasis always intelligent alexis makes a closer acquaintance with tennyson than he has ever made before now and renews his boyish delight in dickens in about a week after that first reading he is well enough to go downstairs to the cheerful parlour but not without support from richard's sustaining arms there is no longer any talk of his going back to the grange yet a while he knows his own weakness now and is resigned to the tedium of a slow recovery you are all so good to me he says with tears in his eyes i should be a fool to wish myself away from you it is a sunny afternoon in early may when he goes downstairs for the first time linda has done her uttermost to make the room bright and cheerful there are flowers sweet spring flowers on the chimney-piece table in chiffonier violets primroses hyacinth sense narcissus pale monthly roses from the southern wall a fire burns gaily in the old-fashioned grate for the invalid is chilly and may sunshine uncertain the invalid's couch has been arranged in the cosiest corner the invalid's couch has been arranged in the cosiest corner by the fire snow-white pillows berlin wool coverlet knitted by linda's own hands as a christmas present for her grandfather the brown wainscot walls are brightened with water-colour landscapes in a higher style of art than alexus would have expected to find at dorley mill but he learns by and by that they are all the work of linda's pencil

Starting point is 11:48:09 what a pretty room cries alexis when he is established on his sofa and what a pretty picture that water-mill makes against the blue sky i feel ever so much better for the change he enjoys the novelty of the apartment as much as if he had come into a new country and his spirits begin to rise immediately now i feel that i am really getting well he says it is three o'clock in the afternoon mr benfield is to come in at five to tea and there is to be quite a grand tea-drinking in honour of mr secretan's convalescence the simple-hearted old man is almost as delighted at his guest's recovery as if the squire of chesel were his son linda seats herself in her favourite chair by the open window dick places himself by the foot of the couch the invalid lies in a lazy silence looking out at the windows and the mills dream and the green hills beyond how lovely nature seems to him after his nights of pain and darkness presently he hears a small voice calling mammy and a small hand makes ineffectual attempts to turn the handle of the door linda runs to the door and the prettiest child alexus ever remembers to have seen runs into the door and the prettiest child alexis ever remembers to have seen runs into the room he has soft golden curls all over his small head rosy cheeks bold brown eyes and the open confiding look of a child that has been reared in love's tender keeping he clings to linda's dress mammy mammy dear he cries trot wants oo trot nennersy oo t'nnercy oo nes

Starting point is 11:50:01 now. O vistee gentleman? The gentleman has been very ill, darling, and he wanted me more than Trot does. Oh, tell tori. Trot want who all this. You had Elizabeth to take care of you, Pet. Elizabeth is very kind. She isn't.

Starting point is 11:50:24 Me hate Lithabas. Oh, you naughty boy, look, Trot. This is the sick gentleman. go and shake hands me won't me hate the gentleman oh trot cause he keeps oo away from trot but he won't do that any more trot says alexus delighted with this infantile grumbler come to me my little man and let's make friends see what i've got here and alexis produces his watch that unfailing resource of a man who wants to amuse a child at the sight of the watch and jingling bunch of lockets and seals the little one's eyes open their widest and he creeps a little nearer the enemy i don't like oo he says but i'll look at o a watch with this protest he goes up close to alexus and allows himself to be entertained what a darling little fellow says alexus a nephew of yours i suppose miss chalice no he is no relation he is a little boy my grandfather adopted how good of him the son of an old friend i conclude no we adopted him to save him from the workhouse

Starting point is 11:51:46 oh that is like you just as you took me in to save me from death alexis does not like to ask any further questions yet he would be glad to know more about this fascinating little fellow who soon grows friendly and familiar and nestles his golden head in the invalids westcott and plays with the seals and lockets presently the miller comes into tea and the table is spread with a simple feast new lane eggs cream cakes of linda's manufacturer and strawberry jam which elizabeth the maid-of-all-work secretly believes to be the best strawberry jam in hampshire trot sits up in his high chair at the table and behaves very prettily though he disposes of more bread and jam and follows it up with more cake than alexus can suppose beneficial to his eternal economy but then mr secretan has seen very little of children in their ways henceforth trot is a wonderful favourite with him he allows the little fellow to come into his room at all times and seasons he sends dick to winchester for a cargo about picture books and Trot sits upon the invalid's bed for hours together looking at the pictures and demanding explanations thereof. When the pictures have been explained to Trot by Alexis, Trot insists on explaining them over again to the explainer and lays down the law about them and philosophizes upon them in a delightful way. Never before has Alexis had any dealings with a child. It is a new

Starting point is 11:53:29 experience to him. The little fellow amuses him for hours together. The thought that his own son might have grown into just such a boy as this seems a bond of union between him and Trot. The boy grows wondrous fond of him and places him second only to Mammy and his measures of love. Have you had Trot long, Alexis asked one day of Linda? Ever since he was a fortnight old, what a charge for you his parents are dead of course i know nothing about his parents indeed poor little waif and stray if you were not so very fond of him i should beg him of you and make him my son and heir i couldn't bear to part with him you are not in earnest of course but even if you were and offered him the greatest advantages i don't think i could bring myself to part with him i've suffered so much for his sake perhaps that is why i love him so dearly suffered but how pray do not ask me i cannot possibly tell you it is all past and gone now and i try to forget it but it was very bitter but it was very bitter this sets Alexis thinking and the thoughts that come of it trouble him he sees but one solution of the enigma and that is one which casts the shadow of disgrace on linda chalice

Starting point is 11:55:00 can she this gentle lovable girl with her fair innocent face be something less pure and perfect than he has believed her the suspicion pains him as keenly as if she were his sister or his plighted wife. He lies awake for many a weary hour pondering over this painful question. For a little while, even his heart turns from poor Trot, who is distressed at finding his new friend less kind, but Trot soon makes himself be loved again. Whatever misery this little brown-eyed boy may have unconsciously occasioned, Alexis cannot help loving him. End of Chapter 34 Chapter 35 of Dead Men's Shoes This is the Libravox recording

Starting point is 11:55:58 All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Libravox.org Recording by Judy Mason Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 35 Bitter Almons From January to May is rather a lengthy period for a friendly visit, but although the hawthorns are flowering in Red Castle woods and May is nearly ended,

Starting point is 11:56:33 Joel Pilgrim is still at Lancaster Lodge. He has taken up his abode there as if he meant to stay for the rest of his life, Sybil thinks. She has grown tired of waiting to hear of his approaching, departure. He talks about going sometimes, but never definitely. He must go back to India before very long, he says, and Sybil languishes for him to fix the date. He goes up to London on business now and then, but returns in a few days, and makes himself more insufferable than ever. Sybil has never hated anyone as she detests this man. His presence makes life a burden to her. the luxurious tranquillity of her existence the reposeful days the pleasures of wealth are all poisoned by mr pilgrim's company and yet he treats her with the utmost politeness with deference even and obviously admires her to enthusiasm

Starting point is 11:57:34 this admiration is the most painful part of the business if he only hated me as i hate him we might get on very well together think sybil but as it is as it is is the creature gives me the sensation of living in a glass case with a boa constrictor mr pilgrim does not enter redcastle society though the elite are quite ready to take him by the hand in the fulness of their love for stephen trenchard mr pilgrim is of a reserved temper and prefers the tranquillity of lancaster lodge to the dwellings of strangers he dines well and drinks deeply after dinner but the want of the want of the makes no more impression upon him than upon the decanters mr trenchard and he are often closeted together in business conference but they never talk business before sybil she has a vague idea that mr pilgrim is a merchant and that his house of business is in calcutta but she has no knowledge of his merchandise one day mr trenchard complains to her and with some bitterness of her coolness to joel pilgrim i think i had had to have been kind enough to you to deserve that you should be sybil to any friend of mine sybil he says and yet you are positively rude to mr pilgrim well i am not intentionally so uncle trenchard then your notion of good manners must be a very curious one nonsense sybil you can be winning enough fascinating enough when you please yet to this young mann't young echoed sybil but he must be five and thirty if he's a day no matter child he is a young man to me for him i say the son of my oldest friend you have nothing but cold looks and insulting speeches it is very hard upon me my dear uncle i did not know you were so fond of this mr pilgrim i have fancied sometimes that his visit was rather a trouble to you

Starting point is 11:59:44 i have been worried about his affairs now and then the man himself is very dear to me then i will try to be more polite to him my dear uncle for your sake i want you to try something more than that sybil you discouraged sir wilfr cardinal's attention for some inscrutable reason of your own don't deny it girl you must have discouraged him for i know he was overhead and ears in love with you and now he only makes a formal call once in six weeks you might have had the first position in this part of the world if you had chosen but you did not so choose i saw you fling away your chance and i did not reproach you but now i come to something that touches you me closer. Joel, the only son of my, he pauses with a curious smile. Only friend, Joel Pilgrim, a man of strong brain and strong feelings, has fallen in love with you. Not a butterfly passion like Sir Wilford's, mind you, to be blown aside by a breath of yours, but an enduring love. Now I have set my heart on seeing Joel and you, man and wife. Why should you be so anxious to see me married, Uncle Trencherd?

Starting point is 12:01:07 You wanted me to marry Sir Wilford, and now you want me to marry this Mr. Pilgrim with Indian blood in his veins? I wanted you to marry Sir Wilford because he could give you a great position. I want you to marry Joel, because Joel is dear to me, and to see you two united would be to secure the happiness of the only two people I love. Don't be angry with me, Uncle Trenchard. But I had as soon you told me a serpent loved me as this Mr. Pilgrim. She feels that in speaking thus frankly, she runs the risk of offending her uncle.

Starting point is 12:01:45 For once in her life she is truthful. Her uncle is less angry than she had expected. Nonsense child, he says carelessly. You are full of prejudice. You must learn to think better of my friend's son. Is he the son of that friend who's son? death distressed you so much, Uncle? asked Sybil. What death? When?

Starting point is 12:02:09 One evening last summer when you read the announcement in the paper. Mr. Trenchard looks at her curiously for a moment. Yes, yes, he says. That was the man. From this time, Joel Pilgrim is more open in his attentions. He follows Sybil like her shadow, rides with her, drives with her walks in the garden plays billiards with her stands beside the piano when she plays or sings reads the book she reads associates himself with every hour of her day and every pursuit of her life she knows not what it is to be alone she takes the utmost pains in a quiet way to let mr pilgrim see that his attentions are odious to her she never favours him with an encouraging look or word yet he pursues his course doggedly like a man who comes from a land where women's opinions and inclinations go for nothing people in red castle are not slow to try to

Starting point is 12:03:16 talk of Mr. Pilgrim, just as they talked of Sir Wilford Cardinal. It is now evident to the mind of Redcastle that Sir Wilford has cooled and fallen off in his attentions, and that this Anglo-Indian with his dark face and sleek hair, a real Hindu, perhaps, some people suggest, is to be Miss Fondthorpe's husband. They wouldn't go out riding together if it wasn't a settled thing, says Mrs. Groshen to Mrs. Stormont, and in my day, it was not considered correct for a young lady to go out alone with her engaged

Starting point is 12:03:52 husband. But young ladies are changed. It's money, I suppose, remarks Mrs. Stormont, thinking of the main question and not of details. I have no doubt this Calcutta merchant is immensely rich. And Mr. Trenchard wishes to unite the two fortunes.

Starting point is 12:04:11 I thought Sybil looked very unhappy, the last time i called if she had been allowed to follow her own inclinations things would have taken a different turn i don't think she ever had such a genuine liking for any one as for my fred she didn't show it much in her manner says mrs groshen smiling amiably she's not a girl to let everyone read her feelings retorts mrs stormont what is that someone says in a play about wearing one's heart outside one's dress she's not that sort of girl but i know she liked fred i sincerely pity her poor child the stormonts see less of mr trenchard and his niece after joel pilgrim's advent this strange guest of the old man's who will not go out visiting even to the best people in redcastle seems a stumbling-block to social intercourse mr trenchard has also taken to refusing invitations and sybil is dull and spiritless and is even losing her beauty mrs ghosten remarks with a touch of satisfaction these brilliant complexions go off so soon she says i'll tell you what it is my dear you may depend upon it that things are not quite right at lancaster lodge there's something underhanded going on there but what inquires mrs stormott bursting with curiosity for the solemnity of her friend's countenance implies a spirit that has penetrated mr trenchard's secrets i don't know what replied mrs groshen in the most disappointing way but i have an instinct that tells me there is something wrong there is an atmosphere of gloom in the house i admit I feel sure that the girl is being forced into a distasteful engagement.

Starting point is 12:06:09 So gossips Redcastle, and not altogether without foundation, for the gloom deepens in Stephen Trenchard's house, a gloom which is not to be enlivened by a pollsterer's work in the way of gilding and crimson, tabaret, or by luxurious dinner served on porcelain and silver, or by fine raiment or any of the things that Stephen Trenchard's money or credit can buy if it were not for one wicked hope sybil would assuredly fly the hateful abode that hold joel pilgrim but that evil hope nerves her to remain mr trenchard has been showing signs of rapid decay the east winds of march and april have withered him dr mitson talks less confidently of his patient's fine constitution and urges extreme care he expatiates on the perils of our treacherous climate and suggests that mr trenchard shall spend next winter in the south of france stephen trenchard has grown nervous and fretful he complains of sleepless nights and his failing appetite is obvious to all his household

Starting point is 12:07:24 do not these signs betoken the beginning of the end i will stay sybil says to herself and she fancies there is something almost heroic in the resolution. However loathsome that man makes himself, I will wait for the end. Perhaps his passion for me is only a pretense, after all. A trap to catch me. If he can prove me disobedient or force me to run away, he may induce my uncle to alter his will and leave him everything.

Starting point is 12:07:56 That may be his plan. A deep-laid plot to ruin me. Robert Fondthorpe dines with his rich brother-in-law About once in six months, A purely ceremonial visit, Which is irksome to both men. Though Uncle Stephen is very civil, And Uncle Robert enjoys the unwanted gratification

Starting point is 12:08:18 Of an excellent dinner and rare old wine. On the occasion of his last visit near the end of April, Dr. Fonthorpe sees so marked a chance, in his brother-in-law that he goes home full of it and tells marian that he does not think her uncle is long for this world what a shame says marian meaning civil's conduct and not her uncle's decline and here have i been estranged from him all the days of his life it's a hard thing to be plotted out of one's expectations by a designing sister my love we have no reason to suppose that mr trenchard will act unjustly the matter of his will remonstrates the mild little doctor oh dear no he has acted so very justly all along never put sybil over my head never dropped me after taking me up oh of course not to satire so subtle as this dr faunthorpe finds no reply he only sighs gently and comforts himself with a pinch of snuff sybil spends more time at the parish doctor's house just now than she has has been used to do it is the only place where joel pilgrim does not accompany her and on this account it seems to her a haven of refuge she is more amiable to marian than of old more friendly to hester more affectionate to jenny

Starting point is 12:09:47 she feels happier or at least more at peace in the shabby old parlour or the shabbier surgery than anywhere else jenny enlightened by alexis knows her sister's secret and is therefore a person to be conciliated. She has sworn eternal fidelity, however, and has never given so much as a hint of the truth to Marion. It is a comfort to Sybil in this time of trouble, to lay her weary head on Jenny's substantial shoulder and talk hopefully of the days to come when she and Alexis are to be reunited.

Starting point is 12:10:26 He threatened never to forgive me, says Sybil, but I don't think he will keep his word. I'm sure he won't if you do your hair the new way, answers Jenny with conviction. It makes you look lovely. On Sybil's next visit, Marion is full of Mr. Trenchard's declining health and talks about his death as if it were a settled business, appointed to come off within a given time.

Starting point is 12:10:54 You will be grand, Sybil. Shall you keep Lancaster live? and the carriages? If I were you, I should let the house furnished and go on the continent. Traveling is so delightful. And if you wanted a companion, you might take one of your sisters. How can you talk so horribly, Marianne? exclaimed Sybil. Who says Uncle Trenchard is going to die? Uncle Robert says he is not going to live long, and I suppose that's pretty much the same thing, only a nice way of putting it. Uncle Robert ought to know,

Starting point is 12:11:32 as a doctor, he generally knows about the parish patients. When he says they're going to get better, they don't always do it. But when he says they're going to die, they always bear him out. He's very lucky in that. You are the most dreadful girl, Marion.

Starting point is 12:11:50 Well, you needn't color up and look pleased. That's quite as bad as talking horribly. I have a franker disposition, you and i say things straight out i suppose he'll leave jenny and me something for mourning out of respect to himself i shall have a corded black silk thick enough to stand alone i always look my best in black did uncle robert think that uncle stephen looked very ill when he dined with us the other day asked sybil thoughtfully of course he did or he wouldn't have said it we say what we mean at this end of the end of the town they're more polite above bar and the more they say a thing they less they mean it mrs dormant told me she had taken a tremendous fancy to me when she thought i was uncle stephen's favourite don't be so bitter marian if you had to have your boots sold and healed twice over by a clumsy country cobbler you'd be bitter replies the injured marian finding this young lady's temper inclining to acidity sybil

Starting point is 12:12:58 lips away to Jenny's favourite retreat, the surgery, where she finds the damsel seated on the hearth-rug, busy at needlework, and performing wonders in the way of stocking-darning. Sybil flings herself into Dr. Fonthorpe's easy-chair in a despondent attitude and sits there in moody silence, must to Jenny's discomfiture. You might say, how do you do to one, she remonstrates? I beg your pardon, Jenny. It was mere absence. of mind. Oh, that's what you call absence of mind above bar? Hereabouts, we call it rudeness.

Starting point is 12:13:37 Don't be cross, Jenny. I'm very unhappy. I thought so, replied Jane astutely. You've come to see us so much oftener than you used to do, a sure sign that you are miserable. Are you unhappy about him? About whom? Oh, you know, my brother and in-law. Partly about him and partly for other reasons, I am worried to death. But Uncle Trencherid will die soon, says Jenny, cheerily, and then all will come right. We shall go into mourning and be great swells. Jenny, you really mustn't talk so. What's the harm? You mustn't talk of poor Uncle Stephen's death, as if it were an event we were all looking forward to but we are replies jenny i'm sure marian does nothing but talk about her morning and how she'll have it made i'm sick of hearing of corded silks and para what's his name and bugled fringe i shan't have bugled fringe it catches in everything and one can't help scrunching the bugles it's too great a temptation

Starting point is 12:14:50 uncle trenchard is weak and ailing but he may live for years no he meant not if uncle robert knows his business he says he doesn't think uncle trenchard will last the summer out and then we shall come in for anything he has left us won't that be jolly i'd rather he didn't die till the end of summer the dusty roads would so spoil our morning jane you are a perfect ghoul oh it's all very well for you to be grand and indifferent you've had the use of his money all along we are looking forward to coming into a small slice of it if i'm not made a ward in chancery and my money all tied up we'll have hot suppers every night do stop that senseless chatter where does uncle robert keep the laudanum i've a racking toothache oh that's why you look so miserable i suppose all the poisons are on myrhusins are on myr i suppose all the poisons are on that top shelf and jenny points to the topmost shelf in the darkest corner of the surgery on which the quick eye of alexis espied the blue bottle labelled prussic acid if jenny were not so deeply engaged with the complicated dilapidations of her stockings she would clamber upon the doctor's step-ladder and bring down the laudanum but she goes on with her darning and leave sybil to get the bottle from its dusty repository sybil ascends the step-ladder and descends again with a bottle in her hand takes an empty file from the drawer and pours some of the liquid from the larger bottle into it dexterously and quickly what a smell of bitter almonds cries jenny you've got the wrong bottle that's prussic acid quickly as she starts to her feet sybil has re-ascended the ladder and replaced the blue bottle in its corner before she can reach her it's all right jenny i'm sorry jenny i'm

Starting point is 12:16:49 i know laudanum from prussic acid what a fidgety officious child you are or i never knew laudanum to smell like bitter almonds remonstrates jenny unconvinced show me the bottle you put in your pocket i shall do nothing of the kind go on with your work and don't be ridiculous jenny mounts the ladder and examines the shelf that holds dr faun thorpe's small collection of poisons the laudanum and the prussic acid are in bottles of the same colour but the prussic acid is inverted in a gallopot each is in its usual place but jane's quick eye perceives that while the laudanum bottle has its coating of dust undisturbed the dust has been rubbed off the prussic acid bottle i hope you are not doing anything dreadful sibyls she remarked solemnly tampering with poison is a dangerous thing i have only taken a few drops of laudanum for my toothache well i suppose i ought to believe you as you're my older sister but i can't understand that smell of bitter almonds all your fancy i assure you jenny and now let's be good friends and have a nice talk don't try to mend those holes i will buy you some new stockings the next time i go to carmichael you're a dear exclaims the volusole jenny forgetting all about that odour of bitter almonds the sisters seat themselves side by side in the window seat and talk of the future, Sybil's future, which means reunion with Alexis. They will be rich, happy. Jenny is to live with them and have a pony to ride. And shall we have hot suppers, inquires Jenny?

Starting point is 12:18:39 What a vulgar child you are. Of course not. We shall dine at eight. That's rather the same thing under another name, says Jenny. End of Chapter 35 Chapter 36 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Librevox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Libravox.org

Starting point is 12:19:14 Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braden Chapter 36 Village Slander the days glide by at dorley mill oh how gently oh how sweetly in one innocent rustic delights in simple childlike pleasures shared and sanctified by the perpetual presence of a child the willows have unfolded their tender young leaves the white blossoms of the orchards have come and gone like all earth's fairest things too brief too transitory the lazy cattle revel in golden pastures the pine trees on the hill-tops put forth pale green shoots at the end of their dark old boughs it is the time of buttercups and young lambs trout-fishing and all delights of early summer and it has brought along with it fair nights and days healing and strength to alexus secretan yet strange to say now that he is so much better and nearly well enough to bear the journey to the grange,

Starting point is 12:20:28 he is no longer impatient to return thither. My life would be so dull without Trot, he says. I'm afraid I've fallen in love with Trot. And then he sighs deeply and lapses into one of those despondent moods which come upon him sometimes. Linda bends very low over her work, and she too sighs, but so softly. that the sigh reaches no ear but Richard Plowdens, who sits close beside her work table.

Starting point is 12:21:00 Alexis is well enough to go out of doors and walk a little way, assisted by his cane on one side and on the other by Linda or Richard. They take it in turns to accompany him in these brief walks, and Linda shows him all the beauties

Starting point is 12:21:15 of nature to be seen within a few hundred yards of the mill. They all sit out of doors a good deal in the balmy June weather, and linda takes her work and books to the rustic bench under the willows and alexis has many an afternoon nap lulled by the bubble of the mill stream but the day comes at last when mr scalpel who if he has aired at all has erred on the side of caution pronounces that his patient is quite well enough to bear the journey home and i do not say you could not have borne it a fortnight ago adds the surgeon but i knew you to be particularly well off here and one cannot be too careful yes i am very well off here says alexis with a smothered sigh however since you are well enough to walk the length of the village you certainly are well enough to bear a three mile drive and we have no excuse for keeping you here any longer

Starting point is 12:22:15 no i have no excuse for remaining says alexis thoughtfully six weeks ago you were in a great hurry to go home i could hardly persuade you to be patient six weeks ago i was ill and fretful since then i have domesticated myself here and now i feel as if dorley mill were home mr benfield and his granddaughter are so good to me and this little fellow as alexis laying his hand on the golden head of trot who lies at his feet with an open picture book spread out before him this little one and i have grown such friends that i don't know what i shall do without him ah says mr scalpel waxing grave poor little boy you speak as if you were no favourite of yours he is not replies the surgeon he has caused too much scandal to be a favourite of mine what do you mean by scandal well mr secretan country people are censorious it's a very unworthy feeling on their part but you'll find that country people are censorious i have discovered the same failing in london people occasionally remarks alexis and if anything happens which is not quite open and on the surface country people are apt to take a narrow view of it now mr binfield's adoption of this boy has given rise to a sly some very unpleasant reports. Why should it do so?

Starting point is 12:23:51 Is it not an act of charity, a most praiseworthy act? Possibly, possibly, my dear Mr. Secretan, that is the way in which I have always endeavored to see it, but one can't get other people to look at the thing with the same largesse of view. There's my wife now, an admirable woman. Miss Chalice was a great favorite of hers before the appearance of this child. she would have done anything for her. But since this baby came on the scene,

Starting point is 12:24:20 my wife has turned quite against the poor girl, will hardly allow her name to be mentioned in her presence. Well, that seems rather hard. It is hard, but it is human nature. There are some sharp angles in human nature. It isn't all Hogarth's line of beauty. You see, this child made his appearance in a most mysterious way. if he had dropped from the moon it couldn't have been more sudden and we know no more about his origin than we do of a moonstone then people have talked unpleasantly about miss chalice i infer they have mr secretan there have been hard things said in the village with reference to that child the village mind is coarse and the village vocabulary is limited spades are called spades

Starting point is 12:25:10 and your villagers can hatch a lie out of their foul imaginations says alexis in a tone that quite startles the placable doctor i've always stood up for miss chalice he says i have always defended her i am sorry there should be any need for defence replies alexa sternly i am sorry the people of dorley in its neighbourhood should be such savages and idiots as not to recognise purity when they see it i have lived nearly six months under the roof that shelters miss chalice and if she is not pure and perfect among women i have no power to recognise womanly purity and goodness well i am entirely with you there mr secretan yet i cannot help regretting that this is not yet i cannot help regretting that this child should ever have been brought here to occasional scandal there's a secret of some kind about his origin and wherever there is a secret there is always food for slander i am sorry because i know miss chalice has suffered what the slanders have reached her ears yes on some occasions and they have made her very unhappy poor girl yet when i offered to adopt trotch she would not hear of such a thing I dare say not. The little fellow has wound himself about her heart, no doubt. They were always a soft-hearted race, these Benfields.

Starting point is 12:26:38 The old man has been an encourager of tramps and beggars. Too easy, by half. It doesn't do, Mr. Secretan. Benevolence? No, it seems a failure in this life. This conversation with the surgeon makes a strong impression upon Alexis. instead of going downstairs to the sitting room where Richard and Linda are expecting him, he remains in his own room all the afternoon, keeping the child for his companion. The little fellow will amuse himself for an hour together,

Starting point is 12:27:11 playing about the room in his quiet little way, and perfectly happy. Alexis looks at him with infinite compassion. Poor little waif! What is to be your fate in the years to come? he asks himself, you cannot always have the calm shelter of Dourley Mill. The day will come when you will have to go out into the world to fight the battle of life.

Starting point is 12:27:34 Nameless, perhaps friendless, unless I am living to befriend you. Poor child. I would give much to know your history, and yet there are questions I dare not ask. There's always the horrible doubt, the lurking fear, that this village scandal may contain some grain of truth. he is disinclined for linda's society that evening and goes out at sunset for a solitary stroll with no support but his cane it is the first time he has walked without the help of linda or richard

Starting point is 12:28:07 he goes down to the willow-shaded path contemplates the simple pastoral landscape in a thoughtful mood scarcely seeing the objects he gazes at and then strolls past that brief row of old-fashioned cottages which constitutes the village of dourley some men are standing before the little public-house and one of them seems considerably amused in a quiet way at the appearance of alexis pale and wan still and leaning heavily on his cane he don't look up to much yet do he says one of those village worthies when alexis has passed but before he is out of hearing no says the man who grinned he looks a rare sight yon's the rich gentleman at the mill miss charlis's new lye's new lest he is out of hearing no says the man who grinned he looks a rare sight yon's the rich gentleman at the mill miss chalice's new love yer. Who says he's her sweetheart? asked the other. Well, folks don't say it maybe, but they knows it's pretty well, I should think. That's the young woman that's got the adopted child, says the facetious man's friend. The humorist is a drunkard, and ne'er do well, who has been refused employment at the mill and is bitter against Mr. Benfield in his household. Dotted child, he says, with his

Starting point is 12:29:24 chorus laugh, raising his voice on purpose that Alexis may hear him. There's many such adopted children in these parts, but we call them by another name. We call them... He has just time to utter a blasphemous adjective, but not the substantive that is to follow it, for the adjective is thrust back between his teeth, as it were, by a blow which strikes him on the mouth and seems to loosen every tooth in his head. It is astonishing how hard a weak man can hit when his arm is impelled by such passion as moves Alexis tonight. He staggers from the recoil of his own blow,

Starting point is 12:30:06 and might fall were it not for a bystander's friendly arms stretched out to support him. Sarvim Wright, says one of the sufferer's companions as he stands before them, a piteous object, pouring blood upon the dusty road, as in a libation to the great mother he did not to have gone and said anything again miss chalice she'd be a good friend of the poor folks the injured man growls out some threat about summonsing and the beak summon me before whom you please replies alexis i shall think this evening's work cheap at five pounds alexis goes back to the mill curiously moved by what has happened why do i feel insult to her so keenly he asks himself is it that she is more to me than i dare a vow even to my own heart is there peril for my future peace in this quiet home that is sheltered my sickness and pain

Starting point is 12:31:06 your fault, Sybil, your fault. You have left your place to be occupied by another. Whatever evil befalls me is your work. Let it be my care that I bring no evil upon the good Samaritans who have succored me in my weakness. Mr. Scalpel is right. I have no excuse for remaining at Doreley another day. But before I go, I would give much to learn the secret of that child's adoption.

Starting point is 12:31:34 he is not a little enfeeble by his act of violence in the passion that accompanied it his heart beats violently and he is barely strong enough to get back to the mill where he arrives in a state of extreme exhaustion and so pale as to frighten linda and richard almost as much as if his ghost had returned instead of himself how ill you are looking mr secretan says linda anxiously when she has arranged the pillows on his sofa and brought him a tumbler of claret and water you've been walking too fast and alone i am sorry i look so ill replies alexis for mr scalpel tells me i am quite well and i am to go home to-morrow to-morrow yes there's no excuse for my being a burden to you any longer you've never been a burden answers linda in a very low voice her face is hidden from alexus but not from richard plauden who in their daily companionship has learned the meaning of that thoughtful countenance all too well he reads her secret there to-night and the knowledge pierces him to the heart end of chapter thirty six chapter thirty seven of dead men's shoes This is the Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Judy Mason

Starting point is 12:33:15 Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 37 Trots History Alexis wakes next morning with a throbbing head. and a vague sense of trouble and regret, but upon the one question of his immediate return to the Grange, his mind is fixed. There shall be no further delay. He has been long enough at Dorley, perhaps too long for his peace. If anyone had told me last Christmas that my heart could ever beat one throb in the minute faster for any woman living except my wife, I should have given him

Starting point is 12:33:58 the lie boldly enough. Is it gratitude, respect, affection? That makes me think so much of my fair young nurse and think it's so hard a thing to part from her? Or is it a feeling that I am bound to stifle? I hardly know how to answer that question, even to myself. At worst, the sentiment is a mild one. Passion has no part in my love, if love it be. It is pure and reverent, and I will say no word that shall sally it. Yet, I can but feel what new brightness might glorify my life if I were free to love this girl. He rises later than usual, and not before Trot has come to knock at his door and announce the hour. Wreckus is wetty for ooh, says Trot. oh eggs is boiled trot found em in the hen-house kothentina ones dear little trot how i shall miss that baby voice and those pretty baby ways thinks alexus

Starting point is 12:35:07 coming presently trot he cries cheerily and trot makes his way downstairs rather noisily as he alights upon every stair with a jump it is noon when alexus goes down to breakfast a radiant summer noon and the first strawberries from the garden are upon the table nestling among their aristocratic leaves linda is seated in her accustomed place by the window her inexhaustible work-basket by her side when she is not working for her grandfather or trot she's making clothes for the poorest among her neighbours you accused me of looking ill last night miss chalice says alexis as they shake hands and this morning i find you as pale as your lilies out yonder what has happened to disturb you i've been told what you did yesterday evening answers linda gravely what my little escapade with one of your amiable neighbours cries Alexis lightly. You don't mean to say that people have been talking of such a trifle as that. I think I taught the gentleman that it's bad manners to laugh at a sick man. Was it for laughing at you that you struck him, Mr. Secretan? asked Linda.

Starting point is 12:36:25 Certainly. My cadaverous looks provoked his mirth, and if I do resemble the night of the rueful countenance, I don't choose to be laughed at before my face. oh mr sceptan i know all that was said by that man elizabeth has been in the village this morning and people have told her all that happened it was the slander against me which you resented the old cruel slander which has pursued me ever since i took pity upon that desolate child the tears rolls slowly down her cheeks but she wipes them hastily away and regains composure she is not one of those women who wash out their grief in tears. No one shall slander you in my presence,

Starting point is 12:37:13 Miss Chalice, and go unpunished. I'm sorry I let that foul-mouth ruffian off so easily. And you do not believe you, her voice fails her. And again, the unbidden tears start to her eyes. I believe anything against you? No, Linda. But if you would trust me with your secret, I have no secret.

Starting point is 12:37:37 with a frank steady look more convincing than a world of protestation i have shrunk from talking to you of that dear little fellow's history only because it is a very sad one and because the scandal which she has brought upon us has made the subject particularly painful to me i should have been weak and cowardly if i had consented to part with my little darling just because people are wicked enough to speak evil of me but i am not so brave as you endure their slander without pain. I have suffered deeply. Tell me all, I entreat you. I think I love that child almost as well as you do. He's about the age my own son would have been had he lived, the son I never saw. That sounds curious, does it not? But the history of my marriage is a very painful one, Miss Chalice, though I thank God it has no element of disgrace, and I, here he falters a little as if the words he has to speak were somewhat difficult to say i still have the hope of reunion with my wife he may have some motive for speaking of sybil to-day though she's been very little in his thoughts of late tell me all about trot's birth let me see you begin your breakfast first it's rather a long story i am all attention it was about trot's about

Starting point is 12:39:05 the end of March three years ago when I first saw Trot it was a bleak afternoon windy and cold I'd gone out to the front garden to look for the first wallflowers when I saw a woman leaning against the railings for support I did not see

Starting point is 12:39:21 at first that she had a baby in her arms it was so hidden by an old seal skin jacket I asked her she was ill and she said yes she was ill and tired she had walked all away from winchester i asked her to come in the porch and rest she came in and had hardly seated herself when she fainted and would have fallen if i had not managed to support her in my arms then the baby began to cry and i saw him for the first time such a tiny thing fortunately i was accustomed to young babies from having visited a good deal among our cottagers

Starting point is 12:39:59 and you took them in mother and child and sheltered and nourished them what else could i do elizabeth and i soon discovered that the poor creature was starving she'd been living on penny rolls for the last fortnight ever since she had left the workhouse where her baby was born yes that sounds dreadful doesn't it our darling trot was born in winchester union dreadful indeed from a society's point of view what kind of person was the mother i can hardly tell you she was very ill when we took her in worn and wasted to a mere shadow she must have been very pretty when she was happy and well but her beauty was all gone she was very reserved and though i tried to win her confidence she would tell me nothing about herself what she had been in the past or what she hoped to be in the future she seemed very unhappy and though she was evidently fond of her baby he seemed rather to add to her baby he seemed rather to add to her to her unhappiness. I felt that her story must be a very sorrowful one. And you pitied her? With all my heart. One day, when she had been with us about a week and was beginning to get a little better and stronger, I asked her if she had any home to go to. She'd been talking about leaving us in a day or two. Yes, she said she had a home, and she was going to it, but she did not

Starting point is 12:41:27 know what to do with her baby. There were reasons why she could not take the baby home. And then she asked me if I knew any honest woman in the village who would take care of the child for a year or two and trust her to sending payment for its maintenance regularly after her return home. I told her that I was afraid none of our own villagers would take the responsibility of a stranger's child. They would want to know who and what she was before they trusted her. Of course, I said this is kindly as I could. As if you could be anything but kind, exclaimed Alexis. After this, I could see she was very much disturbed in her mind.

Starting point is 12:42:08 She sat with the baby in her lap, crying over it in a fretful way, and she was evidently in great trouble and chiefly about the baby. I don't know how it was, but just then there came into my mind the thought of all I had ever heard about wretched women killing their children. I thought of this poor creature wandering about the country, penniless, friendless, with a wailing infant in her arms, and how in some dreadful hour wandering by the side of a river, the temptation might come to her to drown this sweet, innocent little thing, which even in its unconsciousness seemed to cling to me and to be happier in my arms than in its mothers. Doubtless infants like the lower animals have an instinct that tells them when they are beloved,

Starting point is 12:42:59 remarks Alexis. If my grandfather would only let me keep your child, I said, at which she burst into tears again, and threw her arms round my neck, and entreated me to take care of the little one, and promised me all kinds of rewards by and by, when fortune smiled upon her. I told her I wanted no reward except the delight of making me, the little fellow happy and teaching him to love me, I thought very little of the responsibility I was assuming, I'm afraid. It seemed scarcely more to me than if I was offering to take care of another kitten to add to our family of pets. What did your grandfather say to the idea?

Starting point is 12:43:40 Bless his kind heart, he never refused me anything in his life. He was rather against the notion at first, and he asked me if I had considered what a burden we should. be taking upon ourselves and what we were to do with the baby when it grew up a baby's easy to keep he said a quarter of new milk more or less won't hurt us but what shall we do when he's a big fellow and once schooling he can go to the mill and work for his living i said not if you bring him up as a pet and plaything said grandfather he'll be too good for the mill and you had your way yes i couldn't get that idea about the river out of my mind and i was determined the unhappy mothers shouldn't take the baby away so i talked to my tier-year-old grandfather into giving his consent and he promised to adopt the child the poor creature went down on her knees to me when i told her i would take care of her baby but she was not any more inclined to confide in me than she had been at the very first and two days afterwards she insisted upon leaving us though i begged her to stay till she was stronger and better able to travel she was resolute so i gave her a couple of sovereigns all the money i had of my own and patched up her clothes a little she was dreadfully shabby poor thing and at daybreak one morning she left us to walk to winchester where she was to take the parliamentary train to london you're sure she was going to london that's what she told me and she was anxious to get the winchester in time for the london train she did not even tell you her name

Starting point is 12:45:22 no i might give you a false name she said but what would be the use of that if i live and things prosper with me you shall know all about me some day well that was vague says alexis did she wear a wedding ring yes but she told me that it was one she had bought for a penny i sold the real one to buy bread she said and she left her child without showing any grief no just at the last she broke down clasped him to her breast and cried over him bitterly have you heard nothing of her since that time i've had no actual communication but i have received three ten pound notes at intervals each in a bank envelope posted in london i've put the money into the savings bank for my darling and the envelopes you kept them i suppose no they were directed at a cramped unformed hand, like that of a very common person. I cannot think it was the writing of Trot's mother, yet I feel sure the money must have come from her. There was nothing written inside the envelope? Not a word. The banknote was wrapped in a blank sheet of paper. Provoking, exclaims Alexis, I would give a great deal to know more about Trot's origin. His name of Trot, by the way,

Starting point is 12:46:47 how did he come by that? It's only a pet name, which might be. It's only a pet name, which might grandfather gave him when he first began to walk and was always trotting about the house he was christened william after my grandfather who stood for him we had him christened the week after his mother left us poor little trot but for you he might have been left outside the fold poor little trot born in a workhouse abandoned by his mother fatherless nameless well miss chalice his schooling shall never trouble you or you your grandfather we'll send him to winchester when he's old enough and to oxford after and make a man of him that shall be my duty and it may be some small return for all the care you and your worthy grandfather have bestowed upon me you are too good believe me we need no recompense no more did the good samaritan how long is it by the way since you received the last bank-note not more than two months ago it came while you were very ill i thank you most sincerely for having told me this story i am deeply interested in trot deeply moved by your goodness to him it is a hard thing that such an act of divine charity should have brought sorrow upon you it makes me detest your innocent rustics don't blame them it arises out of their ignorance no cries alexa sternly it arises out of their knowledge of evil and incapacity to believe in good end of chapter thirty seven chapter thirty eight of dead men's shoes this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox dot org recording by judy mason dead men's shoes by mary elizabeth bradden chapter thirty eight gaining time

Starting point is 12:49:01 not long does mr pilgrim content himself with undeclared and silent homage the day comes too soon for sibyl when he opens the floodgates of his passion he's a very different wooer from the honest-minded english gentleman so wilford cardinal and sybil finds her position more painful than it has ever been yet he follows her into the garden one june evening after dinner when twilight is creeping over red castle purpling the foliage in sir john baldero's park and spreading a faint grey shadow over the brilliant flower-beds on mr trenchard's lawn why always avoid me asks joel tenderly as sybil quickens her pace at his coming i think the reason is obvious she says she has constrained herself to be civil to him since that remonstrance of her uncles but to-night the tenderness of his tone its oily smoothness its hypocritical sweetness irritates her beyond all bearing you mean that my presence is disagreeable to you you may construe my remark in that way if you please i may respect you as my uncle's friend but you really give me a little too much of your society for me to value you on your own account but it is on my own account that i seek to be valued sybil a fig for the respect you pay your uncle's friends give me love for love truth for truth love love she echoes scornfully yes love am i so revolting a person that the word sounds obnoxious from my lips yes sybil love you know that i can love you devotedly

Starting point is 12:50:54 passionately with the kind of love that can conquer obstacles and win its wish in spite of all opposing influences there is nothing to oppose me but your own obdurate heart your uncle's most art your uncle's most art ardent desire is that you should be my wife. You've worried him into expressing such a desire, replies Sybil, but I do not believe that it is really his wish. His ardent desire before you came here was that I should marry Sir Wilford Cardinal. Sir Wilfred Cardinal has no claim upon your uncle's affection. Can never be to him what I am. Whatever you may be to my uncle, I only know that the effect of your presence has been to alter him strangely for the worse there's been no happiness in this house since you have lived in it happily for sybil she does not see the vindictive look the look of wrath that is almost deadly which joel pilgrim turns upon her after this speech her eyes are fixed on the shadowy line of woodland which shuts out the world beyond sir john bolderos park joel takes time before replying to these uncomplimentary remarks and his voice when he does reply has all its familiar blandness that oily smoothness which is so hateful to sibyl why do you say these hard things to me sybil he asks is it to prove my loved to test my forbearance and gauge the depth of my devotion by my power to endure your insults i have no wish to insult you replied sybil feeling that she has gone on a little

Starting point is 12:52:37 too far, and that this scene may be used to her disadvantage with her uncle. We might be good friends if you would only leave me alone. I do not interfere with you. I am not jealous of your influence with my uncle. Why do you follow me about and persecute me with attentions which, as I have candidly told you, are disagreeable to me? Why does the sunflower turn to the sun? I follow you because I love you,

Starting point is 12:53:04 and because i have sworn to win love for love that you'll never do yes sybil love will come by and by with time and custom when you are my wife that day will never dawn yes it will you've played your cart too well to throw up the game just at the last when you are close upon winning come we will abandon poetical similes and lovers talk and settle the subject like a man and woman of the world with all your sweetness there is a touch of worldly wisdom about you sybil we will speak plainly you have set your heart upon inheriting your uncle's fortune a prizeworth winning i grant a diamond not to be found in every mine you've wound yourself about the old man's heart and have made yourself dear to him you stand a good chance of being heiress to that encounter calculable wealth. But I come upon the scene, an adventurer, you think perhaps, and one who seeks to deprive you of that vast inheritance. You are wrong, Sybil. I have never scheme to inherit Stephen Trencher's fortune, but he and I have certain business relations, and he is necessary to me. He is fond of me, too, after his own fashion, just as he is fond of you. And he is made up his mind that

Starting point is 12:54:32 we two shall be won if you thwart that desire you hazard his favour nay i will go so far as to say that i know your refusal to gratify this wish would lead him to alter his will and you know that he's made a will in my favour cried civil betrayed into a question which after a moment's reflection she feels ashamed at having asked of this man most of all yes replies mr pilgrim deliberately i know that stephen trenchard has bequeath the bulk of his fortune to you nay i might go so far as to say his entire fortune your sisters will be disappointed i fear but you have made yourself the favourite you see and he is soon to die reflects sybil if i offend him now by absolutely refusing to marry this man i shall lose all if i can gain time a very little time perhaps all will be mine give me your answer sybil please joel i'm ready to forgive all the cruel things you've said a woman's hard word signify but little tell me that you will be my own sweet wife and that i may go back to india by and by with a fair princess from the west fairer than a dream to indianize give me hope sybil give me time replied sybil i have told you that that i do not understand you that the idea of your affection is at present most painful to me give me time to overcome what is perhaps an unworthy prejudice on my part i would make any possible sacrifice to please my uncle who's been very good to me with time perhaps so be it says joel offering her his hand that small cold hand whose touch she so much dislikes shake hands upon that my princess

Starting point is 12:56:35 i will wait you have no idea how patient i can be if i see my way clear to the end let fortune say to me such or such a prize is there for you to win and i will win it i will win you my love if conquest lies within the limits of the possible and you will not torment me with the tensions which which only increase your prejudice against me no sybil i will sink the lover and be only the man of the world i will say to myself my love knows that it is in her interest to overcome her distaste for me that to refuse my hand is to throw away fortune i have only to be patient all good things come to him who can wait like yonder moon which pierces that summer cloud and shines upon some belated traveller just when the way seemed darkest come sybil let us go back to our dear uncle my uncle as well as yours by and by the dew is falling and your english compounds or gardens as you call them are so damp they go back to the drawing-room where stephen trenchard sits reading by a brilliant carcel lamp and the look which civil turns upon him is perhaps the most awful look that has ever scrutinised his face for it is the gaze of one who watches for the tokens of death is that true which they all say she wondered despairingly is the forecast shadow of the dark end upon his face already does that greyish tinge which overspreads the salower tint beneath mean only the slow advance of age or is it the awful hue of swift approaching death she cannot tell

Starting point is 12:58:28 he is so fitful in his health and spirits feeble to helplessness to-day full of restless activity to-morrow he looks up from his newspaper as they enter the garden well young people have you been enjoying the moonlight yes we've had a pleasant stroll the pleasantness i have had since i came to england i never saw a moon-rise that shone upon such content as i feel to-night answers joel shall i read to you uncle she asks feeling that even the money article will be better than love like speeches from the lips of joel pilgrim no my dear i have finished my times you and joel can play chess it is a game of skill in which joel excels in which sibyl utterly detests he has taught her to play just tolerably and she would rather play chess with him the game engaging all his faculties in exercising all his cunning then hear him talk so she takes her place at the board submissively and joel's tawny hands arranged the stately carving images castles on elephants indian potentates for kings indian warriors for ponds and brahmins for bishops for a little while after this interview in the garden sybil's life is more endurable for mr pilgrim's attentions are less marked he does not follow her from room to room so persistently as he did before his declaration he allows her to ride alone horsemanship being an exercise which he cordially dislikes she has leisure in which to brood upon the difficulties that hem her in and calculate upon the hour which will bring her release but this period of repose does not last long one morning her uncle sends podmore to summon her to his study she finds him seated at his table

Starting point is 13:00:28 which is littered with papers and letters and before him lies that oblong volume which she saw on the night after the rachel through the glass door in which she supposes to be a ledger joel pilgrim stands by the window very serious of aspect his tawny countenance a shade paler than usual i have sent for you to discuss a very important subject sibyl begins mr trenchard one that is vital to you and joel yes uncle stephen she answers falteringly feeling as if she were expected to reply in some wise sit down my dear we may have much to say to each other and sybil sinks into the nearest chair dreading to hear the rest the last mail has brought joel some unpleasant i should say rather unexpected news about his business in calcutta he'll have to return to india almost immediately joel gnaws his nether lip and turns his face away from the speaker perhaps to hide that vindictive look in eye and lip sybil's heart beats furiously but her agitation is full of joy heaven has sent her a reprieve her torment her is obliged to depart there will be an end of that hateful question about marriage yes my dear our poor joel has to return to calcutta by the next steamer or the fainter first deemer that he can be ready for, and he does not want to go back alone. You understand, Sybil.

Starting point is 13:02:04 Very ghastly is the change in Sybil's face as she looks at her uncle struck speechless by this sudden revulsion from gladness to despair. You understand, my dear, repeat Stephen Trenchard. No, indeed, uncle. You've promised to be Joel's wife. No, uncle, I gave no problem. she falters with white lips i only said that i would try to like him better that bah that's a girl's vague way of putting it you women always beat about the bush joel looks upon it as a promise and so do i it is a sebbled thing you and joel ought to be man and wife thus fulfilling the dearest wish of my heart as joel's oldest friend and your nearest kinsman by this means you will mutually enjoy all i have to bequeath in a word i've set my heart upon this marriage civil and it cannot take place too soon joel's recall to india is the reason why it should take place immediately

Starting point is 13:03:11 joel will lose no time in obtaining the license let me see this is tuesday when does the next peninsula and orieandal leave southampton joel on monday good you can be married on saturday you can go to york for the license this afternoon joel but-but uncle stephen's so soon in a few days it's impossible nonsense child nothing is impossible to men of business like joel and me we have managed more difficult things than this in our time haven't we joel a sardonic laugh is joel's only answer persistent as he has been in his wooing his air this man morning is not exactly suggestive of delight or of that entrancment which should be long to triumphant love. But you are so ill, uncle, I could not leave you. I am flattered by the affectionate thought, but I am not so ill as you suppose, and the idea that I have made you and Joel happy will be better than medicine. My trousseau, uncle, my outfit? So go to India at a few days' notice, I assure you that anyone would tell you it is impossible.

Starting point is 13:04:28 Anyone might tell me any absurdity, but I should not be obliged to believe them. Do not let us have any more young lady-like objections, Sybil? The matter is settled. Joel will go to York by the two o'clock train, and I will write to Mr. Casabelle to give notice of the wedding on Saturday. As to Trousseau, as you call it, you must have finery enough to last your life.

Starting point is 13:04:52 time i should think judging from the length of your bill at carmichael's and now go my dear joel and i have business matters to discuss for the next half hour joel salute your bride mr pilgrim intercepts sybil at the door and takes her hand he draws her towards him as if about to kiss her on the lips but there's something in her look so repellent nay so abhorrent that even his audacity is checked he falls back a little and raises her hand to his lips and with this ceremonious salutation lets her go you are not a very warm lover joel says stephen trenchard with a sneer when the door is closed upon his niece the son of the tropics doesn't seem to have fused much of its fire into your veins you see me at a disadvantage replies the other seating himself at the table and examining one of those numerous documents with a moody attentiveness That suggests trouble. The girl hates me. And you hate the girl, is that it? No, I think her one of the loveliest women I ever saw,

Starting point is 13:06:04 a prize worth winning at some cost of self-abasement. But her detestation for me is a little too obvious, and I must confess that I'm somewhat less eager to win her than I was a few weeks ago. Before I made certain confidences, eh, Joel? Never mind. i told you i would make her marry you and you see i mean to keep my word loving or loathing will make very little difference to you i take it you will know how to make her obey you you will have a pretty wife to uphold your position in calcutta a good card to play always where fools abound as they do in the city of palaces and he will have the handling of my fortune i ought to be grateful replies joel coldly with his eyes still bent upon a column of figures and now joel let us be businesslike i think you will confess that i have gone into your affairs thoroughly this morning there's been no impatient i have not been betrayed into one angry word but i have arrived at a conclusion and i shall abide by it

Starting point is 13:07:09 and that is i must have ten thousand pounds from you between this and saturday at nine in the morning just two hours before your wedding or else or else what the house of pilgrim and company will go down like a vessel that breaks her back straight to the bottom joel it's quite impossible not to a man of business joel to great generals and clear-headed commercial man there is nothing impossible we only print the word in our dictionaries for the weak and brainless portion of humanity it is not to be done it is to be done and it must be done and it must be done retort Stephen Trenchard, bringing down his clenched fist upon the open ledger, ten thousand pounds in hard cash, Joel, a drop out of the ocean, a brand from the burning, borrow it, raise it how or where you can, among your English connections, but understand I must have it on Saturday morning, or before Saturday afternoon I shall have telegraphed to my solicitors in Calcutta, and the House of Pilgrim will be doomed.

Starting point is 13:08:19 After all the money I have earned for you in the past? That past is long gone by, Joel. It is the plough perfect. You have been sucking my blood like a vampire for the last three years, and you have left me all but bloodless. I must have that ten thousand pounds. End of Chapter 38. Chapter 39 of Dead Men's Shoes.

Starting point is 13:08:54 This is a Librevox recording. Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Judy Mason. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 39. At Bay It is evening. Stephen Trenchard has retired to his room immediately after dinner, looking wan and weary, worn out perhaps by that interview with Joel Pilgrim in the study. Sybil has offered to go to his room and read to him, and has had her offer refused.

Starting point is 13:09:39 I'm tired, my dear, and want sleep if I can get it, but that seems harder for me to obtain now than for a pauper to get gold. One would think the voice of doom had cried out to me as it cried to Macbeth, Sleep no more. Macbeth was a murderer, uncle. you should not compare yourself to him no i have never dipped my hands in blood i've used the world pretty much as it has used me i believe give and take sybil is alone in a small sitting-room adjoining her bedroom a pretty little room which mr trenchard has allowed her to appropriate to herself in which she has adorned with various elegant trifles from the red castle shops books engraving statuettes the things that women love.

Starting point is 13:10:30 Here she sits tonight a prey to something very near despair. She is now completely hemmed in. Only two modes of escape lie before her. The first and more obvious is flight. She can leave Lancaster Lodge, there is no constraint upon her. She's free to go away, Penelis,

Starting point is 13:10:53 as when she came, leaving fortune behind her. the second and more hazardous alternative is to prevail upon joel pilgrim to abandon his design to induce him of his own accord to give up the idea of marriage until he is able to return from calcutta ten o'clock strikes and soon afterwards she hears the bell at the lodge entrance and then wheels grinding over the gravel and she knows that mr pilgrim has returned with the licence she has breathed more freely during his absence and his return seems to bring an atmosphere of trouble and perplexity into the house will he come to her or send for her to tell her that his hateful errand has been successfully accomplished she sits listening for his detested footstep the ears of hate are as keen as those of love and she knows that footfall only too well yes there it comes along the carpeted corridor slow and stealthy the jungle tigers walk like that i dare say thinks sybil joel opens the door softly and comes in the dull yellow of his complexion is relieved by a crimson flush on the smooth cheeks his black eyes glitter with an unaccustomed light mr pilgrim has dined more generously than usual at york and if he is dined more generously than usual at york and if he is a man has refreshed himself with soda and brandy more than once during the homeward journey he is altogether a different man from that joel pilgrim who recoiled from sybil this morning abashed by her coldness

Starting point is 13:12:37 i saw the light in your window my pretty one he says seating himself at the table where sybil is reading and drawing his chair close to hers and i knew where to find you hadn't you better go downstairs and order some supper mr pilgrim it's nearly eleven o'clock and the house will be going to bed almost immediately let the house go to gacenna exclaims joel i want nothing it can give me i want only to see your lovely eyes sybil to hear your sweet voice and to claim the kiss you denied me this morning look here taking a paper from his breast-pocket the archbishop of york has given me permission to make you my wife the knot is to be tied next saturday in four days sibyl only four days you who have been so cruel you who have held me aloof so long will be all my own yes sybil you who have pretended to hate me pretended cries sybil with an angry flash from her dark eyes my hatred has been very real well i'm glad of that they say extremes meet it will be an easy transition from hatred to love both are fiery passions it is your lukewarm indifference that can never be kindled into affection now is the time think sybil if i am to make an appeal to his forbearance his pity his self-interest i can but try him mr pilgrim she begins falteringly what a formal mode of addressing your fianced lover the man who has his marriage licence in his pocket

Starting point is 13:14:28 i can call you by no other name she answers i'm going to me more candid to-night than i have ever been you may betray my confidence perhaps ruin me with my uncle i cannot help it between you you have driven me to bay very cruel of us murmurs joel leaning back in his chair looking at her with an admiring smile she's very lovely in her agitation cheeks faintly flushed eyes brilliant parted lips of carnation her suffering moves him not a jot you've seen how i've striven to avoid you you've put my avoidance down to hatred and this perhaps has galled your pride you've felt a natural anger against me and you've resolved to avoid you've resolved to avoidance down to hatred and this perhaps has galled your pride you've felt a natural anger against me and you've resolved to win me in order to revenge yourself upon my insolence a very subtle way of putting the case no sybil i resolve to win you because you are lovely and i love you i need no stronger reasons than those two you could not be determined to make me miserable unless i had provoked your anger forgive me for my seeming hatred to you it was not really hatred of you but love for another my heart has loved for another my heart has loved been given to another. I pledged myself to be faithful to him to the end of my life, no matter what obstacles might intervene to keep us asunder. There are reasons why I can never tell my uncle of this engagement, reasons why I must keep it faithfully in spite of the world.

Starting point is 13:16:03 No reason can stand against the Archbishop's license and the fact that you and I are to be married on Saturday, replies Joel with the same insolent smile, the smile of a scheme, who has brought his plot to a triumphant issue sybil has one argument still to offer the strongest you tell me that my uncle has made a will in my favour that he will leave me all his fortune she says yes that is a settled thing you heard him say that we were to have his wealth you and i i did and we can share it share it honourably and equally without the hateful ties which would bring us nothing but misery. Release me from this entanglement, Mr. Pilgrim. Tell my uncle that you would rather defer our marriage until you return from Calcutta.

Starting point is 13:16:55 He is not likely to see that day. Do this, and I will pledge myself in any way that you may consider most binding. I will sign any document you choose to put before me, engaging myself to deliver over to you half my uncle's fortune, whatever it may be, the day I become possessed of it. A very liberal and business-like offer, exclaims Joel, with a quiet sneer, which freezes all hope.

Starting point is 13:17:26 It is so pitiless, but I would rather have the pretty wife and the whole of the fortune, as by the existing arrangement I shall. Of course, I shall knock off a handsome sum for pin money. Your uncle hints that your tastes are somewhat extravagant, and Calcutta is not not a place to teach economy i shall not be a severe husband and i shall like to see my wife the queen of taste and fashion sybil sits with her hands clasped on the table before her unhearing unheeding she has made her last appeal and she might as usefully have made it too stone there is nothing for her now but flight yes one alternative she may confess all deceive and trenchard tell him that she has been an impostor that she has duped him into giving her his affection that the wealth he has bequeathed to her will be shared by the son of his unforgiven foe no hope lies that way she has played her desperate game to the last and she must throw up the cards once resolved courage and calmness returned together she glances at the swiss torts clock on the chimney-piece eleven o'clock mr pilgrim and i am very tired i really must wish you good-night she rises gathers together her dainty fancy work closes her book and holds out her hand to joel pilgrim

Starting point is 13:19:03 but there is more of his native sunshine and mr pilgrim's veins to-night than there was at noon to-day and he is not to be satisfied with so cold a salutation from his a fiends the bride you refuse to me my kiss this morning sybil i must exercise my privilege to-night his arm is round her he tries to draw her towards him but that slim form recoils from him as from something more hateful than death do not touch me exclaimed sybil in a voice that is scarcely above a whisper you cannot guess how much i would dare to escape such pollution look at this taking a small glass file from her pocket and holding it up before him do you know what this is sure and instant death i would rather this should pass my lips than that your lips should touch them i did not know you were a member of the borgia family or that such delightful customs prevailed among young ladies in england says mr pilgrim letting her go and contemplating her excited countenance with a gloomy look but perhaps you were only playing with me and that bottle of your contains one of those homeopathic preparations so fashionable nowadays, a globula poison diluted with a gallon of water. It contains prussic acid, which I took from my uncle's surgery a few days ago so that I might have one resource against all evils, even the horror of your touch.

Starting point is 13:20:38 That's not very complimentary to the man who is to be your husband next Saturday. Don't be foolish, Sibyl, give me that bottle and let me throw it under the grate. No, you shall not take it from me, exclaimed Sibble, clenching her hand upon the file, so tightly that it would need some exercise of Mr. Pilgrim's brute force to take it from her. Keep it, then, he cries savagely. Keep it, and reconcile yourself to all the evil it may do you. You are a heartless and unreasonable woman, and deserve to suffer for your folly. keep your deadly poison but remember your english proverb which tells you that it is dangerous to play with edged tools and so good-night miss fontthorpe i'm afraid i shall have a vixen for a wife and get the worst of it in our domestic quarrels thus with a sneer he leaves her no resource murmur civil none but flight or she looks at the little bottle full of a colourless liquid or this end of chapter thirty nine chapter forty of dead men's shoes this is a libravox recording all labrovoc's recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox dot org

Starting point is 13:22:10 recording by judy mason dead men's shoes by mary elizabeth bradden chapter forty on the threshold of a discovery alexis goes back to cheseled grange and resumes the even tenor of his life a prosperous country gentleman with very little to occupy him and plenty of leisure in which to muse upon destiny and dream of the things that might have been the hunting season has long been over it is the time of roses and he has no temptation to endanger his neck upon bayard again just yet a while he rides his steady little brown mare in the shady roans and lanes around cheseled while bayard stretches his noble limbs in the home paddock and gathers strength for the crisp clear days of october and the chill mists of november it is a pleasant life but an idle one and a thought too lonely true that there is plenty of society in the neighbourhood and mr secretan of cheseld is popular but life cannot be a succession of dinner parties and alexis has little inclination for croquet and garden parties archery fancy fairs and any of those small amusements which beguile the long days of a country summer the two young men have scarcely returned to the grange when richard plowden declares that he must go home i've been with you nearly a year alexis he says i'm sure you must be sick of my society when i'm sure be sure i'll let you know about it dick answers the other laughing you're the best company in the world to me for you're a kind of second-sacenny I can talk to you as I talk to no one else. You know all my secrets.

Starting point is 13:24:01 All of them? asked Dick gravely. Yes, Dick, all. Or if there is a vague, undeveloped thought or dream I've not shared with you, it has not been for want of confidence in your fidelity. I believe that, replies Dick, deeply moved, but I must go home all the same. This kind of life is all very well for a short time, but it can't go on. It would spoil me. me for the rough work-a-day world let it spoil you dick why should you ever go back to the work-a-day world you are my adopted brother as dear to me as if we had slept in the same cradle or lain in the same mother's arms my home is yours my income yours and if fate cuts me off untimely you will not find yourself unprovided for your mother is happy with her lodgers and her housekeeping to say nothing of the fernary which she tells you is flourished under her care why talk of leaving me dick you are too good and i am more grateful than any words of mine can tell but i must go all the same you're not happy with me dick i have been most happy with you have been that means you're not happy now it is you who are tired of my company that long illness of mine wore you out you had too much of me at dorley mill at the name of dorley mill spasm of pain passes across richard plauden's face so faint that it might have escaped a less watchful observer than alexis but alexis is sorely puzzled by dick's desire to leave him and is watchful of his friend's countenance

Starting point is 13:25:42 too much of your company no alexis you know that your company is like the wine of life for me and yet you persist in leaving me there must be some reason there is a reason there is a reason one that i can never tell you a foolish reason but strong enough to send me away from chesled and the roses and the ferns and all those bright things of summer you love so well you to whom the hills and woods and wandering streams are new you would exchange all the pleasures of the country for the brompton road and the ever-flowing stream of many-coloured omnibuses the cry of the hawker the reek of the ham and beef-shop the glare of the gin palace the reason must be a strong one dick it is as strong as fate and you will not trust me with it i cannot tell you my reasons you would laugh at me despise me try me dick suppose i can guess your secret oh no no no cries dick with alarm those days at dorley mill when my broken ribs were slowly knitting themselves together again peaceful happy days were they not dick that quaint elizabethan homestead seems more like home to both of us than this good old house of mine it had the atmosphere of home which this has not there's no such thing as a home without the presence of a woman we were very happy in a tranquil sleepy fashion at dorley weren't we dick very happy answers dick looking down at an open book the leaves of which he turns over recklessly as if looking for one particular passage and now i begin to fear that darley mill was an unlucky ace for both of us neither of us came away heart-hole alex cries dick looking up no half-confidence's old friend you see i'm not afraid to trust you such a confession comes amiss from me you think

Starting point is 13:27:44 from me who went bound fast by an old tie which if the marriage could be broken by a wife's unkindness might well have been cancelled for me last december when i stood before that mercenary's wife of mine and pleaded the cause of love against money. Do not be alarmed, Dick. I am not going to sophisticate. The old ties binding and the old bond shall be honored, though it should keep me a lonely man for the rest of my days. But I may be forgiven if I have had my dream of what might have been, if I have thought how fair and perfect my life might be made in this good old home of mine, were I but free to seek Linda Chalice from my wife. Yes, murmurs Dick, I thought so.

Starting point is 13:28:31 You thought that I was human, Dick, and that it was not easy for me to feel all the sweetness of Linda's society, to be sheltered and cherished by her kindness, to know that I owed my life to her patient tenderness and withhold my heart from her altogether. My heart went out to her, Dick, unawares, but by not so much as a word or look did i ever betray my secret i woke one day to a full knowledge of my peril and the next day i left orly mill you acted nobly cries dick clasping his friend's hand yes i suspected the truth and it made my own thoughts all the more bitter how could she think of me what a worm i must seem to her beside you she shall think of you dick she shall learn to know your noble heart your talents your love of all that is lofty and lovely in life she shall learn to understand you and appreciate you as i do trust to time dick and me it shall be my task to win her for you impossible sighed dick she's won already and not by me silence dick there is treason against her in such an insinuation she knew that i was married she must have known it at the last but i am not quite sure that she knew it at first unless anything you said when you wot for you wot for you wot for you must have known it at the last but i am not quite sure that she knew it at first unless anything you said when you woke for you

Starting point is 13:29:52 from your delirium may have enlightened her i don't think somehow that she did know it remember you were a perfect stranger to her you came to dorley mill as if you had dropped from the clouds how could she know anything of your domestic history which has only been whispered amongst your neighbours well you might have told her my painful story dick it was not my business it would have been an impertinence in me to gabble about your affairs i felt assured that you would tell her why should i do so dick i'm not a coxcomb i foresaw no peril to myself and my association with that sweet girl still less did i imagine danger to her i accepted all her bounties as if she had been verily a ministering angel lent to this lower world for a little while to be my comfort upon my word dick i think there is a spice of folly or unconscious jealousy perhaps in your notion that i am any more to misschallish than the traveller who fell by the wayside i can read her face answers dick sorrowfully and it is told me her secret Alexis is moved by this conviction of Richard Plaudens. For so little he could be glad. He sees the fair young face, the bended brow, the soft eyes which have so often avoided his own. Dare he interpret those signs, those little looks which he remembers so well as the tokens of a hidden passion?

Starting point is 13:31:21 Dare he suffer himself to believe that while Linda Chalice ministered to him, pity grew to love in her heart, as gratitude widened into love in his the thought that it is so can bring him nothing but sorrow yet he finds himself encouraging the fancy notwithstanding i am a weak fool dick he cries at last after pacing the firelit library for some time and you ought not to say these things to me linda chalice does know that i have a wife she learnt it directly from my own lips but only on the morning before i left dorley but she shall know all my wretched stories she shall know that i deserve her pity though i dare not ask for her love i am bound to pay one more visit to d'arly mill if it is only to repeat my thanks for all her goodness to me i will go to-morrow i have ordered a little present for her from london which i think she will like she is not a girl to care for presents says dick you sulky old bear women love souvenirs and keepsakes yes when they love the giver you know that shabby silver watch she wears it was her father's growled dick he wore it to the day of his death or had it under his pillow on his deathbed he died in rome you know in something like impoverished circumstances i dare say he had a fine gold hunter when his pictures were the fashion poor fellow it was his watch was it then i'm afraid lint miss chalice won't care for the one i've bought her alexis takes a neat little morocco case out of a drawer in the library table a dainty case lined with white velvet on which repose is the most fascinating of watches about the size of a florin the case is dark purple enamel with linda's monogram in pearls and round the watches coiled a

Starting point is 13:33:20 a slender gold chain set with pearls. Rather too pretty for a miller's granddaughter, says Dick. But I've no doubt she'll be pleased. Did you buy anything for Mr. Benfield? Yes, Dick, I didn't forget the miller. And from another drawer, Alexis produces a splendid mirchum pipe. The old gentleman can smoke his tobacco in that when he sits by the fire after supper. I don't suppose it will draw as well as it's clay, murmurs Dick.

Starting point is 13:33:50 the drawing-room at the grange seems more than usually empty that evening when the two young men leave the dining-table it is a wet night and they lack the amusement which the gardens and stable-yard afford them in fine weather alexis has read all the magazines and newspapers and is hardly in the humour for serious literature although all his favourite authors newly bound and newly arranged upon the shelves in the library invite him to study his mind is disturbed he knows not why he takes up a volume of tennyson from the table and turns the leaves idly till he comes to that exquisite poem called love and duty this he reads aloud richard plowden listening intently that was written by a man dick he says when he is finished byron worshipper as i am i confess that there is more stamina in that than in all child heralds wailing against destiny but then byron died in the flower of his manhood we know not what noble fruit the tree might have borne had it grown to maturity byron never came to the age of which scott began to be a poet or at which goethe wrote his masterpiece after this alexus and his friend talk of their favourite poets and both brighten a little as their thoughts drift away from their own individual sorrows soon after breakfast next morning alexis mounts tits and rides down to dorley through the perfumed lanes where the dog roses and woodbine make a tangle of flowers among the young oak saplings and the sturdy hawthorn bushes dorley mill is looking its prettiest as he rides along the winding track that leads to it trot is sitting in the porch playing with a very fat black-and-white puppy with a round stupid-looking head and a puppy that has not long been added to the population of dorley at the side of alexus trot lets fall his pinafore

Starting point is 13:35:50 and gives the puppy a sudden drop in the world. It is the youthful animal's first experience of the uncertainty of Fredship, and he yelps out his remonstrance against life's delusions. Mammy! yells Trot. Mammy come out, it's a gentleman. In spite of their familiarity, Trot has never learnt to call Alexis anything but the gentleman. Linda is not forthcoming, and Trot remembers presently that Mammy has gone down

Starting point is 13:36:20 to the village. She not belong, says Trot. I show, ooh, my new puppy, and he introduces that animal, held firmly by the tail. Daddy says he grow big, ever so big. Bigger than Trot, says the boy, opening his eyes tremendously wide. They are hazel eyes with lashes of gold, which time will darken to brown. I'll come in and wait, Trot, says Alexis dismounting and tying Titmus to the gatepost, she's a lazy animal and has no objection to stand there nibbling the grass by the wayside he goes in at the familiar porch beneath which he was carried unconscious on the day of his accident and seats himself by linda's work-table

Starting point is 13:37:05 how pleasant the room is to his sight how homelike there are the books linda read to him the books that seem to breathe a deeper pathos and holier tenderness when she read there's her drawing-board with an unfinished landscape a wind of the river overshadowed by willows there are the flowers her hand is arranged there the sofa on which he passed so many reposeful hours of unthinking happiness why did i permit myself to be so happy he thinks in self-reproach it was a pleasant dream but the return to life's dull reality is a little hard to bear he rouses himself from his musing mood and begins to talk to trot taking trot on the puppy on his knee together trot stops tolerably quiet but the puppy begins a perambulation a voyage of discovery up and down mr secretan's coat-sleeves and collar and even on to his head which is more familiar than agreeable well trot you haven't forgotten me i hope i not forgotten oo but i don't love oo no more replies trot decisively not love me any more oh Trot, that is cruel. Why not? White will go away and make Mammy cry, demands Trot, facing the accused

Starting point is 13:38:30 with magisterial severity. Alexis Crimson's at the interrogation. I never made Mammy cry, he falters. That's a tory. Oud did. She cried the day who went. She cried a little every day. She said it was a headache. Trot knows better.

Starting point is 13:38:52 She not such a coward is to cry for a headache. Trot doesn't cry when his headaches. He's a man. Yes, but Mammy's only a woman, Trot. And a headache might make her cry if it was a very bad one. Mammy wouldn't tell a story. She says I mustn't, responds Trot. But I think she did. Grown-up people may do anything.

Starting point is 13:39:19 may in today's tell stories no trot not good people only wicked people tell stories a shadow flits across the threshold and the subject of their conversation enters trot scrambles off mr secretan's knee and runs to his adopted mother i told him he was naughty to go away and make oo cry says trot and he says he didn't foolish trot what silly notions you get into your head says linda bending over the child and blushing deeply alexis sees the blush and he sees something more than that he sees that linda has changed within the ten days that have gone by since he left orly mill a settled pallor succeeds that fleeting red her eyes are sunken and there is a dark line beneath them which deepens their colour and gives a pathetic expression that touches him to the heart she has cared for him she has been sorry for him and he poor fettered wretch dare say no word of his care or his sorrow for her she must drink the cup of humiliation to the dregs and know that the man to whom her innocent heart has gone forth is the property of another i have been anxious to come and tell you once more how gratefully i shall ever remember your goodness to me says alexis after they have talked about trot and trot's puppy for a few minutes the puppy is to grow up into a newfoundland if it realises the expectations of its friends but there is an element of uncertainty in these things and alexis has a lurking conviction that this puppy will develop into the most mongrel of mongrel believe me neither my grandfather nor i consider our care of your matter for gratitude mr secretant replies linda providence brought you to our door we should have been very unchristian like if we had not cared for you

Starting point is 13:41:20 i think you must know that if you had been the poorest tramp that ever dropped down on the roadside we should have done the same i am quite sure of that replies alexis and that is why i have never ventured to speak about the expense that my illness must have entailed upon you pray relieved your mind upon that score your housekeepers sent all the broths and jellies hot-house fruits poultry game and wines from the grange i think you only cost us a few new laid eggs and a little milk mrs bodlo kept our larder almost too well supplied in her anxiety that you should have nourishing diet mrs bodlo only did her duty but lightly as you regard the obligation miss chalice it is one which i shall carry to my dying day if ever i am inclined to make a bad use of this life of mine i will remember how hard you strove to win it back from the grave i ventured to bring you something a little gold-wise with your initials on the back which i hope you will wear sometimes in remembrance of the many weary hours you spent by the stranger's sick-bed i will wear it always replies linda with tears in her eyes who can't wear two wotts exclaims trot who wear o'er fuzzers watch i shall keep that among my treasures trot but it is nearly worn out poor old watch and i'm sure this will keep better time oh like this best cut the gentleman give it oh cries far-seeing trot alexis pretends not to hear this last observation and produces the merechamp pipe which linda admires amazingly and which trot wants to have in his mouth and to make belief to smoke as he does sometimes with daddy's homelier clay dear little trot exclaims alexis how your small voice went enlivenous at cheseled grange you cannot imagine how dull it is there miss chalice in the long summer evenings no and yet i think i know how long the summer evenings can be but trot would not do much to enliven them he is worn out by seven o'clock oh by the way talking of trot i've made one little discovery since you left us

Starting point is 13:43:42 what is that cries alexis eagerly don't let me raise false expectations it is such a trifle scarcely worth mentioning but you seemed anxious to find out our little darling's parentage and this seems a clue however small what is it pray tell me i am most anxious more anxious than i can explain pray do not excite yourself mr sequitaine i was looking over some papers in my desk the other day when i came upon the blank sheet of note-paper which contained that last remittance for trot i remember it on account of the peculiar way in which it was folded and i noticed for the first time that there was a name stamped upon it in the corner the name of the stationer who supplied it no doubt yes of course i saved the sheet of paper to show you the name is morgan the name is morgan Redcastle. Alexis starts from his chair and sees his trot as if he would take possession of him on the instant. He is speechless with surprise. You know the name of that place?

Starting point is 13:44:50 Know it? Yes, I have reason. Bitter reason to know it. A small town in Yorkshire. And that money, obviously sent by the child's mother, was sent from Redcastle. castle? One would suppose so. There can be no doubt of it. Tell me, Miss Chalice, if I were to show you a photograph of the woman you sheltered, the mother of this boy, would you recognize her? The picture I shall show you was taken in the bloom of her beauty. You saw her, should it indeed be the same woman,

Starting point is 13:45:25 faded, worn by care and deprivation. Should you know the face under such altered conditions? I should know it anywhere, but why should you be so agitated? Why should the mere name of this place excite you so much? Ask me no question, till I come back to you with the photograph, says Alexis. I shall go and return as fast as my horse will carry me. Pray be careful.

Starting point is 13:45:51 Remember that I have been thrown. Trust me, dear Miss Chalice, I will run no risks. I'm too anxious to settle the question of Trot's parentage. he takes the child in his arms kisses him as he has never kissed him yet in all their friendly companionship gives him back to linda and runs out at the gate he is mounted titmus and is out of sight before linda is recovered from her astonishment in his agitation genlumum's in a hurry exclaims trot end of chapter forty chapter forty one of dead men's shoes this is the libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Judy Mason

Starting point is 13:46:50 Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 42. A Father's Claim Alexis scarcely knows what he is doing during that scamper back to Cheseld Grange. Titmus, inspired by the knowledge that she is going home to her stable and two o'clock feed, throws her shoulders forward and sends out her feet, trotting as if for a wager. Take off her bridle and give her some corns, says Alexis to the groom who receives him. I shall want her again in ten minutes. He goes to the library, unlocks a dispatch box, and takes out an oblong velvet case,

Starting point is 13:47:32 containing his wife's portrait, a picture taken by a famous photographer, during their bright Parisian honeymoon, the portrait of a girl bride, lovely, elegantly dressed, smiling at the unknown future, and unconscious that these happy, idle honeymoon hours were eating up the capital that should have served to start husband and wife in the business of life.

Starting point is 13:47:57 It is a photograph of Sybil at her best before secret cares and hypocrisies had wrought their lines on her fair young face. Alexis contemplates the picture regretfully for a few moments before he puts it back in his pocket. Yes, she was very lovely then, he tells himself, and there is nothing in this face that bespeaks a heart capable of treachery or deceit. It was poverty's bitter school that spoiled her. Some noble spirits grow strong by treading the rough ways of life.

Starting point is 13:48:32 Hers was too weak to survive the ordeal of misfortune. poor child, she must have suffered. He is on titmouse again, and returning to Doarly in a few minutes, very much against the mayor's inclination, she indulges in a stubborn crawl, or, being touched up with the whip, jogs and jolts her rider in an irregular trot, expressive of supreme ill-temper. Urged out of this, she sets off in a furious canter, as if to inform him that she has some go left in her yet, in spite of ill usage, and may contrive to pitch him over her head if he is too aggravating. These devices finally bring Alexis to Dorley, where he finds Linda and Trot in the front garden,

Starting point is 13:49:20 evidently on the watch for him. I'm so glad you've returned, cries Linda. You've made me quite miserable. Forgive me, dear Miss Chalice, but if you knew what hopes that one little word Redcastle has raised in my mind, "'See here!' he takes the case from his pocket and shows her Sybil's photograph. "'Does that face remind you of any face you have ever seen before?' "'Yes,' she answers, pale to the lips, but without an instant's hesitation, "'it is the portrait of Trot's mother.' "'She was not so beautiful as that.

Starting point is 13:49:55 "'She was thin and worn and haggard, but I should recognize the eyes and mouth anywhere. "'It is she.' "'This is the portrait of my wife. wife, Linda, and Trot, the helpless baby you adopted in order to save him from the hazard of his mother's distraction or despair, is my son. You told me your son was dead. I was taught to believe so. My wife, for some mysterious reason, told me that cruel lie. She was ashamed, perhaps of having abandoned our child to the care of another, and feared to tell me the truth. are you sure falters linda you're not deceiving yourself and me if you are sure that this picture is the portrait of trot's mother there can be no doubt that trot is my son

Starting point is 13:50:49 and you will take him away from me says linda piteously just when he has grown most dear after all i have suffered all i have borne patiently for his sake i am to lose him that is hard if you knew how i have pined for a son linda what day-dreams i have woven about my little one's image how bitter a grief i felt when i was told that wicked lie about his death you'd understand my rapture at finding him my eagerness to claim him for my own my darling my hope my precious care heir to the fortune that providence has dropped into my lap poorly deserved on my part heaven knows he shall be better worthy of it yes murmurs linda faintly i can understand it's only natural he's your son your rights are sacred and you have suffered for his sake linda your generosity has been rewarded by the world's injustice but i can set all right i shall claim him for my own and every one round about cheseled and dourly shall know all his story yes i'll not blush to tell the whole bitter truth how my wife left me in poverty and how my son was born in a working house. They're standing in the parlor, trot watching their excited countenances, with wonder depicted upon his own.

Starting point is 13:52:18 You have a right to take him away, says Linda sadly, but I think he will take all the sunshine out of our lives with him. My grandfather is almost as fond of him as I am. I am not going to dissever old links, Linda. He shall come often to see you. He shall be taught to know you as the guardian angel of his infancy. He shall always remember his first home. Yes, but it will be his home no longer, replies Linda with a sigh.

Starting point is 13:52:49 Alexis is silent. He feels that he must seem a wretch, a destroyer, entering this happy house old only to ruin its joy. But how can he forego his claim? How can he relinquish the delight of watching his son's infancy? develop into boyhood guiding the baby mind making the boy at once pupil and plaything source of all his pleasures in the present and all his hopes in the future at this juncture trot who has listened intently arrives at the comprehension that he has a personal interest in the conversation he catches at the idea that he is to be taken away transferred from mammy to the gentleman and he suddenly bursts in upon the conversation with a dismal howl. Me won't be took away, me stay with Mammy, cries the boy, and he clambers up into Linda's arms

Starting point is 13:53:43 and clings there as if resolved to resist any attempt at dislodging him. What trot, cries Alexis, smiling at the little one's excitement. Won't you come and live with me and have a dear little Shetland pony to ride and a big garden to play in? And a rocking horse and lots of plum-cakes and picture books? Here Alexis's knowledge of juvenile weaknesses fails him, and he knows not what further temptation to offer. Me won't have pony, me not want a garden, me got nice big garden, me want mammy, cries Trot,

Starting point is 13:54:22 and he clings still tighter to Linda. Trot, shall I tell you a secret? Yes, says Trot, who thinks that a secret must needs be seen, something worth hearing. You must come and live with me, Trot, my darling. God meant you and me to live together. I'm your father. No, you are not, screams the boy.

Starting point is 13:54:44 You're the gentleman with the broken arm. Me never have no father. And you won't come to live at the Grange? Such a large garden six times as big as the garden here, and a Shetland pony with a long tail. Me won't, cries Trot, emphatic. father de pony well trot has decided miss chalice says alexis gravely if i were ungrateful enough selfish enough to wish to take him from you his childish heart is true and fast he shall stay with you since you wish it for the next few years at any rate this shall be his home and he shall come to cheseld only as a visitor you will let me have him sometimes

Starting point is 13:55:31 let you have him oh mr secretan are you not too generous in consenting to leave him with me i should be an ungrateful hound if i could refuse you've made my son's infancy bright and happy you've saved him from the evils of poverty from his mother's selfishness how can i be grateful enough to you only let me keep my darling a little longer and i am more than recompensed i must be proud and happy too when i have recovered a little from this surprise to know that he is your son that his future will be bright and prosperous his worldly position honourable to think that my little waif and stray should be the future squire of cheseld my grandfather will be so pleased it is a triumph for me over him dear old man for he said that i was very foolish to adopt a nameless child and now my dearest has name and fortune home and father we will make a good man of him between us miss chalice says alexis more related by this discovery than he was by the inheritance of miss secretan's estate he has no doubt as to trust identity there seems to him no room for doubt yet he is anxious to make things as certain as possible to secure independent evidence in case his claim to his son should ever be disputed he goes back to the grange only to get a fresh horse and then rides into the quiet old cathedral town to talk the matter over with Mr. Scroger's. He does not consider the provincial solicitor a Mansfield or a Cockburn, but Mr. Scrogers is the best legal intellect available on the spot, and to Mr. Scrogers he goes. The family solicitor listens to all Alexis has to tell

Starting point is 13:57:19 with the gravity of a learned owl that has lived a century or so in the same ivy bush. He contracts his eyebrows, he purses up his lips, and looks zizzes. if he had known the whole story before, but for some wise reason he had kept his knowledge to himself. Oh, curious case, Mr. Secretan, he says at last. A very curious case. It's lucky your estate is not entailed. Why so? Well, there might be difficulties in the way of succession. It might not be easy to identify this infant, born in such a very irregular manner, as your son and heir. There might be suspicions.

Starting point is 13:57:59 the heir at law might file a bill in chancery i should consider it a very hazardous business where your estate entailed but you as an independent man fettered by no entail may leave your real property to tom dick or harry i should recommend you to take this infant into your house at once let him bear your name let him be recognized by all your acquaintances as your son yes i shall take care of that i shall tell everybody but there's a difficulty about bringing him into my house the lady who brought him up who rescued him from i know not what misery has a claim upon his affection the strongest and a strong a claim on my gratitude to take him away from her would be almost to break her heart almost not quite there's a long distance between the two adverbs replies the cynical scroger's most women have their hearts almost broken once in their lives give her a new bonnet you do not know the lady sir she is not a woman to be solaced by a new bonnet hasn't she a head asked mr scroger's I never knew a woman with a head that a bonnet wouldn't pacify. Half the cases at the assizes in which the female as a plaintiff might be settled out of court if the defendant knew when and how to offer the solotium of a bonnet. I see, Mr. Scroger's, you are a bachelor and a misogynist, says Alexis, smilingly.

Starting point is 13:59:34 No, sir, replies the lawyer. I am a misogynist and a married man. Well, the first thing I have to do is ultimately. my will, says Alexis, returning to the business question. Decidedly, if you were convinced that this infant, herein before named, is your son, you would better make a will in his favor. Prepare one as fast as you can, Mr. Scroger's, leaving the bequest to my good friend Plowden just as it stands. You must have trustees in case of your dying before the child attains his majority. Make Plowden trustee. You should have a second in the event of Mr. Plowden's death.

Starting point is 14:00:12 how you lawyers remind us of our mortality well make miss chalice the second trustee and guardian of the boy in case of my death nobody will ever love him better than she does and in the event of her marriage marriage was make no difference to her she would always love my boy mr scroger's relieves his doubtful mind by a faint smile his idea of marriage is that it makes a very great difference to his legal mind marriage transforms a man even the will he made as a bachelor is no longer valid proving that in the eye of the law the married man and the bachelor are two distinct personages then you would recommend me to get together all the evidence i can bearing upon my boy's birth says alexander I think it would be wise to do so. The fact of your parentage may never be disputed. You can dispose of the cheseled estate as you choose, but still it might be well to have all the necessary documents and a tested copy of your marriage certificate and so on.

Starting point is 14:01:17 Yes, I was a reckless fellow when I married. Heaven knows what became of the certificate. My wife may have kept it. Certainly I didn't take any care of it. The parson had made her my wife. That was all I thought about on that bewildering day. then you had better get a copy of the register without delay yes and i will go to the woman with whom my wife and i lodged she will remember that my wife was expecting to become a mother when she left me if that woman is to be found i will get from her a written declaration of that fact it would be as well to do so says mr scrogers approvingly and alexis leaves him to prepare the new will which she is to bring to the grage early the next morning

Starting point is 14:02:00 stay says the lawyer on the threshold you haven't told me the infant's christian name he was christened william no other name i believe not but you can fill in the names to-morrow i will ask that question in the mean time alexis goes back to chesled pondering on the lawyer's advice about his son mr scroger's has distinctly said that it is for the child's welfare for the security of his future position that he should be domiciled with his father and alexis longs to have the little one under the same roof with him to see him daily hourly to watch over him sleeping and waking to make him his plaything and companion Against this natural desire, there is the promise he has made to Linda Chalice, the debt of gratitude he owes her. Hard to break that promise. Hard to ignore that debt. End of Chapter 41.

Starting point is 14:03:08 Chapter 42 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Judy Mason. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 42.

Starting point is 14:03:35 A Wedding Eve. The days pass, with a frightful rapidity as it seems to Sybil after that Tuesday night on which Joel Pilgrim came back from York with a marriage license. Stephen Trenchard is ailing and keeps his room for the greater part of the time. But Dr. Midsund, a most careful man in all critical cases, comes to Lancaster Lodge only once a day, and there is no hint of danger. The doctor's manner has that pleasant vivacity, which suits a trifling derangement of the patient's system.

Starting point is 14:04:11 He sits by the bedside and discourses upon local topics, the water company, sewage, and other agreeable subjects. On Thursday morning, Sybil lies and wait for him on the landing, outside Mr. Trenchard's room. You do not think my uncle very ill, do you, Dr. Mitzend? She asks, with evident anxiety, a solicitude which the kindly old doctor thinks highly creditable to her, and which he remembers afterwards, to her disadvantage. Certainly not, my dear Miss Fontthorpe, he replies, cheerily.

Starting point is 14:04:49 There is a little frustration. Our dear patient is very feeble. that is only to be expected at his time of life. There is a wonderful reserve of vigor about his constitution, exceptional recuperative power. He is all muscle and sinew, no superfluous flesh, and this, taken in conjunction with his temperate habits, would lead one to anticipate a long life. I fear his mind has been a little troubled lately.

Starting point is 14:05:19 Very foolish. A man in his position should worry him about nothing but no doubt wealth has its responsibilities then there is no reason for alarm not the slightest if there were i should call in my friend dr wilmot of cramston for a consultation your uncles is not a life to be trifled with adds dr mitsome solemnly as if the life of a millionaire were a much bigger thing in creation than the existences of the vulgar herd pray don't be uneasy my dear young lady. And now I look at you, I fear you've been fretting. You were looking pale and fatigued. And this little hand, as he shakes hands with her, is very feverish. He lays his finger on her wrist. Good gracious, what a pulse. This won't do, my dear Miss Fontthorpe. Mental disturbance has been going on here. I'll send you a composing draft. You must keep yourself quiet for the next day or two,

Starting point is 14:06:23 especially as you are so soon to start upon a long voyage. Your dear uncle has told me of the interesting event which is to take place next Saturday. Very sudden. On account of Mr. Pilgrim's recall to Calcutta? Yes, yes, I understand. And a very quiet wedding, your uncle's health not allowing. Of course, of course. I shall take the liberty to be present in the church in order to have the pleasure of congratulating you.

Starting point is 14:06:51 I used to think our young friend Stormant was to be the happy man, and then there was some talk of your becoming mistress of the how, but you have managed to deceive us all, you see. Yes, falters Sybil with a sickly smile. Don't forget to take the composing draft. Goodbye. Distinctly, said Dr. Midson remember the anxious look she turns upon him as he leaves her. That's not a happy marriage, she tells his daughters at luncheon.

Starting point is 14:07:24 It's a case of hands, not hearts, my dears. All money, money, money. With these self-made men, that question swallows up every other consideration. It is long, since Red Castle has had such a delightful subject for gossip, as this suddenly arranged wedding, Mrs. Chastabel has made a round of morning calls in order to tell her dear friends the startling news. And the marriage has been discussed from every point of view,

Starting point is 14:07:55 the general idea being that Mr. Trenchard is a tyrant, and Sibyl, the victim of his mercenary views. Mrs. Stormont's particular idea, which she parts in confidence to everybody, is that Sybil was devotedly attached to her dear Frederick, and that it is to prevent her loping with Fred that Mr. Trenchard has hurried on her espouse, with Joel Pilgrim. Inexorable time, like death, advances with measured tread.

Starting point is 14:08:27 It is Friday, the eve of that ill-omened bridle, and Sybil sits alone in her pretty morning room, the room in which Joel found her on his return from York. She has made all her arrangements for her journey, packed her trunks, and labeled them for the steamer Ganges. Her own firm hand has just written those labels, Mrs. Pilgrim, passenger to Calcutta, Joel looking on all the time with that ugly smile of his. One small leather bag is unlabeled, and in that, Sibyl has put her little stock of trinkets, a small supply of underlinen,

Starting point is 14:09:04 and the marble paper-covered book containing the diary she kept at Mrs. Azelton's. She has kept no diary at Lancaster Lodge. She is alone now exhausted by a long morning devoted to the task of passers. maryon has been with her pretending to help full of exclamations and congratulations wonderment and curiosity it doesn't seem so much of a match after all marian has observed candidly but i suppose mr pilgrim is awfully rich and money is what you'd like sybil however i must say if i had been you i should have tried to lead sir wilford cardinell on a little further he did seem very much taken with you and every one was surprised that it only ended in a flirtation but men are such deceivers as some one says in an old song one foot on somewhere and one on somewhere else to one thing constant never. Sybil has contrived to get rid of her sister a little before dinner time.

Starting point is 14:10:09 Marion is to be at the wedding and is to officiate a sole bridesmaid, but there has not been time for her to get a new dress made, a fact which she does not omit to be well with much lamentation. It's the worst apology for a wedding I ever heard of, she remarks, but I suppose you'll recompense herself for all this with balls and parties when you get to Calcutta. yes answered sybil with a faint smile i shall enjoy myself immensely in calcutta it is seven o'clock a lovely summer evening and sybil sits by the disordered table scattered with books and papers she's very pale and there is a look of apathy in her face and attitude as if she had abandoned all effort and surrendered herself to fate she is startled from this blank listnessness by the announcement of Sir Wilford Cardinal. No visit could surprise her more than this at such a time.

Starting point is 14:11:10 Sir Wilford told me to say that he wishes most particularly to see you alone, ma'am, says the servant. He will not detain you long. You better bring him up here. Mr. Pilgrim is in the drawing-room, I suppose? Yes, ma'am. There's not much to attract him now in this white, wretched face, think Sybil, with a hurried look at the glass, which reflects the shadow of a vanished beauty. Sir Wilford enters breathless and evidently strongly agitated. My dear Miss Fontthorpe, he says hurriedly, I only came home from the north this afternoon and heard of this intended marriage. I wrote over at once. Can I be of any use? You honored me with your confidence, and I told you that if ever the hours should come when you would need a friend,

Starting point is 14:12:01 you might command me. Let me be your friend today. Let me stand between you and the tyranny that is being practiced. Let me save you from a crime. You are all that is good and generous, Sir Wilford. And if I needed help, I would ask for yours, but I need none. What do you mean? Your marriage is appointed for tomorrow morning. You, the wife of another man, are to be married to this Mr. Pilgrim. The marriage is appointed for tomorrow, but no such marriage will take place. How will you prevent it?

Starting point is 14:12:39 In a very simple manner. The bride will be missing. You are going away? Yes, I am left with but one resource, flight. I shall be far away from Red Castle at 11 o'clock tomorrow. You are sure of being able to escape, sure, that no coercion will be used? I think not. I have acted my part carefully during the last few days,

Starting point is 14:13:08 and Mr. Pilgrim believes that I am resigned to the inevitable. My trunks are all packed for India. I have labeled them with my own hands. And you have made every arrangement for going away, asked Sir Wilford anxiously. You have friends to whom you can go? Yes, I've made all arrangements. I've decided where to go, replies civil, after a pause. Pray trust me, plead Sir Wilford earnestly. Think of me no longer as your lover, but your friend only. You must need friendly counsel. Do not take any step unadvisedly. You've played a desperate game for your uncle's fortune and, as it now turns out, a losing game.

Starting point is 14:13:51 would it not be wiser better in every way even at this last moment to confess the truth to your uncle he might forgive you he might even retain your hold upon his affection impossible you do not know my uncle trenchard as i do i thank you for your friendship sir wilford but this is a case in which advice is useless there is but one course open to me it is one that i ought to have taken long ago perhaps this straight and woman course. But I have stubbornly pursued my own plan, and the end is failure. If you would only confide in me, if you would only tell me where you're going, to whom? I'm going to my husband. Then I can say no more. I feel you are taking the right course. If, Sir Wilford hesitates and blushes, if you should be in want of ready money for your traveling expenses or for any the emergency, which you may not now foresee, pray suffer me to be your banker. I cashed a check at the bank as I came up the town, taking out a well-filled pocketbook. Let me lend you fifty or a hundred

Starting point is 14:15:04 in small notes. You are too good, exclaimed Sibble, touched by this thoughtfulness. But I have money, and money's worth which will serve me abundantly. I promise that, if ever I'm in desperate need of help. In such need as my husband and I have known in the past, I will apply to you. I will not be too proud to be a petitioner. Thanks for that, promise, and now goodbye. I will not intrude upon you any longer, but if anything should happen within the next few hours, if there should be any attempt at constraint on the part of your uncle or Mr. Pilgrim, send a messenger to me, and I'll be at your side as soon as my horse can carry me. Or I will stay in Redcastle tonight, if you like, at the coach and horses, so as to be nearer at hand in case I'm wanted. Believe me, there is no

Starting point is 14:15:56 occasion. If the worst comes, I have but to declare my marriage. Then goodbye. I will not wish that we may meet under happier circumstances, for it will be happier for me not to see you. but I do must hardly wish you every happiness providence can bestow. I'm not very hopeful, answered Sibyl with a sigh. I begin to think that I flung away my chance of happiness when I tried to win fortune. And thus they part. Sir Wilford honestly anxious for the welfare of the woman he has loved, Sybil touched by his devotion.

Starting point is 14:16:34 She goes down to the drawing room presently and finds Joel Pilgrim walking up and down in the twilight with by no means of radiant brow. You have had a visitor, he says, frowning upon her as she enters. Only Sir Wilford, Cardinal, to offer me his congratulations, she answers lightly. Only your former admirer, sneers Joel. I should hardly have thought he would have considered your marriage a subject for his congratulations. He is more generous than you give him credit for being. so it seems I don't as a rule credit my acquaintance with an unlimited amount of generosity

Starting point is 14:17:13 they dine together tete-a-tete and Sybil seems that her brightest throughout the meal which is conducted with the strictest ceremony and lasts a long time gladly would she have escaped the weariness of Mr. Pilgrim's detested society for these last few hours but she wishes to disarm suspicion by every means in her power so as to leave herself free and unfettered at the last her fascinations which have stood her in such good stead with the rest of the world seem to be wasted on joel pilgrim he is gloomy and absent-minded all dinner-time eats little but drinks a good deal and when sybil leaves him to return to the drawing-room he does not follow her with lover like haste but sits brooding over his wine for half an hour then goes straight upstairs to Stephen Trenchard's room. Mr. Trenchard is lying on the sofa, wrapped in his dressing gown, with all the apparatus of invalism around him. Medicine bottles, hot-house grapes, soda water on the table by his side, a fire burning on the hearth, though it is

Starting point is 14:18:24 nearly midsummer, for ill health has made the Anglo-Indian inclined to chilliness and shiverings. He looks up with a frown as Joel enters. I thought you were never coming near me and more, he said fretfully. I've been invoting myself to my intended bride. Such affection as she lavishes upon me deserves some return. Spare that poor child, your sneer.

Starting point is 14:18:50 She is much too good for you. Have you succeeded? Entirely. The bank consents to discount my bills for the required amount. I have told them that I am buying an estate in this neighborhood and have to complete the purchase tomorrow. Have they sent you the money? asked Mr. Trenchard

Starting point is 14:19:07 eagerly? No, but I shall have it tomorrow morning. I have telegraphed them that the purchase is to be completed tomorrow at 11 o'clock, and so it is, only it is another kind of purchase, the purchase of a lovely wife, which is to be concluded at that hour. I shall have the money, tan knows for a thousand each, by the first post tomorrow morning. I'm glad of that. You are drawing the lifeblood out of the concern, and remember there is very little hope of the business surviving with such a withdrawal of capital. Then, my dear Joel, it must go. If it were a question of capital, you might have some occasion to look unhappy about it, but as I am only absorbing your superfluous credit, superfluous, echoes Joel derisively. Yes, my dear Joel, a man of your ability should be able to extend his credit to an almost illimitable measure.

Starting point is 14:20:06 more he owes, the more reason his creditors had for upholding his credit. Debt is the most solid foundation a commercial house can be planted upon, for its pillars have their bases in other people's pockets. You're sure the bank will send the money? As sure as one can be of anything in this world. Remember, no money, no marriage. And a telegram to my Calcutta lawyer to make short work of pilgrim and company. I understand. no quarter don't be uneasy your demands shall be met and fully satisfied it is midnight and lancaster lodge is at rest a light still burns as it burns all night to mr trenchant's room brighter than the ordinary lamps of a sick chamber a light by which the invalid can read if he pleases for mr trenchard's slumbers are often disturbed and in every night he has some wakeful hours podmore the butler who sleeps in the room over his masters comes down at stated intervals to give the invalid his medicine a secondary door near the head of the bed in mr trenchert's room opens on to a small landing on the back staircase leading to the servants quarters

Starting point is 14:21:22 by this servant's staircase podmore descends and ascends through this door almost hidden by the ample draperies of the tall arabian bed he enters and departs noiseless as a ghost and the silent watches of the night. Mr. Trenchard has protested more than once that he is quite well enough to look after his own medicine, and waitful enough to take it at the appointed hours, but Dr. Midson has laid a stress upon the matter and has insisted upon Podmore being responsible for the regular administration of those gentle tonics, not strong enough to hurt a baby, and too mild to take effect upon the constitution of a healthy rabbit, whereby Podmore's night are made a burden to him from the necessity of arousing himself at certain intervals and the ticking of his big silver watch under his pillow is as the stroke of doom sybil spends the quiet hour between midnight and one o'clock in writing to her uncle stephen that which she dares not tell him she finds courage to write knowing that her letter can only reach his hands after she has left red castle in all probability forever if he is desperate

Starting point is 14:22:36 angry as she believes he will be she will not see his anger if it is in his nature to forgive her severance may help to soften his feelings and touch his heart after all it is just possible that the hold she is obtained upon his affections is too strong to be loosened and that love may extinguish wrath she would have been more ready to hope this before the coming of joel pilgrim but she fancies that his presence under that roof has changed her uncle's feelings towards her, that as Joel's influence has increased, hers has grown less. In that letter, she tells Stephen Trenchard the true story of her marriage, tells how from utter destitution, with starvation staring her in the face, she fled to him for shelter and comfort. Of her hope of inheriting his fortune, she says nothing but her story in all other respects is fully and truthfully told.

Starting point is 14:23:33 When I first came beneath your roof, she writes, I hope to be able someday to tell you of my marriage to win your pity in regard for my husband. But when I discovered your rooted hatred of his name and race, when I found how deeply the old wound still rankled, I lost courage and kept my secret at the hazard of seeming the worst of deceivers should you ever discover the truth. The hour has come when I can keep my secret no longer. I go out into the world and seek my husband to share his home,

Starting point is 14:24:06 however humble or however wretched. If you can bring yourself to forgive me, if you can believe that I have been grateful for all your goodness, as heaven knows I have been, if you can take the more generous view of all past wrongs and extend your kindness to the guiltless son of your enemy, it shall need but one word to bring me back to you. You're grateful and dutiful niece, Sibyl Secretan. She feels the thrill of joy and pride as she signs her own right, name for the first time since she left her husband. Even in this hour of uncertainty, the wide world, so cruel to unprotected poverty, all before her, she is glad that the mask has been thrown aside and that she has her honest self once more.

Starting point is 14:24:54 She addresses the letter to Stephen Trenchard in a bold, firm hand, and places it conspicuously on the mantelpiece of her little sitting-room, where it must be seen by the first person who enters the room next morning. I have played my game and lost, she thinks, as she lies down for a few hours, if possible to rest. Sleep, she knows to be impossible. If I had won, I wonder whether success would ever have recompensed me for all I have suffered from the bitterness of an acted lie, for the many hours in which I have pretended to be happy with a gnawing pain at my heart. End of Chapter 42. Chapter 43 of Dead Man's Shoes.

Starting point is 14:25:48 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Judy Mason. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braden. Chapter 43. The passing bell About half past nine o'clock on that Saturday morning,

Starting point is 14:26:18 which has been talked of as Sybil Fonthorpe's wedding day, Red Castle is disturbed by a sound of ill omen. No blithe, marriage peel rings out on the soft summered air, but the slow and solemn passing bell tolls dismally from the Minster Tower and strikes on every heart with its grim reminder of mortality. Let that bell sound as often as it will. It carries always the same message. And something less or more than mortal must be the ear which can hear its direful note with indifference.

Starting point is 14:26:55 Before the day is old, Redcastle has subject matter for the talk of a year. Wonder, curiosity, and an atmosphere of excitement pervade the town. Business, if not suspended, is performed in an absent-minded, perfunctory manner. people group themselves in doorways hangover counters lounge in public-house bars gather at the street corners and there is but one name in every mouth and that name is trenchard a name worn no more upon earth a name that is a name and nothing more henceforward it is no longer the docket of humanity but a mere collection of letters to be engraven on a tombstone stephen trenchard is dead he was found dead in his bed at nine o'clock this morning by the expectant bridegroom who went to his room at that hour to wake him and found him locked in a slumber for which earth has no key very sudden exclaims red castle we knew that the dear old gentleman was ailing but we did not expect this at his age though of course life is precarious the thread worn to attenuation easily snapped. How about the old gentleman's will? And is Miss Fondthorpe's sole heiress?

Starting point is 14:28:17 That will not be known till after the funeral, says Redcastle, and we must language for some days in suspense. How does Miss Fondthor take it? asked Redcastle, and Mr. Pilgrim, the match between those two will be off now, most likely. A sad loss for the gentleman, a happy escape for the lady. She will marry Sir Wilford Cardinal, after all, perhaps, and take a leading position in the county. How uncertain is life? How wonderful are the ways of providence? Mrs. Stormont and Mrs. Grotian sent out their pages for black-edged notepaper of superfine quality, and rather deeper than the usual complimentary mourning, and pen elaborate letters of condolence, interlarded with appropriate quotations from the scriptures. The silver cord and the

Starting point is 14:29:08 the golden bowl are brought out with various other similes which by much use or misuse have been as it were dragged in the gutter of commonplace composition i will venture to call to-morrow my sweet friend concludes mrs stormont to mingle my tears with yours i hope you will feel equal to seeing me poor fred is broken with grief at the thought of what you must suffer inside lancaster lodge there is confusion worse than death Dr. Mitzin has been summoned to the death chamber, not at Chole Pilgrim's bidding. What can a doctor do for the dead? Mr. Pilgrim has asked contemptuously. The best of them can do little enough for the living. It is Mrs. Skinner, the housekeeper who are sent for Dr. Mitzin. Podmore is helpless and useless on this awful morning.

Starting point is 14:29:58 He sits in his pantry stricken as if the blow had stupefied him. The blinds are down in Stephen Trenchard's room, as they are throughout the darkened house. But Joel, who has wandered in and out of the room while the last offices had been performed for the dead, has flung the windows wide open to the warm June morning, and the scent of the roses floats in from the garden below, mingled with the more subtle perfume of blossoming limes. Dr. Mixins had started on his morning rounds when the messenger was sent for him, and it is noon when he calls at Lancaster Lodge.

Starting point is 14:30:33 Joel receives him in the study, grave, sorrowful, of countenance, but tranquil. This is a sad of it, Dr. Mitzin, he says. Not more sad than it is unintelligible, Mr. Perelgroom answers the doctor. There was not the slightest indication of a fatal termination to Mr. Trencher's illness when I saw him yesterday, nothing, to alarm the most anxious of medical men. Something wrong about the heart, I suppose, suggests Joel. We shall see if it was that.

Starting point is 14:31:05 You mean? i mean that this is a case which calls for an inquest you would have no objection i suppose at mr trenchard son-in-law i naturally regard you as in some manner a member of his family why should i object but it is rather out of the usual course is it not to hold an inquest upon a man who has been in failing health for a long time and whose death although sudden may be taken as a natural termination of his illness i beg your pardon death comes too soon and too suddenly to be taken as a natural termination here i am as much surprised at mr trencher's death as if i had left him yesterday in robust health i gave miss fauntthorff my positive assurance that there was no danger or likelihood of danger in her uncle's condition poor young lady the blow will be a terrible one for her how does she bear it that is a question i cannot answer for i have not seen her yet to-day she went out this morning before breakfast indeed before any of the servants are up and has not come in yet that is very strange this was to have been her wedding-day it was and she leaves the house before the servants are up and does not appear again it is now between twelve and one it is strange but true Dr. Mitzend is evidently disturbed by this intelligence.

Starting point is 14:32:38 Pardon me, Mr. Pilgrim, if I say something not quite agreeable to you, he says after a pause, but was there no coercion used on the subject of this marriage? It was arranged rather suddenly, and we in Rentcastle had an idea that Miss Fondthorff's affections were engaged in another direction. When I spoke to this poor young lady the day before yesterday, I certainly perceived indications of mental disturbance. She was feverish, unduly excited, her appearance haggard, her eyes sunken.

Starting point is 14:33:10 Did she freely consent to this marriage, Mr. Pilgrim? Were you and she on good terms? On the best possible terms, ask Podmore, who waited upon us at dinner yesterday, when we dined tete-a-tete. Then you can imagine no reason for what I may call Miss Foneman, Hawthorpe's disappearance? None whatsoever. Her trunks are packed for our Indian journey. She directed them with her own hands. I do not say that the alliance was a love match on her part, as it was on mine,

Starting point is 14:33:42 but she knew that I was devoted to her, that her uncle had set his heart upon our marriage, and she was quite reconciled to the idea. I'm glad to hear that, for I was inclined to fear that her wandering away at such an early hour this morning might be the result of mental disturbance. The mind thrown off its balance by extreme distress. She left the house before anyone knew of her uncle's death, you say? Well, she certainly left the house before I knew of it, answers Joel gravely. And before it was known to any of the household? Yes, she was gone when the servants went downstairs to open the house.

Starting point is 14:34:21 They found the chain and bolts of the front door unfastened. The lodgekeeper must have let her out. No, she must have gone out by a door. door in the garden wall, which opens onto the lane that divides Sir John Baudero's grounds from these. The door is locked on the inside, and the key hangs on a nail beside the door. This door was to be found unlocked, and the key left in the lock. Very deliberate, says Dr. Mitzin, but lunatics and sleepwalkers are wonderfully deliberate in their actions. The mind travels in a certain groove, but it goes steadily enough in that groove.

Starting point is 14:35:01 The doctor's impression is that Sybil, urged into an uncongenial marriage, has been goaded and into a state of temporary derangement. That is the theory by which he explains her extraordinary absence. This poor girl may be wandering about the country, he exclaims, and may come to harm. Have you made no attempt to find her? No. I've had enough to think about in the awful event of this morning until an hour or so ago i thought it possible that miss fontthorpe had gone to her uncle roberts she might have something to say to her sisters i thought on so eventful a morning it was only when marian came here at ten o'clock expecting to find sybil that i began to take alarm and even then my mind was too much occupied to realize i understand i sympathize with you my dear sir cries the good-nature doctor but i feel really concerned for this poor girl for the dead we can do but little little science will enable us to establish the cause of death but beyond that last duty there is alas nothing but for the living we must be active i should recommend you to send in every direction you could think of to search for miss fontthorpe and to communicate with the police with a mind thrown off its balance one knows not what may happen there is always the fear of a suicidal tendency true says joel pilgrim with a gloomy look which may mean fear love anxiety or anything else but which certainly indicates the mind ill at ease i will go down to the police office at once i will send some of the servants to look for her one word before you go tell me how and when you discovered our poor friend's decease at nine o'clock in the morning podmore had gone to him at four to give him his medicine and had left him sleeping tranquilly

Starting point is 14:36:52 i came down to breakfast at eight breakfast at alone and at nine went upstairs to take my friend his letters and to ask his advice about a business letter which the post had brought me i knocked at his door no answer knocked again and louder the same result this alarmed me at once for i knew him to be a light sleeper i ran downstairs to the hall called podmore and went up the back stairs with him to the other door of mr trenchard's room a door always left unlocked to admit Bodmore, who, as you know, has valeted his master of late. We went in and found Mr. Trenchard lying to all appearance in a quiet sleep, but it was the sleep of death. No signs of a struggle, no disturbance of the features? None.

Starting point is 14:37:44 Very mysterious. There was nothing amiss with the heart, no organic disease of any kind. I've used the stethoscope frequently, since the bronchial tubes have been a little irritated. There never was a sounder organization. You'd like to see him, says Joel, interrogatively? Immediately.

Starting point is 14:38:05 The doctor goes upstairs to that darkened room where the master of Lancaster Lodge takes his last rest amidst the warm breath of roses and lime blossoms. Every chair and table has been set in its place, every fold of drapery straightened by methodical hands, every species of litter, newspapers, medicine bottles, forgotten flowers left to wither in their bases. All the familiar rubbish of everyday existence has been cleared away. The chamber is funereal as death itself, mathematically exact as the tomb.

Starting point is 14:38:38 Dr. Mitzin goes in alone and remains there for about ten minutes. He comes out again, looking very grave, nay, even troubled, like a man, who has something on his mind, something heavier than that professional burden of a patient's death, which a family doctor is called upon to carry so often that he acquires the knack of supporting his load easily. He finds Joel Pilgrim waiting for him on the broad landing outside, landing glorified by the bust of somebody with a sunken nose and no pupils to his eyes, staring steadily into space. He looks very peaceful, doesn't he? asked Joel,

Starting point is 14:39:20 a subdued voice. Very. His end must have been painless, I should think. It must have been instantaneous, Mr. Pilgrim. I am sure of that. The heart suggests, Joel? No, sir. The heart was as sound as mine, or sounder. It is not a case of heart disease. Of what, then? The inquest will tell us that. You still hold of the necessity of an inquest, more than ever.

Starting point is 14:39:50 Will you tell me why? Joel inquires thoughtfully, smoothing down his silky mustache with a plump, tawny hand. Yes, when the inquest is over. Joel looks searchingly at the doctor's face, but it tells him nothing. The Greek philosopher, Truth's first martyr on the landing, does not present a more complete blankness of expression than Dr. Mitzin offers to Joel's observation.

Starting point is 14:40:19 Oh, by the way, says, Dr. Mitzin. That is the door of Miss Fontthorpe's sitting room, is it not? Yes, that is the room she generally uses of a morning. I should like to look around before we go downstairs. There might be something which would suggest the motive of her absence. A letter, perhaps. You've not been in that room this morning? No. Nor the servants? Yes, someone must have been in to draw down the blinds. True, unless the blinds were down last night. They would be most likely, but I suppose the housemaid would arrange the room this morning in the common course of things? Naturally. Dr. Missand opens the door and goes in, followed by Joel.

Starting point is 14:41:03 The room has been dusted and arranged by the housemaid, but the table near the window, covered with books, workboxes, and feminine trifles of various kinds, remains just as Sybil left it the night before. It is one of Sybil's laws that this table shall not be touched. There's to be no tidying or arranging of the trifles she values, her books, her writing materials, her fancy work. The doctor's eye surveys the pretty little room. The sunshine is shut out by the lured Venetians, but there is light enough for him to see everything. I thought she might have left a letter somewhere, says Dr. Mitzin. That is what young ladies generally do when they run away from home. We have no right to suppose that she has run away, observant.

Starting point is 14:41:50 serves Joel. True, yet it rather looks like it. He's looked at the mantelpiece, at the cabinet with its upholster's collection of pink and blue, Severus teacups, the inevitable Marie Antoinette, the eternal de Mantonan, the everlasting pompadour, smirking behind plate-lask panels. No, there is no letter on cabinet or mantelpiece. He goes to the table, glances at the books, the dainty basket lined with rose-colored satin, the shreds of lace and ivory needlecases and filigree thimble boxes. Still no letter. How intently he examines all these trifles, peers into the basket, raises the lid of the workbox, always looking for that letter. He comes upon something presently that engages his particular attention, but it is not a letter, only a glass file

Starting point is 14:42:42 corked and empty, nestling in the satin-line basket among the needlecases and reels of cotton. dilute prussic acid he says sniffing at the court cautiously that's curious joel watches him closely very curious echoes joel but i believe young women sometimes use it for their complexions don't they no i've heard of their using arsenic never prussic acid in any form miss fontthorpe may have been taking the dilute acid as a sedative i'll take care of the bottle she ought not to leave such things about. But an empty bottle can do no harm, says Joel. Perhaps not, but I may as well keep it. You'll remember where we found this bottle, Mr. Pilgrim, says Dr. Mitzin,

Starting point is 14:43:31 as he draws the empty file into his pocket. Perhaps you will kindly call at the registrar's office and certify my poor friend's death, says Mr. Pilgrim. Podmore tells me there is some kind of certificate necessary in these cases. It is just that certificate, which I do not feel myself at liberty to give until after the inquest, replies the doctor. Why not? Because I do not know the cause of death.

Starting point is 14:43:59 But the arrangements for the funeral must remain in abeyance until after the inquest. Very unpleasant, says Joel. Yes, death is apt to be unpleasant for the survivors, especially under circumcertainstances, replies Dr. Mitzin, gravely. he leaves joel and goes straight to the coroner his old friend and ally a medical man who has retired from practice and the two talk together gravely of the event that has darkened the windows of lancaster lodge it is decided between them that the postmortem examination shall take place immediately and that if possible mr paulintry of cramston shall be ready to give evidence to-morrow at the inquest the coroner gives an order for the post-mortem examination and Dr. Mitson writes a telegram to Mr. Paul Intry, one of the medical staff of the Cramston Infernery, a skilled chemist and analyst, and a man of some distinction in his own particular line. End of Chapter 43

Starting point is 14:45:03 Chapter 44 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Librevox recording. All Liebervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org Recording by Judy Mason Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 44 Dark Surmises

Starting point is 14:45:37 In the old house at the lower end of the town there is surprise and agitation And a flutter of excitement which throws all the machinery of life out of gear Hester leaves her dishes unwashed and sits down in her disorderly kitchen to talk over Mr. Trenchard death with the charwoman. They talk immensely, though they hardly know anything about the dread event, save such jetsam and flotsam of intelligence, chiefly false, as has been cast up on the shore of the high street.

Starting point is 14:46:11 But they evolve a great deal out of their inner consciousness. They speculate upon that ever-interesting subject, the will, and argue for and against Sybil's appointment as sole heiress. It will be an unjust will if he's left everything to her, says Hester vindictively. Ah, but she was the favorite you see, pleads the charwoman, tilting her bonnet onto her eyebrows in her animation, and so pretty and such winning ways with her. I shouldn't wonder if all the money was left to her.

Starting point is 14:46:43 Then I hope she will remember my poor old master, and all he's done for her and her sisters, says Hester, They might all have gone to the workhouse if it hadn't been for him. Mr. Trenchard was across the seas and couldn't help him, and many a good meal Dr. Fonthor's gone without to bring up three hearty-eating girls. I dare say Miss Fonthorpe will take her uncle to live with her at Lancaster Lodge, says the charwoman. Such a lovely place. I went in one evening that there was a dinner party to help the kitchen maid wash up.

Starting point is 14:47:14 Why, the very sculleries he cowled to some people's drawing rooms. Dr. Fondthor, ain't going to live there, you may depend, replies Hester decisively. He don't want none of your finery. He likes his own house and his independence, and his watercake and bit of smoked bacon for breakfast. It's odd, Miss Fonthor being out this morning when her sister went up, speculates the charwoman. Yes, that's odd. It's my belief she was always against this, Mr. Pilgrim, and her uncle had forced the marriage upon her, and she went off this morning to some of her fine friends to get out of the way.

Starting point is 14:47:48 them cardinals perhaps that she and miss marion was visiting at christmas ah they do say she might have married sir wilford cardinal as she'd like says the charwoman of course she could answers hester glad to exalt the family she has served so faithfully only she's as full as fancies as an eggs full of meat and she wouldn't have him well this discussion goes on in the kitchen marian and jenny sit in the parlor occupied by all observing thoughts of the dead men's will and their own mourning. They've not liked Stephen Crencher well enough to feel any regret for his loss, nay, his death is an event to which they have looked forward as a turning point, the beginning of brighter days in their own lives. He is dead, and a painful interval of suspense must be endured before they can know what he's done for them. They are hopeful, meanwhile, and wildly speculative, especially Jenny, whose ideas ramble among thousands and tens of thousands as they have never rambled before save in the agreeable mazes of an arithmetic book you see he had such oceans of money argued jenny he could afford to make sibyl a great heiress and to leave us twenty thousand apiece quite easily and the interest of twenty thousand pounds is a thousand a year

Starting point is 14:49:06 uncle robert told me so fancy you and me with a thousand a year each no stocking darning no turning and twisting our winter dresses to make them do for spring i shall go into long skirts immediately that will be a boon to the rest of humanity for they'll hide your legs replies marian shall you have crape tucks or flounces on your black silk inquires jenny recurring to that inexhaustible topic the morning whichever is the last fashion miss islet shall make our morning and she always has the newest style but we ought to have dresses ready for the day of the funeral says jenny and how can we get them before the will is red we don't know whether we're heiresses or beggars car michael's people will let us have anything we want replies marian depend upon it they'll give us any amount of credit down uncle trenchard is dead they know we must come in for some of his money As the day goes on, the fever of curiosity and wonder, which has seized upon Red Castle, is intensified, for the flame is fed by new revelations of a startling character. First, there's the news of Sybil's disappearance. And then it becomes known, somehow, that there's to be a post-mortem examination, followed by a coroner's inquest. This is really interesting, and would distinguish the deceased from the common rook, even if he had not been a million. The two local papers are in a flutter of excitement and rival reporters hang about Lancaster Lodge and question the respectable Podmore, whose large pale face, in shape and expression someone resembling the station clock, assumes a troubled and bewildered look.

Starting point is 14:50:56 From the coroner's house, Dotsamixen, goes on to his brother practitioner, Dr. Fonthorpe. That meek little man has just returned from a long round in his dilapidated chaise. and has run in, as he calls it, to get a bit of dinner. Regularly to dine is a luxury unknown to the parish doctor. The cloth is laid in the homely parlor. The remains of joint or stew are kept in the oven, with a potato or two simmering in greasy gravy, and the doctor takes his repast hurriedly and alone,

Starting point is 14:51:27 an hour or two after the appointed dinner hour. He's just seated himself at his savoury mess when Hester enters mysteriously and a number. announces Dr. Mitzent. I've shown him into the best parlors, she says, whereupon Dr. Fonthorpe, faint with hunger, reluctantly lays down his knife and forth and goes to receive his guest.

Starting point is 14:51:48 What can he want with me, he thinks? Dr. Mixen explains himself briefly. The coroner has ordered me to make a post-modem examination assisted by Mr. Pallentery. You know Pallentory, of course, and I thought you ought to be present as a near connection of the deceased, he concludes. i'm surprised that a post-mortem should be thought necessary says dr faunt thorpe fluttered by this intelligence there was nothing mysterious in my brother-in-law's death i hope he'd been ailing for some time he had but his death was not the less expected

Starting point is 14:52:21 it is always best to err on the side of caution by the way may i ask if you use much prussic acid in your practice the question startles the meek little doctor and he looks at the inquirer with a perplex expression of countenance or I've used it occasionally, but not often. You keep some in your surgery, no doubt? Yes, I have a little of the diluted acid. You're careful to keep it out of harm's way, I suppose. It is not within anyone's reach, inquired Dr. Mitzin. I keep that and all the poisons on a top shelf in blue bottles they could not possibly use in mistake for anything else,

Starting point is 14:53:01 if that is what you mean. I'm glad of that. but what has this to do with Mr. Trencher's death? asked Dr. Fonthorpe with a troubled look. Only this much. From the indications presented by the body after death, a livid hue, the nails purple, the hands so firmly clenched that the woman who laid out the dead

Starting point is 14:53:22 have not been able to place him in a peaceful attitude, and from the odor of the room where he lies, I have too much reason to fear that Mr. Trencher died poisoned by prussic acid. This calls for immediate nature. investigation. Great heavens, yes, cried Dr. Fonthor, white with horror, but how do you imagine the poison administered? Whom can you suspect? Well, I suspect no one as yet. The least painful supposition is that he took the poison himself. Why should he do that? What motive had he for committing suicide or what motive could anyone have had for murdering him? Hard to imagine a motive in either case, unless it were

Starting point is 14:54:05 possible that someone who had expected to profit by his death was tempted to hasten that death by poison. Dr. Missand, exclaimed Robert Fonthorpe, tremulous with indignant horror, are you aware that my eldest niece is the person who had most expectation to be gained by her uncle Trencher's death? I know that. And you come to ask me whether I keep any form of pressic acid in my surgery? You suspect that the poison from which Mr. Trenchard died, or by which you suppose him to him died, was taken from this house? I tell you that I suspect nothing, Dr. Fonthorpe.

Starting point is 14:54:44 But until the law has taken this painful business into its own hands, it is my duty to act in the interests of law and right. Mr. Trenchard was in my care. He dies, as I believe, foully murdered. Your niece disappears on the day after his death. she runs away to escape a marriage which we may fairly suppose have been forced upon her by mr trenchard that is one view of the case and i hope the right one yet her absence cannot fail to prejudice the minds of those who have to investigate this matter if you have any idea where she is i should recommend you to communicate with her and urge her immediate return i have no idea she had no friends before she was adopted by her rich uncle she may be have gone to some of her new friends but they are unknown to me i don't know where to look for her or how to communicate with her it is a most unhappy case dr faunthorpe but you and i must do our duty oh my poor sibyl my poor unhappy girl to be the subject of such horrible suspicion cries dr faunthorpe helplessly he sits alone for some time after dr mitson have left him sits hopeless and stricken it is not that he believes his niece guilty of this hideous crime this is almost impossible wickedness but that the mere suspicion should have followed upon her as a calamity that bows into the dust at four o'clock that bright summer afternoon the three medical men meet at lancaster lodge for their dismal work podmore with his large round face still white and horror-stricken admits them into the dusky silence of the hall joel pilgrim comes out of the study to-y london

Starting point is 14:56:29 to receive them very common business-like in manner and leads the way to the room where the dead man lies at the door he leaves them and goes quietly downstairs to his retreat in the study where he sits reading the paper or making believe to read it in the room upstairs the dismal work is performed in silence to mr paulintry the skill for analyst it is no more than an everyday manner of business a jar is sealed in the presence of the three medical men and this vessel, Mr. Paul Intry, is to take back to Cramston with him, there to perform his analysis and apply tests scientific and physiological in the retirement of his own laboratory. But in the minds of those three men, analysis is hardly needed to establish the one fatal fact that David Trenchard has been poisoned by presic acid. In the appearances which add to the awfulness of death, in the odor which exhales from that lifeless form. There's evidence enough of a technical kind to convince a whole college of physicians.

Starting point is 14:57:36 The doctors go quietly downstairs when their work is done, and again Mr. Pilgrim appears at the study door. Well, gentlemen, he exclaims interrogatively. What is your verdict? Did you find the cause of death in the heart or brain? In neither, replies Dr. Midson. What then? I had rather not state my opinion till I am called upon at the inquest tomorrow. Hmm, mutters Joel. You doctors like to be mysterious.

Starting point is 14:58:06 It is a trick of the trade. But pray walk-in, gentlemen. You will take some refreshment after your painful task, I hope. Dr. Mitzin and his colleagues decline this proffered entertainment. I should like to ask a few questions of the butler before we go, says Dr. Mitzin, I believe it was he who last saw Mr. Trenchard alive. to the best of my knowledge it was so answered joel scraping his smooth chin thoughtfully but podmore is a very stupid fellow and this sad event seems to have thrown him quite off his balance the man has no self-possession whatever you'll not get a succinct account from him i don't want an account i only want an answer to a question or two replies dr mitson be kind enough to ring for him mr pilgrim joel obeys poor little dr fawnthorps sits in a corner meanwhile pale as a sheet of letter-paper and full of vague apprehensions

Starting point is 14:59:03 that stephen trenchard has either destroyed himself or been foully murdered there can be no doubt which is it and why is sibyl absent podmore appears in answer to the bell and by his aspect fully justifies joel's account of him he looks from one of the doctors to the other with a countenance full of apprehension you gave mr trenchard his medicine at four o'clock this morning inquires dr miscent yes sir did you find him in his usual health yes sir you noticed nothing particular in his manner no sir unless speak out pray. He might have been a little more irritable than usual, perhaps. He had been rather irritable for some time past. Mr. Pilgrim may have noticed it. Joel nods his acquiescence. As if he had something on his mind, suggests Dr. Minson? Well, yes, sir, you might take it that way. Who removed the glasses and bottles from Mr. Trenchard's room this morning? Was it one of the women's servants? No, sir. Mr. Pilgrim told me to see to clearing the

Starting point is 15:00:15 room, the women's servants were timid about going in. What did you do with the glass in which your master was in the habit of taking potash water? I took it down to the pantry with the rest of the thing, sir, and watched it with my other glasses. You are sure you washed it. Yes, sir. Do you think you could find me that particular glass? I might, perhaps, sir, it was a large soda water glass. There's a dozen of the same pattern in the pantry. They're kept on the same shelf. But I think. I think I should know the one Mr. Treasured used less from the position of it. Bring it, then, says Joel authoritatively.

Starting point is 15:00:53 Podmore shuffles out and returns presently with the glass. Dr. Midson takes it to the window and examines it with his back to Joel and the rest. You wash your glasses in very hot water, I think, he says to Podmore. Pretty hot, sir, and I use a bit of soda to keep them bright. I see. Was there a table with glasses and bottles? on it within reach of your master's hand as he lay in bed no sir nonsense podmore cries joel quickly you forget the little table which mr trenchard had placed close to his bed a few days ago in order that he might help himself to a bottle of potch-water if he wanted it without ringing for you i beg your pardon sir stammered podmore yes i forgot the little table my master had it put handy to his hand as you may say but it didn't use to be there and it slipped my memory

Starting point is 15:01:45 and was it from that table you took this sotawa out of glass yes sir that'll do says dr midson and podmore shuffles out again escaping gladly as a soul released from torment if i could understand any motive for such an act says dr mitson as he and his colleagues go along the shrubbery drive between lancaster lodge and its gates i should be inclined to believe that that man poisoned his master i never saw a more craven hound we shall see if he comes in for an annuity or a handsome legacy under his master's will end of chapter forty four chapter forty five of dead man's shoes this is the libravovok recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Judy Mason. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 45. In the Surgery That speech of Dr. Midson's about Podmore awakens hope in Robert Faunthorpe's breast. if there has been murder done if stephen trenchard has not been in some distracted hour his own destroyer this man is surely more likely to have been the murderer than any one else under that roof

Starting point is 15:03:17 he has had access to his master at all hours of the night in those silent hours when the rest of the household has been locked in sleep he may have stolen the plate made away with the valuables committed to his charge and may have been tempted to make away with his master in order to escape the punishment of his dishonesty or he may have known himself to be a legacy under his master's will and may have done this foul deed to expedite fortune so dr faunthorpe reasons with himself during his dismal homeward walk marian and jenny are sitting in the parlor at work when he goes in the tea-stray still adorns the table how white and tired do you look uncle exclaims marian you'd like some tea wouldn't you i've saved the teapot thank you my dear i'll take a cup of tea says the doctor faintly. He sinks into a chair with a weary sigh. His parish patients have been neglected today and conscience pricks him. They will be coming presently poor things with their burns and scalds and boils and whittlows and festers and all that variety of thorns in the flesh to which poverty is subject, and he will have to brace his nerves and attend to them, but for the moment he feels prostrate. Marion shakes the teapot vigorously and pours out a liquid,

Starting point is 15:04:37 not very unlike that infusion of senna which the parish patients consumed by the paleful there uncle that'll do you good but run to the kitchen jenny and get the hot-cake we save for uncle robert and jenny rushes off and returns swiftly with a crisp and greasy bannock which the doctor is wont to enjoy above all other delicacies any news of sybil asked marian no my dear sighed the doctor strange isn't it exclaims marian very strange my dear i began to feel very uneasy about your poor sister who could have induced her to take such a step and at such a time too just at the time when she ought to have been thinking about her mourning says marian i hope she hasn't committed suicide cries jenny with a strangled sob jane exclaimed the doctor severely i'm shocked at you're suggesting anything so dreadful your sister is a a Christian, I hope. Of course, but she might have been unhappy, poor thing. I dare she detested that horrid, Mr. Pilgrim, and Uncle Trencher tried to force her into marrying him. And then perhaps she got frightened and miserable and was driven to poison herself, concludes Jenny with a burst of sobs. The little doctor starts in his chair as if he'd been shot and puts down his cup and saucer

Starting point is 15:06:02 with a trembling hand. How dare you say such things, Jane? He'd demands severely he's very angry when he calls his youngest niece jane how dare you mention such a thing as poison in connection with your sister's name where should she get poison i should like to know how should she get it if she wanted it very badly she might get it in the surgery whippers jenny not without my knowledge i've forbidden everyone in this house to touch a single bottle in my surgery yes uncle falters jenny recalling the many half-hours in which she has diverted herself with those very bottles but if sybil wanted anything very badly some laudanum for the two k for instance and you happen to be out at the time she might not stand upon what's his name what is the girl driving at cries mary in a disgusted tone what do you mean jenny says dr faunthorke nervously if there's anything in your knowledge that i ought to be told speak out and forget God's sake, speak only the truth to me, and hold your tongue to all the rest of the world about it, and you too, Marion. This is more serious than either of you can imagine. Sybil had the toothache one afternoon when she was here, about a fortnight or three weeks ago,

Starting point is 15:07:16 perhaps, or she had been having the toothache very badly, she said, and couldn't get any sleep, and she wanted some laudanum. Loddenum? cried Dr. Fonthorpe, relieved. Is that all? Yes, but laudanum's poison. Isn't it, Uncle Robert? If you take a enough of it i told her where the laudanum was kept and she got up on the step-letter and took some in a little bottle out of one of your drawers but there was one thing that struck me as very mysterious what was that does laudanum ever smell of bitter almonds no child cries the doctor with a start well then this did ever so strong smell of it made me feel quite queer but sybil declared it was laudanum and that my smell must be all wrong but you would know opium surely a dark brown liquid yes but i didn't see this sybil had her back towards me when she was filling the little bottle i only smelt it when i asked her to show me the bottle she refused and called me stupid but i'm positive it smelt of bitter almonds and sybil looked quite pale and faint afterwards as if the smell would upset her can this be true cries the doctor profoundly agitated pray don't push yourself

Starting point is 15:08:31 out of the way about an uncle, exclaims Mary in soothingly, civil might have taken all the poisons in the surgery and no harm need come of it. She's a great deal too fond of herself and her pretty looks to commit suicide. I dare say she's with her grand friends at the Howe, flirting with

Starting point is 15:08:47 Sir Wilford Cardinal and enjoying herself ever so. But if she were at the Howe, she would have heard her Mr. Trenchard's death by this time. Well, I don't know about that. I must send to the How. I must send to every place where there is a chance of finding her. It is the most vital that she should return without delay.

Starting point is 15:09:07 Yes, says Mary, and she ought to see about her mourning. And if she's to be Uncle Trench's chief heiress, it certainly looks queer for her to be out of the way at such a time. Dr. Fonthorpe sighs and says no more. The bell rings at this moment, and he goes to his surgery to see a parish patient, who has brought the latest variety in scalds for his inspection. A whitlow drops in five minutes afterwards, followed by an interesting case of enlarged glands wrapped in flannel, after which comes a promising hooping cough, and on the heels of that, a very fair specimen of an insipient measles. These occupy Dr. Fonthorpe till nine o'clock, and he has but just dismissed the measles with a comforting dose of Sennah when a bell rings, not the surgery bell, this time.

Starting point is 15:09:53 He's standing in the passage when it rings, and he opens the door himself and admits a respectable-looking stranger, of business-like aspect and middle age. Dr. Fonthorpe, I believe? Yes, I'm Dr. Fonthorpe. Can I have a few words with you in your surgery? A patient, thinks the doctor, as he ushers the visitor into his stuffy den, heated like an oven by the gas and odorous with santa and peppermint.

Starting point is 15:10:20 I may as well come straight to business, Dr. Fonthorpe, says the stranger directly the door is shut. You were present at the post-mortem this afternoon, and you know that Mr. Trenchard has been poisoned with prussic acid. My name is Judbury, and I belong to the Cramson Police Force. I'm sent here by our chief to look into this business. My duty is to find out where that prussic acid was bought. Now, before I go to the chemist shop, Dr. Fonthorpe,

Starting point is 15:10:47 I want to know if it came out of your surgery, as there is reason to suppose it did. What reason can there be to suppose any such thing? Never you mind that. you'll be summoned to appear at the inquest tomorrow and you'll be asked certain questions i dare say i want to see your bottle of dilute prussic acid suppose i tell you that i keep no such thing in my surgery then i shall have to look for myself i've got authority to search your surgery you better let me see the bottle it'll come to the same thing in the end very pale and with a sinking of his heart which he has never felt before in all his patient life robert faunthorpe drags a step-letter to the recess of the fireplace and mounts to look for the dark blue bottle mr judberry follows him to the steps and eyes him as a cat eyes and mouse during the operation poor dr faunthorpe's hand trembles a little as he takes down the fatal bottle and before he can examine it mr judbury's firm fingers of taking it from him how much acid do you suppose you had in the bottle sir asked judbury i really can't say to a nicety it's a drug i rarely use perhaps

Starting point is 15:11:57 a matter of two ounces, and there isn't an ounce here. But I can't be positive, explains the doctor, profoundly agitated. I tell you it's ever so long since I used any. I can't be called upon to state the quantity. It may have evaporated. I understand. But your impression is that you have two ounces. The bottle doesn't look as if it had been disturbed lately.

Starting point is 15:12:22 The dust's pretty thick upon it, says Mr. Judbury, taking it to the gas burner and examining it. closely. Do you see this, Dr. Fonthor? Yes, pointing to the side of the dark blue bottle. This is the impression of two sling fingers on the dust-white and glass. Two streaks of blue show where two fingers have grasped the bottle. That's the mark of a hand, sir, says the detective decisively. A woman's or a child's. Jenny, my youngest niece, may have tampered with the bottle, stammers the doctor beside himself with fear and trouble. She's been forbidden to touch anything, but she's a tiresome child, and may...

Starting point is 15:13:03 Send for Miss Jenny, sir. Let us ask her all about it, says Mr. Judbury. Robert Fonthor could have cut his tongue out for having uttered the girl's name. Jenny will come, and under this horrible man's cross-questioning, will say something to implicate civil. Horrors are thickening around this miserable house. is this the hour they have all hoped and waited for the hour which was to bring stephen trenchard's days to an end and be the beginning of his kindred's prosperity seeing the doctor hesitate mr drudbury makes bold to ring the bell for himself it's answered by hester looking daggers she hates to be disturbed at her supper it may only be bread and cheese or the scrapings of some bone or pie dish or the greasy remnants of hashed mutton washed down with a mug of table

Starting point is 15:13:54 beer but she likes to eat her meal in peace what is it sir she asks snappishly said miss jane here falters a doctor jane comes and is questioned about the blue bottle she fences with her questioner at first and looks as if the wreck itself would not twist an admission of any kind out of her but if subjected to mr judbury's insidious process of interrogation she finally tells the whole story of sybil's coming into the surgery to get some laudanum and the mysterious smell of bitter almonds in the bottle which sybil filded would not let her see thank you miss says judberry approvingly i think we must get you to appear before the coroner to-morrow jane exclaims the doctor when mr judbury had made his bow and departed you have put a rope around your sister's neck Chapter 46 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 15:15:18 Recording by Judy Mason Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 46 Stephen Trenchard surprises his friends. Red Castle is is profoundly excited next morning by the inquest, which is held in the large room, a ballroom or dining hall, on festive occasions, at the Coach and Horses Hotel. Whispers of foul play have floated in the air since the post-mortem examination at Lancaster Lodge. Sybil's disappearance has become known,

Starting point is 15:15:52 and people look at one another ominously as they mention her name. Mr. Pilgrim's behavior in this time of trial is the admiration of everybody, the enthusiasm beginning with the firm of upholsters and undertakers whom he entrusts with the conduct of Mr. Trenchard's obsequies, and gradually permeating the town till everyone is loud in his praise. His coolness, his clearness of head, his decent grief for his departed friend, his thoughtful consideration of for Sybil, in quest of whom he has sent far and wide all these things entitle him to the admiration of the town and redcastle does not stint its praise never has the coroner sat in so crowded a court as this which he gravely contemplates to-day mrs stormont has borrowed who cook's bonnet and put on her thickest veil fondly feeling herself disguised by these means when every turn of her head and every angle of her figure is well known in red castle as the town pump Mrs. Grotian is also present and thickly veiled.

Starting point is 15:17:00 The two matrons have been accommodated with chairs in a quiet corner near the reporter's table, and they put their heads together and sigh dismally and talk of the awfulness of life and death and the mysterious depths of wickedness in the human heart pending the commencement of the proceedings. The first evidence is entirely medical. Dr. Mitson describes those appearances in the corpse, which led him to conclude that Stephen trenchard had been poisoned. Mr. Pollantry deposes to the finding of the poison in his analysis of the contents of the stomach. Dr. Mitzin describes the discovery of a file which has contained the diluted acid in a basket in the room usually occupied by Sybil Farnthorpe.

Starting point is 15:17:44 Joel Pilgrim is examined as to the discovery of the death at 9 o'clock on the previous morning. He is questioned as to those appearances which at once impressed Dr. Mitzin and he owns that in the agitation consequent on the sad event he had overlooked these indications. You saw nothing particular in the appearance of the corpse, inquires the coroner? I was too agitated to observe. Yet you must have perceived the livid hue which struck Mr. Mitzin. I may have perceived that. My impression was that death had been caused by an apoplectic stroke. And that, in your mind, would account for the livid tinge? It would. did you observe the eyes i was too agitated to observe details but you must have seen the expression of the eyes were they bright and glassy staring their pupils dilated

Starting point is 15:18:37 i cannot say i sent for the women to lay out the corpse immediately the whole thing was too painful too sudden to allow my observing particulars his questions as to sibyl's disappearance can you give any reason for the young lady being absent at such a time? I cannot. She was to have been married to you yesterday morning. She was. Had she given her free consent to the marriage? She had. I beg your pardon, interposes a gentleman sitting at the table. I think these questions are quite irrelevant to the object of the inquest. The jury have only to determine the cause of death. Ms. Fontthorpe's conduct is outside the question. Robert Fonthorpe has engaged a Cramston solicitor to watch the proceedings in his niece's interest. He has done his utmost for her in this, having an idea that the genius of Cramston is infinitely superior to that of Redcastle, and that a Cramston lawyer must be a man of much experience and acumen.

Starting point is 15:19:45 Podmore, the butler, is examined as to his last visit to his master's room, and the state in which he left the deceased. His answers to the coroner's questions closely resemble those he made to Dr. Mitzis and yesterday afternoon, but there is a thickness in his speech which offends that functionary. That will do, sir. This is very shameful, sir. Positively disgusting.

Starting point is 15:20:07 You are intoxicated. I beg your pardon, sir, falters Podmore, dissolving in tears. You bless my... You bless my character, sir. I haven't touched... Spears... morning. It's my feelings. Go away, sir. You are drunk. I won't hear another word. Dr. Fonthorpe is now examined as to the abstraction of a portion of Prussian acid contained in the

Starting point is 15:20:41 bottle in his surgery, but the coroner can obtain no positive statement from him as to the quantity which ought to have been in the bottle. Come, Dr. Fonthorpe, you must have some approximate idea as to the quantity of acid in your possession. Your books would show when you last bought any. If your memory is so much at fault, we shall have to ask to see your books. It is three years at least since I bought any. I may not have kept the wholesale chemist's bill. I have no record. Oh come, you must remember something about it. If you so rarely employ the acid in your medicines, you must have the quantity you purchase nearly intact. Now what is the smallest quantity you have ever bought. I think about two ounces. You have never bought above two ounces?

Starting point is 15:21:27 I do not think so. Come, Dr. Fonthorpe, you are too scientific a man to think about a fact. You must know. And finally, the coroner rings from the reluctant witness the admission that he ordered two ounces of the diluted acid with other drugs three years ago, that he used it once as a sedative in a case of violent sickness, that he cannot remember having used it. it since. He admits the finding of a bottle in his surgery last night with only one ounce or less than one ounce of the poison. The bottle is now in the possession of the authorities. The Cranston Solicitor objects to these questions as having no bearing on the main issue, which is simply to ascertain the cause of death, but his objections are not entertained. The coroner of Red Castle

Starting point is 15:22:13 conducts his inquest with a lofty hand and is as arbitrary as any of his medieval predecessors. Jane Fonthorpe is not called much of the doctor's relief, yet he feels that even as matters stand, there is a dark cloud hanging over the head of the absent Sybil. Perhaps it would be better for her never to return, he thinks. He has sent a messenger to the Howe, and has sent in other directions without avail. He can discover no trace of Sybil.

Starting point is 15:22:41 Yet Mr. Judbury is already in possession of some information upon this subject. He knows the hour at which she left Redcastle, the train by which she went, the clothes she wore the bag she carried. His next duty will be to discover whither she has gone. The jury go to Lancaster Lodge to view the body. The medical evidence having settled the cause of death, this is little more than a formula, which it is indeed in many cases where investigation should be thorough. After this, although the cause of death is sufficiently clear, the coroner suggests the adjournment of the incurrential further evidence can be brought forward there is some little discussion between the coroner and one of the jury as to a convenient date for the adjourned inquiry and mr judbury who has been present throughout the proceedings has a few words to say upon this subject finally the inquest is adjourned to this day week

Starting point is 15:23:34 the funeral arrangements meanwhile may proceed and the will may be read thinks dr faunt thorpe and we shall know if sybil is the heiress god grant she may appear without delay and make her innocent since manifest to everyone. He goes back to his daily round of duty, sorely dejected in spirit. There is none of his parish patients, hard as may be their struggle for existence, who carries so heavy a heart this day as he who ministers to their wants. There is no rheumatism or sciatica that grips its victim with a sharper pang than the agony which tears Robert Fonthorpe's breast when he thinks that in the minds of all his town folk, lies under suspicion of murder. Meanwhile, Messrs Cabriol, the opposed hers and undertakers, are in their glory.

Starting point is 15:24:26 The massive oaken coffin, glittering with brazen furniture, is in hand, merrily rings the joiner's hammer on the stout oak. The best velvet pall is brought forth from its resting place, aired and brushed. The big flemish horses have their mains comb and their fetlocks clip and receive all the embellishment that skillful grooming can bestow. The sable plumes are shaken out, the inky cloaks unfolded, and there's quite an agreeable excitement in Messrs Cabriol's back shop. I shan't be sorry to get our account in, says Cabriol the elder to his son and company. There's a heavy amount outstanding.

Starting point is 15:25:08 Mr. Trenchard was like many of your millionaires, slow in parting with his money. I should have asked him for it, father, if I could have asked him for it, father, was you, suggest the son. Yes, and have lost a first-rate customer, replies the seniors severely. Gentleman in that position mustn't be pressed for money. The most one can do is send in one's account at Christmas. You might have said you had a bill to make up or something. I does that with my pedophagging customers, Joe, never with the man of Mr. Trenchard standing.

Starting point is 15:25:40 It's too alo. Well, the money will come handy in a lump, remarks the son. Of course it will, Joe, and you must bear in mind that I charge us 5% interest all along, and the interest gets posted up every quarter and carries interest on the back of it. It's like putting one's money in the bank, and safer. Well, you're a good-in-father, there's no getting the right side of you. I've got an ed for business, Joe, answers the parent complacently. I was born so.

Starting point is 15:26:11 The days go by, but bring no tidings of Sybil, the day of the funeral comes, a quiet funeral, but splendid, all that wealth can do to disguise the awfulness of death or add to it, with funeral pomp, has been done here. Mr. Cabriol watches the sable train, leave the premises with a thrill of pride. Every item of that gorgeous cortege is already entered in his ledger. He feels that the metropolis could hardly beat this display. Drat your reformed funerals with their rubbish-efficient.

Starting point is 15:26:45 open cars, reminding folks of Lord Mayor's Day, or Ashley's Theatre, exclaims the impulsurer, who has served his time to a London firm. Give me the good old style, the legitimate, as your playgoer say of the Dramor. Dr. Fondthorpe, Mr. Pilgrim, Dr. Mitzin, and Colonel Stormont are the only mourners and occupy two mourning coaches. Poor Dr. Fondthorpe weeps silently behind his handkerchief, not for the dead, for whom he cares but little, but for the living, over whom clouds lower so heavily. He feels very much as if he were going in solemn state to his own execution. Except these tears, there is but little show of grief. Dr. Mitzin and Colonel Stormont talk of the mystery of the dead man's end, but do not commit themselves to any

Starting point is 15:27:35 opinion on the subject. Joel Pilgrim is silent as death itself. A good many private carriages is testified to the respect in which Stephen Trenchard has been held by his fellow townsmen. Sir Wilford Chardonnill's family, chariot follows with high-stepping bays, and the coachman and footmen in their last new liveries. Solemely tolls the Minster Bell as the procession wends its slow and pompous way down the street. Shudders are up before almost all the shop windows, blinds are down in many places,

Starting point is 15:28:11 a respectful crowd gazes in reverential silence at the spectacle. The town of Redcastle bears a witness that it has lost a benefactor. However solemnly performed, that service of the church which remits dust to dust is not a long one, nor is Stephen Trenchard's funeral protracted by any desperate burst of grief from the mourners. Decently, reverently, are all ceremonies performed. The mourners linger for a moment or so, looking down at the corner. coffin, rather as if they expected to see the departed spread his wings and soar visibly to a better world. Finding his ashes quiescent, they sigh, shake their heads despondently, and move away,

Starting point is 15:28:55 scrape the clay off their boots upon an adjacent plebeum tombstone, and walk slowly back to their carriages. Now for the will, says Colonel Stormont, cheerily as they drive away from the churchyard. There's something of the nature of a lottery in that will. There may be small prizes even for outsiders morning rings silver tankards lapis leslie snuff boxes carved ivory or other spoil of india most mysterious disappearance of that girl exclaims the colonel after a pause what motive could she have for running away unless unless she had poisoned her uncle says dr midsand interpreting the colonel's awful look if she were guilty of that crime i think she would be here today if she were capable of such an act she would be capable of such an act she would be capable of of holding her ground afterwards. They can't always stand it, you know, Argers Colonel Stormont, speaking of the murderous profession generally.

Starting point is 15:29:49 They lose their heads and bolt after the thing is done. I suppose it looks so much worse to them when it is done than it did from the other side. They were a pluckless set for the most part, I think. It was not in that girl to commit a murder, says Dr. Mitzin with conviction. The circumstantial evidence is strong against her, I admit. Her disappearance.

Starting point is 15:30:09 The poison taken from her, uncle's surgery, her expensation of Mr. Trencher's fortune, but if she had poisoned him in order to get possession of his money, it stands to reason she would have stayed to receive her inheritance. She would have known that to fly was almost to admit her guilt. Well, she may have been seized with the panic when the thing was done. She would have stayed, Colonel, persist the doctor. She might have been stricken with fear, but she would have held her ground. She is too clever to commit such a blunderous flight if she had been guilty. Well, how do you account for her absence then. Easily enough, her uncle was forcing her into a hateful marriage, and she had not moral

Starting point is 15:30:46 courage enough to oppose her will to his, so she let matters go on to the very last, and then ran away. A foolish thing to do, no doubt, but human. But why should she have taken that prestic acid from her uncle's surgery, as it is pretty evident she did take it, though the fact hasn't come out yet? Well, she may have armed herself with that as the means of suicide. A last resource if all other modes of escape failed her. We have no evidence that the preric acid, which killed Stephen Trenchard, was the poison taken from Dr. Fonthorpe surgery. You have the evidence of the empty bottle, but she may have thrown the stuff away, fearing to keep anything so dangerous in her possession. If she were guilty, she would hardly have left that bottle in her

Starting point is 15:31:31 work basket. Hmm, mutters the colonel. You take an indulgent view of the case. I admit that at the first i was staggered by the facts and inclined to suspect miss faunthor but reflection has led me to form another opinion gad sir and i should be glad if i could believe her innocence says the colonel energetically she's eaten my bread and salt i've liked it admired her and even with ineffable condescension thought of her as a wife for my eldest son i believe that poor boy adores her it would be horrid to think her guilty but these proceedings ought to be looked straight in the face dr mitson if we don't want the whole fabric of society shaken, we mustn't be prescid-aceted into our graves in a quiet little town like this, and the prisoner goes scot-free. No, sir, I wish the good old law for the punishment of prisoners was still in force. We want our charmar d'ardent, sir, for these scoundrels. They are at the gates of Lancaster Lodge by this time.

Starting point is 15:32:35 The morning coaches drive up to the hall door, where stands Podmore, quite sober on this occasion and fully awake to the dignity of his position. He ushers the mourners to the drawing room while the sunlight is subdued by half-closed Venetian shutters, through which shines the sunny vista of lawn and flower beds. The crimson satin couches and ottomans are ranged in solemn order. A silver tray of decanters and glasses is placed unobtrusively on a side table. There is a small writing table in front of an open window, with a chair set beside it, evidently prepared for the family lawyer, thinks Colonel Stormont,

Starting point is 15:33:14 as he takes a glass of old Madeira from the obsequious Podmore. No family lawyer appears, however. The four gentlemen refresh themselves gravely at the side table assisted by Podmore. Very bitter is the taste of the amontiado to Dr. Fonthorpe, but his parched lips need to be moistened in some wise. The moment is at hand when the dealings of the dead to the living will be known. will justice have been done to all his nieces or will favours be heaped upon that one of them whom in secret he robert faunthorpe has loved the best joel pilgrim takes a second glass of sherry clares his throat and goes to the little table by the window i believe gentlemen he begins and the three mourners turn towards him full of eager curiosity

Starting point is 15:34:03 that in cases where there is a will to be read this is about the time at which the ceremonial is gone through now my good friend stephen trenchard has left no will there is a look of amazement in the countenances of his three hearers. Dr. Fonthorpe feels the room going round bewilderingly and tries feebly to remember how the law of inheritance stands in the case of nieces whose uncles die in testate. Do you mean to say that Mr. Trenchard, a man of business, has died in testate? exclaims Colonel Cormont with indignant incredulity? He has died in testate for the best of all reasons, answers Joe coolly as he unlocks a drawer in the writing table. He has nothing to bequeath. Come, sir, you are laughing at us, cries the colonel. He was too sincere to indulge in the mockery of a will, and in that self-restraint was a model to mankind in general who seemed to take delight

Starting point is 15:35:09 in disposing of imaginary effects, replies Joel in an easy conversational tone. He made no will. but during his late illness he entrusted me with a little paper which it was his wish that i should read to any of his friends and relatives who should be present on this sad occasion with your permission gentlemen i shall proceed to do so make haste about it sir cries the colonel i can see that we have all been outrageously humbugged you are not the first colonel who has taken the appearance for the reality replies joel politely he unfolds a sheet of letter-paper covered with stephen trenchert's neat penmanship and reads thus having reason to believe that i may die insolvent i refrain from the empty formula of a last will in testament i have nothing to bequeathed except those accommodation bills drawn upon providence which good men call blessings the business which i conducted for thirty years in india was on the verge of insolvency when i retired from it though the house of trenchard and company stood high in the opinion of the commercial world and its paper was as easily negotiated as that of the bank of england i had sunk my capital in the business and i considered that i was guilty of no fraud in withdrawing from it about a third of the amount of that original capital although i knew that in doing so i must precipitate the ultimate failure I transferred my speculative trade to a man, adroit enough to navigate the leaky vessel for a few more voyages upon the commercial sea,

Starting point is 15:36:48 and I was enabled to make my retreat from India with 10,000 pounds and high repute. For, although I was known to have been engaged in some doubtful adventures and to have been somewhat unscrupulous in my traffic, I was believed to be enormously rich. I was 64 years of age when I made up my mind to retire from the excitements and agitations of a hazardous trade and to enjoy the lotus eater's calm repose for the rest of my days. I calculated that the 10,000 pounds that I was able to draw would, with a judicious use of my credit, last out my life and enable me to glide in comfort to the grave.

Starting point is 15:37:31 It pleased me to return to that native town which I had left as a penniless lad and which, when I was honest and industrious, refused me daily bread. With a few thousands at my bankers and the reputation of unlimited resources, I was able to command all that the town could give. Red Castle laid its riches at my feet. I had but to pay the rent of my house, the wages of my servants, and to give a check on account now and then to my tradespeople. Every year left me a little deeper in their debt. I fear that I may have excited false hope in the mind of my very dear niece Sybil Fonthorpe. I regret the possibility of this, but I cannot be blamed for any baseless ideas, which she may have entertained on the subject of my supposed fortune. I have never made any statement calculated to mislead her. I have neither

Starting point is 15:38:25 directly nor indirectly fostered expectations of an inheritance from me. My dear Sybil has been the companion and solace of my retirement, and she has enjoyed all those luxuries and comforts with which I have smoothed the pathway of my declining years. Should there be any balance or residue of the money now in my banker's hands at the time of my death, after the payment of my just debts, I hereby give the same to my friend and successor in commerce, Joel Pilgrim, but as I apprehend that my monies in hand will hardly

Starting point is 15:38:58 suffice to pay my outstanding accounts, I have not taken the trouble to put this bequest in the form of a will. Stephen Trenchard, a 20th, 1870 knot. End of Chapter 46. Chapter 47 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Libre Box recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Starting point is 15:39:40 Recording by Judy Mason Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 47 It is not now as it has been of your. Alexis goes to Dorley Mill a few days after his interview with Mr. Scroger's the lawyer, and tells Linda Chalice all that the man of law has said in relation to Trot and the advisability of that young gentleman's being domiciled at the Grange. You see, I want to establish the fact of his being my son, says Alexis.

Starting point is 15:40:18 People will hardly believe in my paternity while the little fellow is here. He ought to live with me. He ought to be seen in my company. A few years hence, it won't so much matter where he may live. his name and position will be settled. I understand, says Linda, sadly. Yesterday you gave me a promise which made me very happy. Today you take it back again.

Starting point is 15:40:43 Oh, Linda, forgive me, cries Alexis, deeply distressed. If you knew how it grieves me to rob you of your darling, but it is for his good. Why cannot we three be happy as we have been together? The sweetest days of my life were those I spent under this dear Ruth, with him, with you. Why cannot those happy days come again, Linda? My love, my darling, what is the world worth that it should part us? His arm is round her. He draws her to his breast, looking down into those beseeching agonized eyes, which meet his in silent reproach,

Starting point is 15:41:23 that pierces deeper than words. For one passionate moment he has forgotten the fetters, that hold him to another, forgotten everything except that this girl has grown inexpressibly dear to him. She releases herself from his arm, and he stands before her with shame-bowed head, conscience-stricken. Oh, forgive me, Linda, he pleads. I was thinking of what might have been. No, I will not be such a wretch as to rob a trot. Not yet a while, at any rate. What can I give him to replace him? his adopted mother's fond care. You shall keep him, Linda. Not if it is for his interest to be with you, Linda answers gravely, but you need not be in a hurry to take him from me. A few days, a few weeks even, can make a little difference. Give me time to get accustomed to the idea of parting with him. So be it. And you will let me come here very often and see him, so that he may grow fonder of me

Starting point is 15:42:28 and come to look upon me as his father? No, she answers with downcast eyes. Let me have him quite to myself for this time. He loves you already. You have no need to win his affection. Let me have him all to myself, and when the day comes, claim him from me, and I will give him to you without a tear.

Starting point is 15:42:51 Alexis understands the motive of this denial and feels that he has merited to be thus denied. you have only to command me miss chalice he says and remember that this boy will be no son of mine if his affection for you or his remembrance of your goodness is ever lessened he is so young replies linda with a sigh he'll have so much time in which to forget and then they part with a friendly shake hands and a little commonplace talk about old mr benfield in the mill and both try to forget or seem to forget that fatal betrayal of feeling on the part of Alexis. And when he has gone, Linda creeps up to her room, the pretty girlish chamber with its white draperies and watercolor sketches Linda's own work on the panel walls, and kneels beside the little white bed and sobs as if her heart were broken. Happily, her life of simple duty affords little leisure for the indulgence of grief,

Starting point is 15:43:53 and she is obliged to bathe her swollen eyelids presently and to go downstairs, to see about Trot's custard pudding, which delicacy made with a new laid egg, and baked in a saucer, no other hands can be permitted to prepare. Trot's sharp eyes discover the traces of tears in those heavy eyelids. What you cry for, Mammy, he demands.

Starting point is 15:44:17 You not been naughty, has you? Tears and naughtiness go together in Trot's mind. I hope not, love. And you not tumble down tears? no darling den who got nothing to cry for says trot decisively it is with the deepest shame that alexis remembers that unhappy outbreak of his this is how he pleaded his friend's cause this is his allegiance to dick plowden he can hardly look that faithful friend in the face without blushing when he gets back to the grange did you see her asked dick oh yes i saw her and was she looking well oh a little pale and worried i thought she doesn't like parting with trot you see no of course not alexis goes to london that afternoon and procures a copy of the entry of his marriage in the register at the little gothic church in the pimlico district so memorable to sibyl into him the church they entered so hopeful that bleak march morning four years ago careless of the future confident of happiness and knowing little more of life's actualities than if they had been the prince and princess of a fairy tale

Starting point is 15:45:36 in that stony labyrinth of pimlico alexus is within an easy walk of dixon street chelsea he goes by ways that were painfully familiar to him in the days of his poverty he seems to know every shop front in this water-side street every stone, every housetop and chimney-stack, and street corner. He leaves the prim dwelling places of middle-class respectability and enters Poverty's Bohemia. There flows the river beyond its muddy margin, rosy in the evening sun. How the scene brings back the bygone time, the heart sinking and despair, the dread of tomorrow, the vain hope, the crushing disappointment. There is little use, perhaps, in this visit to his old quarters. His will is made, his son's heritage is rendered as secure as the law of the land can make it.

Starting point is 15:46:32 There is little fear, one would suppose, of the boy's parentage being called into question in the time to come. But Alexis has a fancy for seeing the house which sheltered his poverty and care, which was home in the days when he thought himself secure of his wife's love. Here is the dingy old street, more dingy and dismal in the warm summer twilight than in wintry obscurity. How sorely all the doors and window sashes want painting? What wisps of dirty straw and ragged scraps of paper have drifted to this quiet haven from the busier ways outside? Odd curtains draped the parlor windows, grimy blinds droop hopelessly on their slackened lines like sails in a dead comb. Here and there a few flower-pots testify to the love of the beautiful and some struggling denizen.

Starting point is 15:47:22 In one area, there is a family of rabbits. In another, a collection of poultry. In a third, a cobbler has built his wooden workshop. If it were possible for anything already so debased, to sink a little lower, Alexis would think that Dixon Street has gone down since he last beheld it. But the effect lies doubtless rather in his own eye, which is a strength. to the place. Mrs. Bonnie has been endowed with an orderly mind, and it has been her constant struggle to raise her dwelling place above the Dixon street level. She has askewed rabbits and poultry. Her parlor windows are shaded by clean, though faded chintz, and display the healthiest geraniums in the street. Her doorsteps are hearth-stoneed daily, and it grieveth her to the heart,

Starting point is 15:48:11 when the ruthless feet of her lodgers are their following sully the purity of the stone. It must be confessed that this aspiration, after the beautiful, this struggle to maintain cleanliness in a neighborhood where blacks fall as the rain from heaven, has exercised a deteriorating influence upon Mrs. Bonnie's temper. The native sweetness of that overworked woman's disposition has been turned to sour by the perpetual falling of smuts, the frequent passage of muddy souls across newly hearth-stoneed steps, the reckless disregard of scrapers and dormants,

Starting point is 15:48:49 which is idiosyncratic of the lodger family. When she opens her door to a stranger, Mrs. Bonnie looks not at his face, but directs a furtive and angry glance at his boots and follows his progress into her house with a smothered murmur of dissatisfaction. Her life is an endless warfare, which her constancy of spirit would render absolutely noble,

Starting point is 15:49:14 worthy enemy wherewith she striveth a trifle more exalted, but to fret and fume about the soiling of a doorstep, to be miserable because a dirty boot sullieth one stair carpet, hath in at something of pettishness and folly, and these small and sordid cares have impressed themselves upon Mrs. Bonnie's visage. They have drawn down the angles of her mouth and written a network of wrinkles upon her brow. She opens the door to Alexis this evening. The rosy light on the river is deepening to a crimson glow. The sky grows faint and opal-tinted and a young moon, which has been showing pale all

Starting point is 15:49:53 the afternoon, begins to brighten in the eastern grey. Alexis had been prepared to observe some surprise in his landlady's countenance at this sudden reappearance of his, after a lapse of three years and a half. But to his astonishment, she receives him with perfect tranquility of countenance, same for an anxious downward glance at his boots, a look which he remembers of old. I thought as much, she mutters. You can walk upstairs, Mr. Stanmore. Stanmore was the adopted name of his poverty. I have called for a little chat with you, Mrs. Bonnie, if you can spare time. He begins politely, remembering that his old landlady like the fates, was a goddess who needed a good deal of propitiation.

Starting point is 15:50:41 I ain't got the time now, replies Mrs. Bonnie, snappishly, for I was cooking my parlor's supper when you rang, and I dare say it'll have stuck to the bottom of the frying pan when I get back. You can walk upstairs, can't you? You know your way I should think. To the front room, inquires Alexis? Yes, of course. It happened to be empty when the young woman called about it, not as if I'm ever long empty, thank Providence. It ain't my reward to get for slaving from morning till night gracious nose wipe your boots if you please mr stanmore there's a mat at the foot of the stairs the master of chesel grange does not quite understand the drift of these remarks but he obeys as meekly as the penniless a waiter upon fortune was wont to do in days gone by

Starting point is 15:51:25 mrs bonnie hurries back to her frying-pan and alexis goes up the well-remembered staircase with its papered wall representing a bewildering multiplication of gothic archways of a dingy brown hue, its narrow window with a gaudy painted blind of ecclesiastical design, its heavy old balusters, the remains of better days, when Dixon Street was the abode of polite society, and fine gentlemen and ladies may have roistered and gambled in these old rooms after an evening at Rannala. Twilight has thickened, and Mrs. Bonnie's staircase is wrapped in shadow, when Alexis opens a door of that one room which was once his home, a single chamber, which would then have been deemed all sufficient as a home, could he but have found the wherewithal to pay the rent thereof?

Starting point is 15:52:17 How well he remembers that miserable homecoming when, like a Byron, he found his hearth deserted and his household gods shattered. The memory saddens him. He forgets his newly found son, forgets the business that has brought him to Dixon Street, the picture of that bitter day comes back and shuts out every other image. The room looks as if not one article of his furniture had been removed or altered since he saw it last. There stands the scarlet tea tray on the table against the wall.

Starting point is 15:52:50 There are the tea caddy. There are the leather-bound family Bible. There are the old chintz-covered armchairs, the tent bedstead, the trumpery crockery images, awkward caricatures of old Chelsea wear on the high narrow mantelpiece, and yonder, seated on the well-remembered sofa in a despondent attitude with hands clasped listlessly and drooping head, appears a figure at sight of which Alexis Secretan recoils, as if he had seen a ghost. He may well be startled, for this figure is the image of his wife, as he has seen her on many an evening at his homecoming when she has grown weary of waiting for his return and has sunk into despondency.

Starting point is 15:53:37 For a moment, his blood freezes, and he feels as if a spirit were there, but in the next instant a cry of surprise breaks from his lips. Sybil! Can it be you? She starts up from the sofa, looks at him in bewilderment, and then throws herself upon his breast. Alex, my best, my dearest, my only protector in comfort, she cries. How did you know? Who told you that I was here? He puts her away from him, gently but firmly. The thought of her falsehood about his son's death comes between him and his wife, and it may be that love for her, as he's often told himself, has died out of his heart,

Starting point is 15:54:23 murdered by her unkindness. There's something else, too, perhaps, in this. moment that comes between him and the pale face lying on his breast, the image of a sweeter and less selfish woman whose eyes looked up at him full of grief and pain a few hours ago. Alex, how unkind you are and how coldly you look at me, but you came here in search of me, did you not? You were not living here. No, Sybil, I'm not living here, and I did not come here to look for you. How was I, to suppose that I should find you here

Starting point is 15:54:59 when I left you at Redcastle in the house of Stephen Trenterd. I did not think you would come to such a place as this of your own election. What was the only place I could think of as a refuge, Alex? I knew that I should be safe with Mrs. Bonnie, and I knew of no other lodgings in London. Perhaps, too, I had a fancy for coming back here. It was like returning to the past, to the days when you loved me.

Starting point is 15:55:24 She says this shyly, standing before her, her husband with downcast eyes, like a child who has offended and anticipates reproof. There is all the old innocence of manner, the almost childlike sweetness, which is charmed Alexis when he first saw Sybil Fonthorpe in Mrs. Hazleton's drawing room, but there is a chilled chilled and deadened feeling at his heart, as of love that has fallen asleep and can wake no more, or love that has been stricken dumb and can find its old familiar speech never again. say rather the days in which i thought you worthy to be loved he replies gravely you made your election when you left this room you cannot undo it by returning here whatever may be the caprice that moves you when you chose to be your uncle trencher toady instead of my wife you cancelled the bond between you and me i gave you the option of renewing that old bond but having your sordid aim in view and fancying yourself on the threshold of success

Starting point is 15:56:27 you refused my offer that made an end of our union forever there is no legal process no decree of the divorce court which could separate us more utterly than we are parted now alex she cries piteously you did once love me how can you be so unforgiving i'll tell you how and why when we last met and parted i asked you a question a question that involved the happiness of my manhood and and the hope of my age. You answered me with a deliberate lie. I don't remember, falter Sibyl, deeply humiliated. She had thought it so easy a manner to reclaim this faithful heart. In her darkest hour she had always counted upon her husband's love as a certainty, a treasure inalienable despite her sins against him,

Starting point is 15:57:20 thinking of him somewhat after the manner in which man is apt to think of God's mercy and forgiveness, as an inexhaustible fund upon which you can draw as largely as he likes, with no fear of having his bills returned. You don't remember that when I asked for my son, you told me he was dead, looked me calmly in the face and told me black and bitter lie. He had only survived his birth by a few days, you said. All the hopes I had built upon his existence were baseless and delusive. You made me believe this, Sybil.

Starting point is 15:57:55 She looks at him intently in the twilight With a look of half terror, half wonder Why should you imagine that I was deceiving you When I told you of your son's death? She asks For the best possible reason, I have found my son. What? You've been to Dorley Mill? I have been to the place where you left your child,

Starting point is 15:58:22 Left him glad to be released from a tie Which most women hold sacred, left him to play your part at the feet of Stephen Trenchard to pass for a spinster and captivate country gentleman and angle for a fortune. You've won your game, I hope, after making such sacrifices, if it can be called a sacrifice, to have abandoned husband and child. Stephen Trenchard is dead, I suppose, and you have inherited his fortune, or you would hardly have deserted your post, even for the sentimental pleasure of revisiting the scene of your married life. my uncle stephen is not dead i have inherited nothing i stand before you a pauper alex bankrupt in everything even in hope since you have ceased to love me your uncle not dead you have voluntarily abandoned your chance of being his heiress you must have changed greatly since that night when you and i talked together in mr trenchard's house i was surrounded with difficulties alexis i should have held my ground to the

Starting point is 15:59:24 very last. Yes, call me mercenary. Despise me, if you will, I will not shrink from the truth. I would have stopped with my uncle to the day of his death if he had not made that impossible by his tyranny. She tells Alexis the story of the last few months, how she had been urged to marry Joel Pilgrim, and how, when matters grew desperate, she had taken flight. I wrote to that good girl, Jane Diamond, and asked her to find me a lodging here, if possible. Luckily for me, this room was empty and I came straight from the railway station here. A disappointing end to your schemes and hope, says Alexis, still unpitying. He cannot easily forgive that heartless falsehood about his boy. His wrongs as a husband,

Starting point is 16:00:08 he might pardon. The injury done him as a father, rankles deeper. It's a sorry end, Alexis, humiliating, shameful. For upwards of three years, I've been my uncle's patient companion. I've borne all his caprices, devoted myself to the task of making his life pleasant to him. He's been very good to me. I should be wickedly ungrateful if I were to deny or forget that. I think, too, that he loved me in his unsamonstrative manner, and if I was deceived and believing that he would make me his heiress, everybody else in Red Castle labored under the same delusion. But this Mr. Pilgrim's influence upon him is stronger than mine. I do not believe that my uncle really wished me to marry that man or even that Joel Pilgrim's presence in his house made him happy. But there was an influence

Starting point is 16:00:57 of some kind, an influence which I could never understand, exercised by that East Indian upon my Uncle Stephen. I congratulate you upon having escaped that unholy house, says Alexis. I'm glad you did not carry your subservience to your uncle so far as to marry the East Indian. I'm very glad you drew the line at that. Had I been as free as my uncle thought, me i should have done the same replies sybil and may i ask what plan of existence you've formed to replace your blighted hopes says alexis i suppose after this rebellious flight of yours there is no chance of your inheriting your uncle's fortune i gave up every idea of that when i left his house as for a plan of life i have none the only hope i had has left me i have a little money ready and a few trinkets which i can convert into my money. This will carry me on till I can get a situation as a governess, if that is to be done without a friend to speak for my character. I've not neglected my education during the last three

Starting point is 16:02:03 years, and I can fall back upon the old drudgery. She says all this despondently. Hope has died within her breast. She thought it's so easy a thing to cancel the past, and now it seems to her that she and Alexis Secretan are as far apart, as if they had never loved each other, never sworn lifelong fidelity, never spent their careless honeymoon together under the young leafage in the Bois de Boulogne among San Germain's forest walks,

Starting point is 16:02:31 and on the lamplett boulevards all the joyous life of Europe's gayest sitting drifting by them, like a stream of folly. Never suffered poverty's carc and care together, never shared hope and despair, never wandered side by side on the chill borderline of famine. So far, Alexis has shown no sign of relenting. His tone has expressed contempt rather than anger

Starting point is 16:02:57 and is wounded more deeply than the stormiest reproaches could wound. He now grows thoughtful and walks up and down the room in meditative silence as he has walked many a time in days gone by when his meditations were of ways and means. Sybil watches him as he moves slowly to and fro with bent head. The twilight hides his face, that summer twilight in which they sat so often when they first became inmates of this room,

Starting point is 16:03:26 and when poverty was a new thing to them. Why did you tell me that lie about our child? He asks, after a long silence. Shall I tell you why, Alexis, it was because I wanted to have some hold upon you, to have some treasure to give you when the time came for me to come back to you. Your true and faithful wife, as I have been from first to last. You would scorn my Uncle Stephen's fortune, you told me.

Starting point is 16:03:55 Repudiate that as you would repudiate me. But I thought you could not shut your heart against me if I came to you with our son. He must have been a link between us. A tie, no unkindness of yours, no sin of mine could break. and you thought to make that link the stronger by telling me that my son, whom you had placidly resigned to the care of a stranger, was dead. If I had told you the truth, you would have claimed him. He would have been yours and not mine. You are an accomplished schemer, civil, but fate has a knack of spoiling your plans. Accident brought me in the way of my boy, an accident which put my life in peril for some time,

Starting point is 16:04:40 brought me under the same roof with my son and I loved him before I knew he had any claim to my love. How did you discover his identity at last? asked Sybil faintly. Oh, in a very simple way, I need not trouble you with details. And he is well? Happy? Well, how good of you to inquire about him? Yes, he is thriven admirably with strangers so well that he naturally rebels against being transferred to his own flesh and blood. blood. Alexis, falters his wife, piteously. I know I must seem a heartless mother, a woman without woman's natural feeling, but starvation brings humanity very low. When I came to Doerly Mill, I had been keeping fellowship with hunger for a long time. I had known what it was to be houseless and ailing, to lie shivering under the cold, unpitying stars. It was vital to me to find a home from my baby, a home far away from Redcastle.

Starting point is 16:05:41 I was obliged to disassociate myself from my child. It was imperative for me to do that if I wanted to win my Uncle Trenchard's fortune. And I did want to be rich, Alex, for your sake, for our child's sake, as much as for my own. If it was your duty as a man to try every honest means to conquer fortune. Was it a sin in me to try the only means I knew, to snatch the only chance fate ever offered to me? Will you try and think of all this, Alex, and forgive me if you can? She rises once more from the sofa, where she has sat despondingly. She goes to her husband and lays her hand lightly on his shoulder, such a poor little hand,

Starting point is 16:06:24 such a feather's weight, as it seems to him, lying loosely there. That touch, faltering and tremulous, moves him more than her arguments. Forgive you. Yes, poor child. says gravely, perhaps, after all, it is foolishness rather than sin that I have to pardon, and God pardons even sin. What am I, weak, offending man, that I should be more unmerciful than heaven? Yes, I forgive you, Sybil, but remember, my dear, that the past is an unalterable quantity. We have to carry the burden of our past deeds down to the grave. No man ever shifts

Starting point is 16:07:03 that load from his shoulders. You and I can never be again what we were the day you left this house to go in quest of fortune. You left something behind you then that you can never reclaim. You mean that I lost your love? My affection, my compassion, you shall have to the end of our lives. But the heart that trusted and loved you is dead and gone. I have no right to expect that it should be otherwise, answers Sybil in a voice broken by sobs. I set too much value on money. I was blind to all of their loss that might befall me. I thought that when I came to you with my Uncle Trencher's fortune in my hand you would forgive me, you would take me back to your heart. It is because you come to me without fortune that I am able to forgive you, Sybil. I thank

Starting point is 16:07:56 providence for the failure of your plans. No good could ever have come of Stephen Trencher's money to me or my race. And you will let me see my boy, Alex? I know that I have been a heartless mother, but I have suffered many a pang of remorse. You will let me see him before she breaks down here and sobs upon her husband's shoulder. Before what, Sybil? he asked gently.

Starting point is 16:08:21 Don't cry, my dear. There are many days in store for both of us now that we have got rid of our evil genius, even trenchard. His tone is kinder than it has been yet. He's felt a touch of remorse at remembering that he could have given his erring wife a warmer welcome, had she but returned to him before his experience of womanly tenderness and womanly unselfishness at Dorley Mill. It was only when he learned to draw comparisons between his wife and another woman that love had perished.

Starting point is 16:08:53 God bless you for those kind words, Alex, the first you've spoken to me tonight, and you will let me see my child before I die? before you die yes sybil and through many a year to come if you will be true to the little one in me and put stephen treacherd's money out of your head who talks about dying i've suffered so much alex and it has been so hard a task to hide every pang to be all smiles and gaiety and thoughtfulness for others with my own hidden sorrow always gnawing at my heart it has been a bitter task i feel as if the burden has been too heavy for me i feel quite worn out with the long battle physically as well as mentally indeed alexis i do not think that i have long to live this is a plea for mercy in form of papyrus and touches alexis he's growing very tender-hearted to this wife for whom he had told himself that his old love was dead and gone the room in which they had suffered poverty's chilling apprenticeship together seems to bring them closer to each other than any less familiar place of meeting could have done and presently when silver has struck a match and lighted a pair of sallow-looking candles which but dimly illuminate the scene alexis is moved to deeper pity by seeing the change that the last six months have wrought in his wife's beauty that wan white face those sunken cheeks and hollow eyes tell of a struggle that has been exhausting alike to mind and body

Starting point is 16:10:27 my poor girl how changed you are he exclaims drawing her to him in the dim light and scrutinizing her altered face yes there's no beauty to be proud of now alex i might sit in my corner at mrs hazelton's drawing-room and even your eye would not notice me the faded governess would come and go like a shadow i've lost my good looks all the capital fortune gave me to start in life and i've won nothing not even uncle trenchert's money we can do it without it, Sybil. If you had come to me with that ill-gotten wealth in your hand, I would have had nothing to say to you. I take you back tonight because you come without it. Back to your heart, Alex? To my home and my affectionate regard, my dear. Our hearts are not always to be commanded. Oh, don't look so sad, Sybil. Our Hampshire breezes will blow the color back to your cheeks. Hampshire? Oh, that is where our boy lives, but what took you to that part of the country, Alex? I'll answer that question when you've told me what took you there and how your child came to be

Starting point is 16:11:33 born in a Hampshire union. I'll tell you, Alex, I have no need to hide anything now. When I left you with those 10 pounds, which I extorted from you so cruelly, my only thought was to hide myself somewhere until after my baby's birth. I went into a little country village in Surrey, a quiet little place near Guilford, and hired a room in a cottage, a tiny whitewashed bedroom, which cost me three and sixpence a week. And there I lived for seven weeks, spending as little as possible, living on bread and butter and tea, till at last my landlady, who was only a farm laborer's wife, would bring me up a little plate of meat, sometimes out of charity. In seven weeks, I'd spent only four pounds on myself, but I had spent three more in buying clothes for my baby, and I had spent almost all my time in making them, those long, dull days,

Starting point is 16:12:26 when I used to sit there for hours together alone in my little room, listening to the ticking of the Dutch clock and the chirping of the crickets downstairs. I think I must have gone mad in those monotonous desolate days, if it had not been for my needlework. I used to go out into the field sometimes at dusk and wander about for an hour or so, and I felt as if I belonged to nobody and was quite the loneliest creature. in this wide world. A sorry prologue to your dignified existence at Lancaster Lodge. As the time from my baby's birth grew nearer, I began to think with dread of his being born in that

Starting point is 16:13:05 poor little room among coarse laboring people. I pined for a friend, any one of my own class, who would be kind to me. I took a horror of that stifling little room with its one small window and whitewashed walls and patchwork coverlet, and all the piggy and cabbagy smells that used to creep up from the room below. So I tried to remember any friend who would be likely to be kind to me if I flung myself upon her benevolence.

Starting point is 16:13:32 I could think of only one person, Maggie Rawlings, a girl who had been very fond of me at school, almost ridiculously fond, giving me keepsakes and insisting on wearing some of my hair in a locket, and showing her affection in all manner of fool. foolish ways. She was the daughter of a farmer in Hampshire, and as she had huge hamper sent her twice a quarter, and always had plenty of money to spend, I concluded that her people were rich.

Starting point is 16:14:00 I knew that she was an impulsive, warm-hearted little creature, and generous as the light of day. So I thought that if I went to her, she would find me a shelter of some sort and be kind to me and my baby. I went to Winchester by rail, and from Winchester I went on foot to find Hillside Farm. Poor child, murmurs Alexis. Poor foolish child. Our worst fortunes shared together were not so bad as this. Unfortunately, I had forgotten all but the name of the farm, and that Winchester was the nearest station. But how far that nearest station might be from Maggie's home, I had no idea. The consequence was that I wandered helplessly about from village to village for three days, led astray by wrong information, sent first to one farm and then another, and having to sleep at village inns where I paid dear

Starting point is 16:14:51 for very poor accommodation. On the fourth day, I succeeded in fighting hillside farm nearly 30 miles from Winchester, and there a cruel disappointment awaited me. My old school fellow was married and had gone to live in Lincolnshire. Mrs. Rawlings was barely civil to me and gave me her daughter's address with evident reluctance. No doubt she thought me a very questionable character. My shabby clothes denounced me. If I had possessed money enough or strength enough for the journey, I think I should have gone down to Lincolnshire in search of Maggie, but I had neither. I was ill and worn out by the fatigue of the last three days, and this disappointment at the end of all completely crushed me. Two days after, my baby was born in the workhouse. That was the only

Starting point is 16:15:39 refuge left open to me at the last. If you have been to Doarly Mill, you must know all the rest. I left the workhouse penniless, and, but for Linda Chalice's goodness, I could never have made my way to Red Castle. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me, Alexis, now that you know all the truth? I forgive you, Sybil and pity you with all my heart. You did yourself a deeper wrong than you did me when you sacrificed all natural feeling to the worship of your golden calf you paid a heavy price for your mistake it would be cruel to add my up ratings to the sum and now let us begin life a fresh little woman and be happy if we can fortune has been kinder to me who have wooed or someone carelessly than to you who have sought her with such mistaken diligence poverty need never more afflict us your husband is no longer mr saccharitan alias stanmore a homo humble waiter upon the tide of luck, but Alexis secretan, Esquire, of Chesell Grange in the county of Hans, able to give his wife her carriage and her flower garden, her dairy, poultry yard, and village school, and to leave his son the modest heritage of a small landowner.

Starting point is 16:16:57 Alexis, you're laughing at me. No, Sybil. When I stood before you at Lancaster Lodge last December, I was able to take you to as fair a home as you could care to inhabit, but I would not tempt you with the gifts of fortune. I waited for your heart to speak. And you were absolutely rich at that time? You could have given me all I had to hope for from my Uncle Stephen? Well, I cannot presume to measure Mr. Trenchard's possessions. My fortune I have told you is a modest one, but it is large enough to buy all the things needful to real happiness. The man of fabulous wealth can only live. He can't

Starting point is 16:17:38 cannot eat two dinners in the same day or ride two horses at once or consume more than given quantity of fresh air or get more pleasure out of life than his mental capacity for enjoyment will let him be he king or kaiser it seems that i have made a sorry mistake says sybil with a sigh a mistake which we will do our best to mend poor child replies alexis kindly and now sibyl i don't know whether you have dined to-day but i'm quite sure i have not so i think that we will do our best to mend poor child replies alexis kindly and now sybil i don't know whether you have died to-day but i'm quite sure i have not so i think the best thing i can do is to go out to our old haunts and buy a rump steak which our faithful bonnie will cook for our supper unless you would rather come to an hotel and bid the faithful bonny good-bye i'd rather stay where i am for a day or two alex i don't feel well enough to move we must call in a medical man sybil if you are so ill as that oh no i don't think a doctor would be of any use i'm not so much ill as tired i shall soon be better i dare say now are you so kind to me and doesn't it cheer you to know that we've done with our old enemy poverty that our future is to be bright and prosperous i'm glad with all my heart alex for your sake and our boys but i do not feel as if i had any future to look forward to in this world nonsense civil that is all the defect of debility a hypochondriacal view of life altogether you'll see things differently after a half dozen doses of quinine and a daily mutton chop or I shouldn't wonder if Guinness's stout were the best antidote for these dark ideas. And now I'll go see if Mrs. Bonnie can send anyone for that stake, or if I must go out and forge for myself.

Starting point is 16:19:23 He goes to the door, opens it, and finds himself face-of-face with an undone individual in a gray coat. Mrs. Bonnie stands behind the stranger with a brass candlestick uplifted to show him the way that he should go. Who the deuce are you, sir? asked Alexis rather savagely. This room is not to be let. His nerves have been too completely unstrung by that unexpected meaning of the last hour to allow if his being civil to an intrusive stranger. I'm not looking for lodgings, answers the grey man coolly.

Starting point is 16:19:58 I have come here to look for a young lady. Ah, there she is, I see. I have a warrant to arrest Miss Sybil Fonthorpe on suspicion of murder. suspicion of murder yes on suspicion of having murdered her uncle stephen trenchard esquire of lancaster lodge redcastle in the county of york to be transferred in my charge to redcastle jail there to remain pending the issue of the adjourned inquest

Starting point is 16:20:31 held to inquire into the deaths of the aforesaid stephen trenchard esquire the man must be mad cried sybil clinging to alexis i left my uncle alive in no danger anything you say now will be used against you hereafter miss says the man in gray in a warning voice alexis you don't believe i believe nothing so wildly improbable my dear let me see your warrant sir it is shown him a formal document issued in rancassel you Yorkshire and endorsed by a middle-sex magistrate. Alexis knows just enough of the law to know that the warrant is a genuine instrument, and that resistance is likely to be useless. There is but one loophole. Your warrant seems right enough, he says, but it is issued against Sybil Fonthorpe.

Starting point is 16:21:27 This lady is Mrs. Secretan, my wife. The lady may have a dozen aliases, sir, replies Mr. Judbury, with undisturbed, equanimity. But she's the lady we want all the same, and with your leave, I'm going to take her back to Yorkshire by the mail. There's just about time to do it, I think, Trivet, adds Mr. Judbury across his shoulder to a man in the background. My wife is not well enough to travel, says Alexis. Oh, come, she was well enough to travel to London less than a week ago. She must be well enough to go back. I'll take the responsibility of removing her. You've got a cab, Trivet? Yes, sir. Come along, Miss Fonthorpe. If you come quietly, I shall say nothing about the handcuffs, you know, but I've got them in my pocket.

Starting point is 16:22:15 What am I to do, Alexis? Sybil asked, piteously. If you think you can bear the journey, go, dear, I will go with you. Whatever hideous mistake has arisen out of your uncle's death can be best-righted by your presence. Don't be afraid, Sybil, I will stand by you. And you do not believe, I believe that you is, Innocent as a baby of any wrong against Stephen Trenchard, answers Alexis with conviction. Well, that makes me strong, says Sybil, quietly putting on her hat and jacket. I will come back to Red Castle. Well, I think, Miss, under existing circumstances, you better, answered the officer with suppressed satire. When did my uncle die?

Starting point is 16:22:59 The morning you left, Miss, strange to say, found dead in his bed. you lift by the 620 train according to the medical evidence your departure and mr trenchard's death must have been pretty nearly simultaneously he died suddenly then uncommon and why do they suppose that he was murdered because about an ounce of prussic acid was found in his inside pleased to bear in mind miss that any remark of yours will be used against you by and by this warning is unheeded nay unhited nay heard by Sybil. Prussic acid, she cries with an awful look. Oh, Alex, how dreadful. I had some prxic acid in a bottle enough to put an end of my life if there had been no other way of escape, left me from that horrid man, and I left the bottle at Lancaster Lodge. Yes, Miss, and it was found there empty. They go down to the cab, Sybil leaning on her husband's arm, and drive away from Dixon Street in the summer dusk.

Starting point is 16:24:05 Mrs. Bonnie watches the departing chariot with uplifted hands and eyes that ask the heavens to witness her astonishment. This beats all my experience of lodgers, she exclaims, that I should live to have my first floor took prisoner for murder, and to see my doorseps spiled by the muddy boots of a defective policeman. End of Chapter 47. Chapter 48 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Libravox recording

Starting point is 16:24:39 All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org Recording by Judy Mason Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 48 Tis held that sorrow may makes us wise. Throughout the tedious journey by the nightmare, Alexis supports and comforts Sybil by his presence.

Starting point is 16:25:13 All bitterness of feeling has passed out of his mind. He sees his wife the victim of a false accusation, and he's ready to pity and defend her. You do not believe these men, Alex? She repeats many times during that summer night, as she clings closer to her husband with a shiver as of cold, though the midsummer air is mild and balmy. You do not believe this horrible accusation, dear? Not a word, not a breath, he answers cheerily. These mistakes are common enough, love. It will be easily set right.

Starting point is 16:25:46 You only have to keep up your courage and trust in Providence and me. Oh, Alex, how good you are. How little I deserve your goodness, she answered with a stifle sob. Mr. Judbury, though hardened by much traveling on the stormy path of official life, shows some delicacy of feeling. He sends his follower to a second-class carriage and takes his seat as far from Mr. and Mrs. Secretan as the limits of a first-class compartment will allow. Nay, he is benevolent enough to refresh himself with occasional comfortable naps, but is always wakeful and alert when speed slackens and the train stops. He apparently considers that an attempt to escape from the train at full speed is an evil not to be apprehended. so the soft summer morning dawns gradually mysteriously with a slow lightning of the landscape and a faint breath of chiller air creeping among the woods and across the hill-tops

Starting point is 16:26:45 and aurora sees mr judberry reposing luxuriously in his padded corner with a red silk handkerchief draped picturesquely about his bald head and his manly chest in a manner doubled up into his shepherd's plain westcott the new-born day sheds but a sickly light upon sibyl's worn face as it leans against her husband's shoulder and alexis scrutinizing it in that clear light sees how marked and deep is the change that has been wrought there care has engraven lines that happiness can never erase this pallid countenance with sunken eyes ringed with purple shadow is but the ghost of the fair face that shone upon him in mrs hazelton's drawing-room deepest pity moves him as he gazes on that altered beauty lovely still for the lines have the perfection of the sculptor's marble a beauty that neither age nor death sickness nor care can deface but the glow and brightness of colouring are gone sybil is no longer a beauty for the vulgar eye to admire no longer the handsomest woman in redcastle that melancholy journey comes to an end at last they arrive at cramston in the early morning and after waiting nearly an hour in a labyrinthing terminus get a train to convey them to red castle which provincial shrine of the genius of quietude they reach at an hour which mr judbury pitcher Wesley describes as breakfast time. From the Red Castle station, naturally half a mile out of the town, they drive to Red Castle jail, a clean and modern building of Gothic architecture,

Starting point is 16:28:26 occupying an important site on the high road above bar, an edifice which is described in local handbooks as an ornament to the town. Sybil has ridden and driven past its medieval gateway many a time and has glanced at the lancet windows with a ladylike indifference of the life going on behind them. It seems a curious thing, a severance from all the outer world and the common round of life to be driven under that stony arch and along that smooth gravel drive, and to hear the iron gate close behind her with a clang that sounds like the snap of the shears of atropos. They all go into a stone-flagged hall together, a hall in which cleanliness and order reigns supreme, and in which the ticking of a large clock overpowers all the sound of humanity.

Starting point is 16:29:19 Here there is a brief consultation held between Mr. Judbury and an official, and after a little humming and hoaring, Sibyl is conducted to a small, plainly furnished room, which is hardly to be called a cell. There's a bedchamber adjoining and both rooms, rooms are guarded with substantial doors ponderously locked and bolted but the place is not so bad as the dungeon she has pictured to herself with a shudder during that long journey she has fancied herself crouching in a stone cell with a little straw on a corner and a large iron ring against the wall to wish she would perchance be chained whilst between massive iron bars high up on the wall crept a faint gleam of light this is the only kind of dungeon with which painters and poets have made her familiar. Alexis has not been allowed to accompany his wife to the room a lot of to her,

Starting point is 16:30:11 but on his explaining the case to the warder, he is treated with considerable civility, and taken straight to the governor of the prison, a young man who has lately exchanged a military career for the guardianship of criminals. From this gentleman, Alex receives every assurance of sympathy, and to this gentleman, Captain Heathcote, he gives a brief history of his married life, telling nothing that can throw discredit upon Sybil, but alleging her attachment to her uncle Stephen Trenchard is the reason of their separation and her concealment of her marriage. It happened, unfortunately, that the separatans and trenchards were, like the Montague's and Capulettes, foes to the death, he tells Captain Heathcote. There was an old feud

Starting point is 16:30:56 between my poor father and Steve had trenchard, the circumstances of which I need not enter into, I believe my father was the injured person in that quarrel. My wife naturally believed her uncle in the right. We were quietly married in London, and my wife kept her marriage a secret from her family. When Mr. Trenchert came home from India, he asked you to go live with him. My circumstances at that time were very low, and I had no home to give my wife. So she was. came to Redcastle, resumed her maiden name, and lived under her uncle's roof until his attempt to force her into a marriage with an East Indian protege of his, compelled her to leave his house. Captain Heathcote listens and is thoughtful. A story sounds credible enough and is in some measure

Starting point is 16:31:45 confirmed by the copy of the marriage register, which Alexis shows the captain. Captain Heathcote, upon whose military status Red Castle Society looks kindly, though inclined to be somewhat supercilious about his official position, has met Sybil at Colonel Stormontz, and it goes hard with him to imagine that she has been capable of this hideous crime which is imputed to her. Yet it must be confessed that there was never a more awkward combination of circumstances. her secret flight, coincident with her uncle's death, her possession of the poison, or the same kind of poison, by which he died, the finding of the empty bottle in her work-basket, and now this revealment of her marriage, so long concealed from those among whom she has lived, her nearest friends and kindred, these things suggest a capacity for deceit, a disposition in which duplicity is second nature. These considerations make Captain Heathcote grave and thither,

Starting point is 16:32:44 thoughtful but he is not the less courteous and obliging you may be assured i shall do all in my power to lessen the painfulness of miss i beg your pardon mrs secretan's position we are never very severe in our treatment of persons who are here only under suspicion and until mrs secretan is committed for trial which i trust she will not be we shall contrive to relax our rules as much as possible in her favour burton tells me he has given her comfortable rooms you are very good please god she will not be long under this horrible suspicion i imagine that directly the matter is investigated her innocence must appear but in the meanwhile i am most grateful for your kindness my wife is looking very ill i think she really requires medical attention her uncle is a medical man in this town perhaps it would be as well for him to see her if it might be allowed certainly dr faunthorpe is not our official surgeon but he might see mrs secretan thanks and may i be allowed to see her as often as you like but not alone i shall be obliged to place a female warder in mrs secretan's room i am not luckily to have anything to say which the warder may not hear and i shall be glad to know that my wife is not alone she is in a very low state of health and will be all the better for companionship however humble you would like to see her perhaps before you leave very much then we'll go to her captain heathcote leads the way to a clean and arry corridor beckons to a warder to unlock a door and admits alexis into the prisoner's room syple is sitting listlessly by the open window a closely barred window looking into the stone quadrangle where the prisoners are solemnly trapping signal file in a circle for their regulation hour of air and exercise

Starting point is 16:34:42 a respectable young woman in a white muslin cap has just brought a cup of tea and a plate of bread and butter for the new arrival there is no question of jail-fair yet a while mrs secretan could have ordelands or patte de foie gras if she like to import those delicacies from the outside world my dear sibyl captain heathcote has been kind enough to promise that you shall have all possible indulgence so you must try to keep up your spirits yes alexis she answers quietly i have very little cause for unhappiness when you are so kind to me how do you do captain heathcote she says turning to the governor with a faint smile it seems strange for us to meet like this does it not i feel as if i had come to your house as an uninvited guest i shall do all in my power to make your visit agreeable and shall be unhospitable enough to wish that it may be brief answers the captain i am very anxiously to know all about my uncle's death says sybil it was a great shock to me to hear he was dead dr mitson told me that he was in no danger the very day before i left red castle can it be true that he died from poison unhappily there is no room to doubt that answers captain heathcote gravely but do not let us talk about this sad business mrs secretan your husband will do all that can be done to protect your interests to clear your name be assured of that and give your mind as much repose as you can the inquest will be reopened to-morrow and you will have to appear as a criminal in the dock asked sybil with a shudder There's no dock in the coroner's court.

Starting point is 16:36:27 Oh, my dearest, what does it matter? says Alexis, soothingly. Tomorrow's examination will doubtless clear you of this shameful charge. Be patient and trust in God. I'm going to call upon your uncle, Dr. Fondthorpe. I thought perhaps we would like him to come and see you. Yes, I should like to see him very much if he does not believe that I am... I can't say the dreadful words, Alex. But no, I am sure Uncle Robert does not believe in this accusation.

Starting point is 16:36:52 dear soul he never thought evil of anyone you shall see him dear and he shall prescribe for you unless there is any other medical man whose advice you would rather have i do not think medicine can do me much good alex but i shall consult anyone you wish but i want to see uncle robert to ask him about uncle stephen's death he must know everything and about the will ah by the way exclaims alex there was a will i suppose and pray who is the gainer of Mr. Trenchert's wealth? After Heathcote looks at the Inquirer with a grave smile. Have you heard nothing? Don't you know the particulars? he asks? We know nothing except that Mr. Trenchard is dead and is supposed to have been poisoned.

Starting point is 16:37:37 Has this will been read yet? His will, or rather a final statement of his circumstances, briefly set forth in a paper to be read after his death, was made known to two or three people yesterday, as generally happens in Redcastle what was known to three people in the morning had become town talk in the evening mr trenchard has not left sixpence to anyone sybil's eyes open to their widest faintly dimly during that worrisome night journey she had seen herself cleared from the monstrous charge of murder and possessed of stephen trenchard's fortune his sudden death would have prevented his disinheriting her death overtook him before he could have known of her flight do you mean to say that he has left all his money to hospitals exclaimed alexis i mean to say that he has left no money whatever or hardly enough for the payment of five shillings in the pound upon his debts we are very wise in red castle but with all our wisdom are apt to take outward show for reality mr trenchard has contrived to impose upon us all he has been the living upon a few thousands taken out of a business on the verge of insolvency, and upon his

Starting point is 16:38:55 credit in Red Kessel, which was rather large, rather hard upon Mrs. Sacratan, whom everybody's supposed to be his heiress. The policy of his old age is of a peace with the treachery of his youth, replies Alexis quietly. My wife can afford to do without his money. Sibyl sits silent and utter bewilderment. What phantom has she followed in these years that are gone? To what false idol has she sacrificed, love and truth, and duty to husband and child, all fair things that are honorable and woman? Bad enough to have worshipped a golden calf, but to find the calf of basest metal is indeed the lowest depth of humiliation and disgrace. Alexis, she says at last, looking piteously at her husband.

Starting point is 16:39:50 There never was anyone so foolish, so deluded as I have been. How you must despise me. No, my dear, I'm only sorry for you in our mistaken lives, the lost years that can never come back to us. End of Chapter 48. Chapter 49 of dead men's shoes. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 16:40:29 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Judy Mason Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 49 But here is one who loves you as of old. Mr. Secretan is not sorry to get away from that quiet orderly room in the prison, where never comes any sound of outward things more human than the creaking of the warder's boots in the passage, or the ticking of that inexorable clock in the hall, dismal clock that checks off hours that are heavier than lead,

Starting point is 16:41:11 minutes whose every moment is a sigh. Alexis would willingly stay all day with his wife to lighten the burden of her solitude, to strengthen the fainting heart with words of chaufulness and comfort if he had not worked to do elsewhere. He has a task to perform and a difficult one, and he hardly knows how to set about it. He has been careful to ask, no questions of Captain Heathcote, feeling that the governor's position must compel him to caution and reticence. He stands, as it were, upon the opposite side in that game of life and death, which has to be played out, the rouges and.

Starting point is 16:41:50 noir of the criminal court. Not to him, can Alexis look for information or assistance. Mr. Secretan leaves the prison, sorely perplexed as to what his first step should be. At present, he knows nothing, save that Stephen Trenchard is supposed to have died from prussic acid, and that Sybil is confessed to having had a bottle of prussic acid in her possession at Lancaster Lodge. We must meet law with law, I suppose. thinks Alexis, as my wife is in the grip of the law, I must get a lawyer to fight her battle. He thinks of the names he is seen in connection with the criminal courts, names that have a sound of power, and there is one that comes uppermost in his mind, super eminent and invincible,

Starting point is 16:42:37 a shield and a buckler in the fight. This is the legal firm of Levison and Levison, Parchment Street, Viaduct Hill. He goes straight to the telegraph office and he, telegraphs to Messrs Leveson and Leveson, solicitors, requesting that one of their firm may start for Redcastle that afternoon a most urgent case, money, no object. He feels fortified against danger in some measure when he has sent this message and goes from the station to Dr. Fontthorps. The shabby old house looks a little shabbier and more woe be gone than usual today in the vivid sunshine of midsummer. Hester, whose spirits generally maintain an equitable acidity, has drooped, and given way to absolute despair since the revelation of Stephen Trencher's insolvency.

Starting point is 16:43:29 It seems to her, as if the shattered fortunes of the house in Fondhorpe, had received the final blow that brings them to the dust. Jerusalem besieged by Titus could hardly have fallen lower. The idea of Stephen Trenchard's fortune to be divided in some manner among his nieces had been the faithful servant's only daydream. She had not set her hopes very high. She had languished for no translation to a loftier sphere, but she had believed that a little money would find its way through his nieces to the pockets of Robert Fonthorpe. She had fancied that the dilapidated old house would be painted and whitewashed. some of the worm-eaten flooring replaced with sound wood new deal which would repay the labor of her scrubbing brush she had pictured her master in a new coat she had told herself that a few pounds spent upon the pony carriage would rehabilitate that vehicle and that a new set of harness would make the pony a gentleman long arrears of wages due to herself in times past a sum that would have doubled itself by this time at compound interest might possibly be paid in the money to be paid in the same time in times past a sum that would have doubled itself by this time at compound interest might possibly be paid in

Starting point is 16:44:39 that flood tide of fortune, but this last item was one of secondary consideration in the faithful Hester's mind. She wanted to see the family raise its head from the dust. She wanted to feel that the house of Fondthorpe had something of the phoenix in its nature. The habits of this fabulous bird have been made familiar to Hester, not in the pages of Herodotus, but by the fire office, which has taken it for its device and emblem. The disappointment has been very bitter to the doctor's two younger nieces, and Marian lies on the sofa and bewails her fate, and declares rebelliously that she will never more try to deserve well of Providence. What's the use of being good, she demands, with an injured heir? One couldn't be used worse if one was a forger or a murderer. I didn't

Starting point is 16:45:32 expect much. Sybil's artfulness nipped my expectations in the bud, but I did build upon getting something, even if it was only a paltry five thousand pounds. Jenny is more philosophical and more easily reconciled to fate. If he hadn't any money to leave, he couldn't leave it to us, she argues, but he must have been a sly old fox to make believe to be a millionaire and take in all red castle. a wicked old impostor exclaims marian wrathfully poor sybil's disappointment will be worse than ours says jane yes that's a comfort she'll find how she has wasted all her scheming and artfulness on a jesuitical old pauper she'll feel small enough i should think perhaps she knew the truth all along and was laughing in her sleeve at our expectations suggests jenny she's deep enough for anything however i forgive her all her baseness now and pity her with all my heart says marian with a magnanimous air she'll find life a very different thing now she has seen the last of lancaster lodge oh i hope she won't get into trouble about that prussic acid says jenny thoughtfully and marian also grows grave that question about the prussic acid is serious one might wish one's sister's unholy pride and temporal blessings to be chastised

Starting point is 16:47:00 by providence for her own spiritual chastening and benefit, but one would shrink, appalled, from the idea of that erring sister lying under a suspicion of having poisoned her uncle. In the first place, such an imputation would be too severe punishment for the offender, and in the second it would cast discredit upon all her family. It's my opinion that Uncle Trenshard has spent all his money, and knew he must be found out if he let things go on any longer, and got out of the difficulty by poisoning himself, says Jenny sagely. The only thing that's hard to account for is how he could have got hold of prussic acid

Starting point is 16:47:40 that Sybil took out of the surgery. It mightn't have been that very presc acid that killed him, stupid, exclaims Marian contemptuously. True, says Jenny. If you had only held that blabbing tongue of yours, nobody need have known that Sybil had ever taken anything out of the surgery, says Mary. and if we are all brought to disgrace it will be your doing we're at jenny burst into tears and weeps dismally for the next half hour she has shed many a tear about that fatal communicativeness of hers within the last few days they're sitting in the front parlor when this conversation takes place on the morning of mr secretan's arrival in red castle and when jenny has whipped till her eyeballs ache she wanders listlessly to the window and stares out at the small square garden where the bountiful cabbage roses and a few ancient perennials bloom as well as the dust will allow them.

Starting point is 16:48:36 There is not much in the way of traffic at this end of town. A farmer's cart jolts by once in half an hour, or a laboring man passes on a plow horse, or a drove of oxen straggles by hunted by an abusive driver. Not often do the elite of Red Castle penetrate to this end of the town. There's not much distraction of mind, therefore, to be obtained from looking out of the window, and Jenny contemplates external things from listlessness rather than interest. But on a sudden, to the surprise of her sister, who has buried herself in a novel,

Starting point is 16:49:09 Jenny ejaculates abruptly, Good gracious, it's him! Whatever our family troubles are, you might remember that the verb to be takes the same case after as before it, Jane, remonstrates Marion with dignity, and pray, whom do you mean by him? the young man cries jane in cautious in her surprise my brother-in-law what does a ridiculous child mean exclaims marian pulling herself up from the sofa with a wrench and looking out at the gate yes there is a very good-looking and gentlemanlike young man in the act of entering at that modest green gate why he's a perfect stranger said marian is he remarks jenny who has recovered her self-possession by this time ah to be sure and now i look at him i see he is a stranger i took him for someone else it's my belief you are a demented child cries marian crossly i suppose he's a patient for uncle marian is confirmed in this belief when mr secretan inquires for dr fontthorpe and on being told that he is out asks permission to wait his return he looks respectable nay even superior to some of the red castle gentry so hester shows him

Starting point is 16:50:28 into the surgery and asks him to take a seat. The doctor always runs home for his bit of dinner when he can, she says, and I don't think he was going very far today, so he'll be in by half an hour or so, I dare say. Left in the surgery, Alexis thinks of that summer day nearly a year ago, when he came here in quest of his truant wife and allowed himself to be put on a false scent by a schoolgirl's deceitfulness. He is very angry with Jane Fon.

Starting point is 16:50:58 thorpe to-day when he thinks that all the evil that has befallen sybil might have been prevented had that child told the truth but she'd been taught her lesson by sybil no doubt he reflects i do wrong to blame her he has more than an hour to wait for dr faunt thorpe a weary while for he is burning with impatient to know all that can be known about stephen trenchard's death it is past two o'clock when the doctor comes into the surgery looking tired and anxious and alexis feels as if much precious time has been lost. He hastens to introduce himself to Robert Fonthorpe, and to give that bewildered practitioner the history of Sybil's marriage. Sir, you petrify me, exclaims the meek little doctor, wiping the perspiration from his bald forehead with an ancient cell cankerchief. Do you mean to tell me that my niece, whom I have ever considered the incarnation of candor,

Starting point is 16:51:53 could be capable of so deceiving me? It was not your resentment. she favored Dr. Fonthorpe, but her uncle Trenchard's antipathy to my name. You are no doubt acquainted with the family history? Yes, yes, my poor sister-in-law told me the story. That family quarrel of the past was Sybil's motive for concealing her marriage with me. And now that you know who I am, I have to speak of something much more serious. Your niece has been arrested on suspicion of being concerned in her uncle's murder

Starting point is 16:52:24 and is now in Red Castle, jail. dr faunt thorpe sinks into a chair speechless with horror for the last three days and nights he has lived in the apprehension of something like this but the reality seems more dreadful than his fears don't tell me so he cries it is unhappily the truth i was with my wife at the time of her arrest i'm here to protect and defend her and now tell me all you know about stephen trenchert's death dr faunthorpe tells all that is that is to be told, disjointedly at first, but on being closely questioned by Alexis, plainly enough at the last. He tells Alexis the unlucky facts connected with that blue bottle of prussic acid. He tells Alexis the various opinions, conjectures, and rumors which obtain in Redcastle. Why should he not have poisoned himself? asked Alexis. Ah, we might have supposed that. But then comes the question of the bottle, or vessel from which he took the

Starting point is 16:53:27 the poison. With so powerful a dose, death would have been instantaneous. He would not have had time to throw the bottle from him. He must have died clutching it, and the empty bottle was found in Sibyl's work basket. Where it might have been easily placed by anyone who wished to fix the guilt upon her. Yes, of course, if we could only prove that. We must prove that, Dr. Fonthorpe. We must find the poisoner, or show that Stephen Trencher took poison out of his own free will. He may have felt that his game was played out and may have adopted suicide as a happy escape out of his difficulties. That might be.

Starting point is 16:54:09 Alexis had made notes of Dr. Fonthorpe's answers to his questions. He's made a list of the people in the house at the time of Stephen Trencher's death. How about this Joel Pilgrim? Why should he not be suspected rather than Sybil? there is that unfortunate circumstance of Sybil's flight and the pressic acid taken from this surgery. Both facts tell against her, yet if she had been guilty, she would have been too wise to excite suspicion by that secret departure, and if she had wanted to commit murder,

Starting point is 16:54:41 she would hardly have chosen a poison which she must have known as of all the poisons the most easily detected. Dr. Fonthorpe's only answer is a hopeless sigh. he is borne down nate crushed by calamity what every elasticity of spirit nature may have adowed him with at the outset of life has been worn out of him by a long career of self-abnegation and endurance he is so accustomed to trouble sorrow is such a common flavour in his cup that he cannot easily look beyond the darkness of the hour to-day he sees himself enclosed in an impenetrable cloud of misery freely gladly would he give his life such feeble remnant of life as he holds to save his niece mean he cannot devise any mode of being helpful to her this pilgrim must be the man says alexist after reading over his notes meditatively i cannot see any motive can you not he may have believed in trenchard's wealth and inspected to inherit some of it he may have wanted money badly and determined on hastening his inheritance.

Starting point is 16:55:56 There's one little circumstance that I ought perhaps to have told you, begins the doctor falteringly. Well, for God's sake, tell me everything. It was after the post-mortem. Dr. Mitzin, who has taken up this matter in a very energetic spirit, asked a few questions of the butler at Lancaster Lodge. Well, the questions themselves were of no particular moment. importance, touching the position of a table beside the bed, the bottles and glasses, and so on,

Starting point is 16:56:28 but there was something in the man's manner which struck Dr. Mitzin and myself as remarkable. He had been drinking, I believe, and may have been muddled by drink, but he had, to my mind, and Dr. Mitzins, the manner of a person laboring under some kind of apprehension. He had a shifty look and answered the simplest questions reluctantly, as if he had a shifty look. afraid to commit himself at the coroner's inquest he appeared in the same muddled state worse indeed and drew upon himself a severe reprimand from the coroner is the man still at lancaster lodge yes i saw him going at the lodge gate to-day as i came past on my way home then i'll see him without delay and see what it is to be made of him said alexis in a case of such important so would it not be better to employ a detective suggest the doctor humbly. Dr. Fonthor, in a case that affects my wife's honor and her life,

Starting point is 16:57:30 there is no detective living whose wits would be keener than mine, replies Alexis. I will trust no one with this work while I have the power to do it myself. And thus they part. End of Chapter 49. Chapter 50 of Dead Men's Shoes This is a Libreville. recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Judy Mason

Starting point is 16:58:11 Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 50 Alexis Investigates Before going to Lancaster Lodge, Alexis goes back to the jail and spends half an hour with his wife. He feels that it would be cruel to leave her all through the long, lonely day. He finds your curiously patient and quiet, resigned to the horror of her position, and touchingly grateful for his interest in her. It's a strange end to all my dreams, Alexis, she says sadly. I fancied that when our reconciliation came, life would be full of brightness for us.

Starting point is 16:58:52 I have comforted myself in many a lonely hour with the thought of our reunion. we should be fabulously rich free as air with all the world in its pleasures before us the reality is strikingly different from the daydream is it not no freedom no wealth our reconciliation finds me a prisoner and a pauper the prison will not be for long dear and i have fortunate enough for both of us so you need not regret your daydream about stephen trencher's wealth a factor which he will not be for long dear and i have fortunate enough for both of us so you need not regret your daydream about stephencher's wealth a factor which had no real existence in the sum of our lives. Why did I not learn wisdom from my spelling-book that dog's-eared old spelling book with fables for reading lessons, says Sybil, with her faint smile? I'm like the dog in the fable, who dropped the substance to snatch the shadow. She asks no questions as to his morning's occupation.

Starting point is 16:59:50 She seems in no manner to realize the peril of her situation and the urgency of prompt action. Perhaps she is more womanly in this hour of trial than she has been at any other crisis of her life. Alexis has forgiven her. That is the one fact she dwells upon most, and the danger and horror of her position touch her lightly. That which she feels most bitterly is to know herself the dupe of her own avarice, fooled to the top of her bent by false appearances, mocked at perhaps in secret by the insolvent bellial of her worship. Love is better than gold or silver, Alexis, she says, resting her languid head upon her husband's shoulder.

Starting point is 17:00:38 Poets, philosophers, and sages have been singing that chorus ever since the world began, Sybil. Yet there are a good many people left who set their affections on filthy lucre, and however much we may abuse it, that yellow oar, keeps the world moving has some good uses as well as evil ones and now i must leave you for hour or two i have some more business to get through in your lively town you will not be alone all the afternoon dear dr faunthorpe is coming to see you dear uncle robert oh alex how i hate myself when i remember my neglect of that dear good man while i paid my court to an impostor and yet perhaps i have no right to say that i've been thinking over the past as i sat here this morning and i see that i've been self-deceived rather than the dupe of uncle trenchard he never told me that he meant to make me his heiress he never told me that he had a great fortune to leave it was other people who deceived me those stormants in their set always harping upon one string courting me and flattering me as the heiress elect i have a little right to blame my uncle he did not know how much i had sacrificed for his sake he did not know how false and wicked apart i was playing he was anxious that i should make a rich marriage that i should profit by the false appearances that surrounded me and establish myself before he died he meant kindly by that at any rate

Starting point is 17:02:11 we will say no harm of the dead my dear and now good-bye for a few hours alexis meets dr faunthorpe on his way out the good little man has only stopped to perform some unnecessary duties in the dispensing line before hastening to his niece From Red Castle Jail to Lancaster Lodge is only ten minutes walk. Alexis has no difficulty in finding the mansion which he came to six months ago in the winter dusk, for Lancaster Lodge has made itself unusually conspicuous today, having put on a breastplate of auctioneers bills, announcing that all the elegant furniture, brass bedsteads, superior bedding, German spring mattresses, best brussels, Axminster, velvet pile, another carpeting,

Starting point is 17:03:01 glass, china, pictures, electroplated goods, valuable library of standard authors, Grand Piano by Broadwood, patent lawn mowing machine, knife cleaning apparatus, and other household effects, together with the valuable lease of the mansion

Starting point is 17:03:18 at a moderate rent, are to be disposed of by public auction on Monday next July 3rd and three following days the whole to be on view on the previous saturday admission by catalogue price one shilling this is thursday and alexis resolves to ask for a private view of the mansion the request may be a little out of order perhaps but a judicious distribution of half-crown's will in all probability remove difficulties this man podmore the late mr trancheon's butler is doubtless in charge of the house. Alexis makes his application at the lodge gate, where the lodgekeeper's wife has taken prompt advantage of Mr. Trenchard's death

Starting point is 17:04:05 to hang out her family linen on the laurels and conifers in the shrubbery. It's a comfort to do a bit of washing and freedom, this matron has remarked to her liege lord, the head gardener. Mr. Trenchard were so particular. Particular, growled the husband. He were a man that all us wanted 18, of work for a shilling i don't call that there particular seems to me that there breeds rather common mollified by half a crown the guardians of the gate are of the opinion that mr secretan can see the house it ain't the day says the gardener scratching his head doubtfully you'll see what's rode up on they bills saturday but if you're only passing through and wanted to see if there's anything you'd like to bid for i'd just say as they might

Starting point is 17:04:55 might strain a pint up at the house here's old podmore the butler a very particular old party but still he's amly meal-ball to reason alexis having passed the outer gate of the citadel goes straight to the hall door where he finds mr podmore sunning himself on the threshold cadaverous and flaccid of aspect as a man who has been living for the last few days upon gin and water and slovenly in his apparel as a man who having retired from official life feels that he has no occasion to be punctilious in the use of soap and water to him alexis makes his request there are some pictures that i want to see he says and as i'm only passing through the town i shall be much obliged if you can let me see them to-day and-i shall be much obliged if you can let me see them to-day he accompanies the request with a dexterous passage of half a sovereign from his fingers to podmore's palm quite a delicate feat and prestigiation podmore turns his gin and watery eyes upon the applicant with a puzzled air dimly recalling that face and voice as in some wise familiar to him on the blurred page of memory but memory's page is so much blotted that he vainly strives to decipher the imperfect record "'Ain I seen you somewhere before?' he asks feebly. "'Very possibly,' replies Alexis. "'You ain't been a visitor here in the old gentleman's time?'

Starting point is 17:06:28 "'No.' "'Then it must have been in some former situation. "'Yes, you can see the pictures. There's no harm in that. "'Not that the pictures are good for much. "'Regular Warder Street duffers supplied by the upholster or cabriol, and now he's served in attachment on the goods of chief creditor. He's been let in nicely, has old Cabriol. The housekeeper will show you round.

Starting point is 17:06:54 There's only me and her left in the house now, and it's very lonesome. In fact, adds board more confidentially, it's undermining my spirits. I feel that low I could shed tears by the paleful. Yes, replies Alexis, watchful of the butler's countenance. It must be dreary work, living in a house where a, foul crime has been committed, the foulest of crimes, secret murder. Podmore looks uncomfortable at this, but he hardly realizes Mr. Secretan's idea of a man stricken with the sense of guilt.

Starting point is 17:07:29 But then there are some criminals so callous, some men with whom crime is, as it were, a natural development. And from these, the agonies of remorse, the throes and convulsions of a guilt-burdened soul, are not to be looked for. Had been, had been, not nemesis overtaken William Palmer in the person of his latest victim's stepfather, that practiced plotter against the lives of his friends and relatives would, doubtless, have gone on driving his profitable trade, and gone down to the grave, jaunty and debonair, liked and trusted by his comrades, the jolly good fellow of his jovial circle. Be sure, no tell-tale muscle of Mr. Palmer's face assisted the task of detection,

Starting point is 17:08:12 no quiver of that iron lip betrayed the hand of the poisoner as he presented the fatal draft to the lips of his friend. Freinology has declared that in that man's brain the capacity for pity or remorse was wanting. Thou's keeper'll take you round, repeats Podmore, slipping the half-sovereign into his pocket. Podmore's eyes are dull and watery, and his breath is flavored with juniper berries, or, may be turpentine. His limbs are heavy, and he is averse from motion. He calls a thin and vinegar-faced female, whose temper has been soured by a lifelong devotion to the kitchen stove, and an apparatus she describes as a bang Mary, a large metal tray containing a family of stew pans of various sizes, in which sauces, glazes, and diverse, savory compositions simmer gently in a perpetual warm bath.

Starting point is 17:09:11 the bammarie and the stove together have been too much for mrs skinner's temper which is disagreeably suggested of that fiery region she has so long inhabited this gentleman wants to have a look round the house says podmore in those thick and hazy tones which have become habitual to him then he must come on the proper day replies mrs skinner snappishly oh but it's all right he's got a hoarder you're to show him everything mrs skinner looks doubtful but on a solemn wink from the hazy podmore yields the point expectant of largesse you can come this way she says to alexis with scant courtesy i should like to see the room in which mr trenchard died says alexis when he has surveyed the drawing-room and dining-room dismal tabernacles of upholstery i hope you haven't come out of curiosity says mrs skinner reproachfully it's the first time i ever lived in a house where there was suspicion of a murder and it's very trying to my feelings my father was a respectable tradesman i wasn't brought up to this sort of thing curiosity has not brought me here replies alexis but i have a particular desire to see the room in which mr trenchard died he is about to say and to hear all you can tell me about his death but it strikes him that mrs skinner despite her acid countenance will talk freely of her own accord presently not for his gratification but for the relief of her own pent-up feelings he politely offers her half a sovereign which is a she takes with a curtsy and as near an approach to a smile as her features can shape thank you kindly sir i won't deny that it is acceptable finding oneself suddenly out of place and disappointed of any little legacy one had a right to expect i'm sure the pains i took with the old gentleman's curries was quite wearing to my nerves scraped coconuts and prawns and chutney and oysters and all manner of fiddle faddle and his

Starting point is 17:11:26 Bombay ducks and his rubbish, but he's gone to his last account and we'll have to answer for him all, I make no doubt, and for his deception towards his servants. And his favorite niece, suggests Alexis, the deception came hardest upon her. Ah, sighed Mrs. Skinner, pursing up her lips. When young folks hold their heads too high, Providence is apt to lay snares and pitfalls for them. We've King David's word for that in the Psalms. alexis remembers that a favourite has no friends the housekeeper considerably mollified by the stranger's liberality leads the way to mr trencher's bedchamber where the furniture has a gloomy look and even shabby look since the auctionears men have overhauled it everything pushed out of its place and twisted the wrong way defaced with lot numbers degraded from its pride and pomp the bedstead heaped with an untidy pile of bedding bundles of

Starting point is 17:12:26 blankets, tumbled counterpane, and sheeting. Things that careful housewives think they ought to get very cheaply under such conditions, but which generally costs the feminine bargain hunter more than if they came straight from a draper's shop. Alexis notices the door, by the head of the bed. Well, there is a second door to Mr. Trenchard's room, I see, he remarks. Yes, sir. Was that always unlocked? Yes, that was kept unlocked for Podmore to come down to give me

Starting point is 17:12:56 Mr. Trenchard his medicine. Mrs. Skinner opens the door and shows Alexis the landing on the back staircase and the flight of stairs leading to Podmore's room. There are two more doors that open onto this landing. Alexis inquires about these. That one opens into Mr. Trenchard's dressing room, implies Mrs. Skinner, and this, indicating the further door, into Mr. Pilgrim's room. Alexis opens this last door and looks into Mr. Pilgrim's apartment.

Starting point is 17:13:24 a comfortable bachelor's room with another door opening into the gallery at the top of the principal staircase. Lancaster Lodge belongs to a period of domestic architecture in which architects delighted in the multiplication of doors, and, if prevented by untoward conditions from putting in real doors, consoled themselves by filling in their blank corners with ornamental dummies leading to nowhere. Mr. Trenchard's room was as easily accessible to Mr. Pilgrim as to the butler, says Alexis, and now show me Miss Fott Thorpe's rooms. Mrs. Skinner obeys, and Alexis finds that, taking into consideration that Mr. Trenchard's door of communication with the gallery was

Starting point is 17:14:11 locked on the inside on the night of his death, Sibyl could only have entered his apartment by going down the principal's staircase, opening a door which Mrs. Skinner declares to have been always locked after 10 o'clock in the evening, and the key in her possession, crossing a lobby and ascending the servant's staircase. Stay, there is another way. If Stephen Trenchard's dressing room has a door opening on the gallery. He hastens to ascertain this. No, there are two doors to the dressing room, but neither communicates with the gallery.

Starting point is 17:14:46 one opens into the bedroom, the other onto the landing before mentioned. This must surely make a strong point in Sybil's favor. While all communication between her room and her uncles was cut off in the nighttime, Joel Pilgrim and Podmore had easy access to the dead man's bedchamber. To this argument, a counsel for the prosecution might reply that the poison was possibly put ready for the patient's own hand on the eve of the murder mixed with, with his drink or his medicine. Yet in the latter case,

Starting point is 17:15:21 Podmore, who administered the poison, must have seen his deadly effect, unless the man were, as Alexis supposes, an habitual drunkard, and too far gone on this occasion to take notice of his master's condition. This seems too much to believe. Even stupid drunkenness would have sense

Starting point is 17:15:39 enough to perceive the effect of a deadly and instantaneous poison. Alexis sees Sybil's boudoir where the prussic acid bottle was found in the work-basket. Might it not, he asked himself, have been taken from that basket full and returned to it empty by some other hand than Sybil's, and yet how should anyone else have known of her possession of the poison? The housekeeper has been obligingly communicative.

Starting point is 17:16:08 She has entered into all the details of Stephen Trenchard's last illness and death, dwelling on the gloomiest particulars with that ghoul-like relish, peculiar to women of her kind. She has described the finding of the body, its awful appearance, Miss Fonthorpe's mysterious flight which naturally set folks against her. You don't surely believe her

Starting point is 17:16:31 to have had anything to do with her uncle's death, cries Alexis. Mrs. Skinner shakes her head solemnly, till the crape roses and jet ornaments in her cap she has brought out some dingy weeds laid by from a previous time of morning, tremble and shiver. I don't like to express an opinion as a Christian woman, she says,

Starting point is 17:16:52 but the opinion in Red Castle is that Miss Fonthorpe did it. She had the poison, there's no denying that, and she got it in an underhand way, and then on the very morning of her uncle's death, she runs away secretly, and no one knows where she's gone. A way to proclaim her guilt, which she would hardly have taken if she were guilty.

Starting point is 17:17:12 She would not be so short-sighted as that. murderers generally are short-sighted replied mrs skinner sagely it's a merciful dispensation of providence by which they run their necks into nooses there's not much good could be done by the detective police if it wasn't for the short-sightedness of criminals that's a very wise remark mrs skinner and i'm surprised that so sensible a woman as you can imagine that poor girl guilty of a crime which only a hardened sinner could conceive there's no knowing where to look for hardened sinners replies the housekeeper ministers wouldn't tell us about original sin in the pulpit if wickedness wasn't born with some of us and as to good looks there are no criterion black thoughts may lie behind pretty faces as well as ugly ones and alexis foresees that with the female community in red castle sybil's beauty will be no certificate of innocence he pursues the subject no further seeing that loose conjectures of Mrs. Skinner's will in no wise help in the unraveling of this tangled skein. I rather wonder, he says thoughtfully, still moving about the empty rooms and making believed to examine the furniture, that Mr. Trencher should have employed your fellow servant as his attendant in illness. I should have supposed from his manner today that he was somewhat inclined to drinking.

Starting point is 17:18:41 Ah, says Mrs. Skinner, well, you may think so for all of the the sots that ever was there never was a stupider sot than joseph podmore has been since his master's death since cries alexis was he sober before then yes sir joseph and me has been fellow-servants here since mr trencher took his house three and a half years ago and i must say that joseph podmore has never laid himself open to reproach in all that time not but what he liked his beer at dinner and supper and his time-and-a-half-half-half and his time-he of grog after supper and a glass of dry sherry wine with its mouthful of bread and cheese between breakfast and dinner but was never the worst for anything he took and since his master's death he has never been properly sober muddling himself with gin and beer dogs knows he calls it and the very lowness of the name is enough to set any decent person against the stuff let alone it's being cold and comfortless to the inside all day long and that lowly in his spirits that it's a misery to be in his company. Low-spirited, asks Alexis. Awful. And yet, according to his own account, things have prospered with him, for he says he's going to take a public house

Starting point is 17:20:00 and begin life as an independent gentleman directly he leaves here, though how he can have saved money to go into business, seeing that he has a wife and two children to keep out of his wages, and she an extravagant drab into the bargain, flaunting and, about after dark with a paisley shawl down to her heels and a black lace bonnet with roses in it and a baby in one arm and a market-basket over the other which i call out of keeping how podmore can have saved money with such a drag upon him is more than i can account for again it flashes upon alexus that this man is the murderer every word of mrs skinners tends to confirm him in that idea he pushes his inquiry a stage for by the way he begins have you any idea whether mr trenchard had money about him at the time of his death may he not have had a sum of money in his possession at that time sufficient to offer a temptation to an assassin murders have been inspired by very small temptations of that kind i know that sir but i don't see how mr trenchard can have had much ready money about him he had no call for it he always paid everything

Starting point is 17:21:15 by check, even servants' wages, and it wasn't often that he paid the tradesman anything except at Christmas time. I don't see what he could have wanted with ready money in the house. You never heard of his keeping money in his room, or saw him open a box, desk, or drawer containing money? Never. Had he any valuable jewelry in his possession? I never saw him wear so much as a diamond ring. His watch was all the jewelry he ever wore, and that was found under his pillow. This seems a kind of no thoroughfare. If Mr. Trenchard had no valuables to tempt Podmore's cupidity, why should the butler have murdered him, and whence the talk about taking a public house, since it is clear from Mrs. Gidmore's account of Podmore's domestic responsibilities,

Starting point is 17:22:07 then he could hardly have saved money. A slatternly wife in a flaunting paisley shawl. Marketing after dark is as exhaustive of drain upon a husband's finances as the bottomless bucket of the dianities. One thing about money I do remember, exclaims Mrs. Skidmore after a pause, and I must say it struck me as singular after I heard about that paper in which Mr. Trenchard declared he had only brought 10,000 pounds from India. What was that? asked Alexis eagerly.

Starting point is 17:22:41 Well, it was the last night but one before his death. I was going up to bed after locking my downstairs doors and seeing all the others up before me, even to Podmore, which was always my way, and as I passed this door about ten minutes, or it might have been a quarter of an hour after the others had gone to bed, for I'd been hunting for our tabby cat, which is a troublesome animal to have prowling about at night,

Starting point is 17:23:06 though a good mouser and an affectionate disposition, and I was coming up in the dark, the gas being turned off at the main, when I saw Master's door ajar, the door opening on our staircase, you understand. It was just the least bit ajar, leaving a narrow streak of light, and I heard Mr. Pilgrim's voice speaking as I came upstairs, and then I heard Master say, Now understand clearly, Joel, I must have that money, 10,000 in banknotes, before the wedding. There must be no shes. shilly-shallying. You don't marry my niece till that money is in my hands. No money, no marriage. Remember. And the telegram to wind up the business goes to my Calcutta agents on Saturday unless the money is

Starting point is 17:23:53 forthcoming. He had a very sharp, precise way of speaking, poor old gentleman, and I heard every syllable. A new light flashes on Alexis. This pilgrim, the odious persecutor of his wife, may not he be the murderer the idea has presented itself to him before but he has put it aside for want of any motive to ascribe as the mainspring of the action but there is motive strong enough supplied in these words of stephen trenchards this threat to communicate with an agent in calcutta might mean ruin to joel pilgrim he must have been in some way in trenchard's power and to murder trenchard would be to cut the knot of the difficulty. Alexis Secretan's heart beats loud and fast. He feels as if he were now on the right track that there is something mysterious, nay guilty in the butler's conduct, he is assured, but the butler may be an accessory before or after the fact rather than a principle. There is apparent as he had no sufficient motive for the butler's guilt. There is an obvious

Starting point is 17:25:06 motive if this pilgrim be the murderer. The first thing now to be done is to find out all about this man, thinks Alexis. Where is pilgrim staying, he asks. He has not left the town, has he? No, sir. He's residing at the coach and horses. He was to have sailed for India directly after his marriage. That's why things were arranged so sudden. But of course Mr. Trenchard's death altered all that. the coach and horses says alexis that is where i mean to put up myself well you couldn't do better sir it's the best hotel in red castle and now having accomplished all he can for the time being alexis takes leave of mrs skinner i should like to have another look at the pictures before i leave the town he says perhaps he would not object to my looking round again to-morrow morning you are freely welcome sir as often as you like when i see that a gentleman

Starting point is 17:26:06 is a gentleman, I'm very happy to oblige him. Alexis goes from Lancaster Lodge to the coach and horses, where he has addressed his telegram to Messrs Levison and Levison. He is delighted to find a member of that firm waiting for him in the coffee room, an undersized gentleman with a smooth, sallow face and keen black eyes, thin lips, compressed and horizontal. A junior in the house, thinks Alexis, with a little, look of disappointment. He would have desired age and experience to guide and aid him in this desperate straight. He looks a shrewd little fellow, though, and I dare say he knows his business. He takes Mr. Levison off to a private room, orders a bottle of dry sherry, and then proceeds to

Starting point is 17:26:54 state his case without delay or waste of words. Mr. Levison listens with quiet intentness and makes no remark till the story is finished. Even then he's provokingly slow. to express himself. He sits looking at Alexis like the head of Memnon and compelled his client to wring his ideas out of him by the closest questioning, and as he pauses for the space of a minute, looking his stonyist, after each question that this process is rather slow. Do you think Pilgrim is the man? asked Alexis. A long pause. Alexis repeats his question, no gleam of line. in Mr. Levinson's countenance indicating that the inquiry has been heard.

Starting point is 17:27:41 If he were the man, he could have got away by this time. Even when Mr. Levinson does speak, he drops out his words charily, through scarcely parted lips, as if they were pearls and diamonds, and he did not like to waste them. True, but he might wish to throw people off the scent by remaining. dangerous that he had ample excuse for going his indian voyage was arranged before mr trenchard's death he only had to carry out the arrangement there would have been nothing suspicious in that he is in this house you say yes that's convenient we can keep an eye upon him i can't see how we're going to do that grumbles alexis provoked by his solicitor's phlegmatic tone unless we could see through doors or walls he may leave rakeessa while we are sitting here no he won't replies mr levinson i brought a clerk of mine down with me and he has got the office to look after pilgrim but how could you know anything about him till i told you do you suppose i waited for you to tell me that's not our way and part

Starting point is 17:28:57 archman street i had a chat with the landlord heard all about your wife's arrest and guessed what i was wanted for heard all the particulars of the murder or supposed murder the inquest held in this house and so on and gave my man the office and you think that pilgrim i never think mr secretan i wait for facts if i squandered my brains upon thought i should have no brain power left to deal with evidence we shall hear what comes out at the inquest. Alexis has to take this vague comfort for what it is worth and make the best of it. He and Mr. Levinson dine together and then Alexis goes back to the jail and spends another half hour with Sybil, who is low-spirited, but not so anxious or fearful as she might naturally be in so awful a position. Uncle Robert has been here, dear good man, she tells Alexis,

Starting point is 17:29:55 and has been feeling my pulse and looking at my tongue and prescribing tonics and port wine and beef tea and all manner of tiresome things he quite broke down when he saw me here and burst into tears the first i ever saw him shed it gave me more pain to see him than anything that has happened since last night when i thought you had shut me out of your heart forever i thought so too sybil but sorrow has opened the door of my heart and let you in again. Oh, she exclaims with a little joyful cry. I thought you could not be long unkind, and you have not forgotten those foolish early days when we walked in Kensington Gardens and you told the children fairy tales.

Starting point is 17:30:43 No, love, I have forgotten nothing. I will show you something someday, Alex, if ever this dreadful suspicion passes away and I am free from the charge of murder. she shudders at the word and clings to him for a moment like a frightened child what will you show me dear a book such a foolish old book in which i kept a journal when i first began to care for you it is all written there every stupid thing i ever thought about you the rise and fall the ebb and flow of love that must be a precious volume sybil i would give a good good thing i would give a good one great deal to see it. You will laugh. I am more likely to cry, remembering how fate has parted us since then. End of Chapter 50. Chapter 51 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is a Libravox recording.

Starting point is 17:31:48 All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. recording by judy mason dead men's shoes by mary elizabeth bradden chapter fifty one mr lewison cross examines the inquest is resumed on the following day at eleven in a room closely packed with eager spectators among them the elite of redcastle are to be distinguished the elite are deeply interested in the issue of this inquiry have they not taken Sybil as it were to their bosoms admitted her to those sacred hearths where never lowered the shadow of evil and is it not incumbent upon her for their sakes for their untainted reputes to clear herself of this hideous charge her own shame her own guilt her own undeserved agony if innocent are of secondary consideration she has visited us cried the elite how dreadful it will be for us if it turns out that she has poisoned her uncle people will say they met her in our houses quite a disgrace to happen to one dear mrs stormont says mrs actually humiliating my dear replies mrs stormont the prevailing opinion in redcastle is that sybil has done the deed perhaps had stephen trenchard undaunt

Starting point is 17:33:28 her with a million of money, popular feeling might have leaned the other way. It is difficult to suppose that the possessor of a million can err. The property qualification, once necessary to members of Parliament, so many hundred per annum as a pledge of respectability, runs through life. Qualified with a million, no one could have imagined Sybil a poisoner, but disappointed, deluded, penniless, an abject failure. As much a disappointment to friends as to herself, Sybil now appears in the light of a base and insidious schemer who has well merited the disappointment of her schemes. And what is this last revelation? asked Redcastle indignantly. When the story of Mr. Secretan's arrival at the jail with his wife gets, no one knows how, into active circulation, what is this about

Starting point is 17:34:28 a husband? What? She's been deceiving us all this time. She has been parading herself in fine dresses, which may never be paid for. She has been spreading her silken train like a peacock's tail and showing herself off in her false colors as an unmarried woman to the detriment of our daughters. She has been exercising her wicked fascinations upon our sons. She has flirted, with our husbands even, and has taken us all in with her pretended innocence and affected girlishness. The husband must be as bad as the wife, says Redcastle, and various are the speculations and statements as to Mr. Secretan's character. The inquest begins, and here he is, standing behind his wife's chair, as she sits in the place of the accused, the focus of every

Starting point is 17:35:25 pitiless eye. Eyes that have once looked kindly at her, eyes that have admired. There is Fred Stormont, with his mouth open, standing on tiptoe, to look over his father's shoulder, as if he were at a play. Stay, there is one face not quite unpitying. Dr. Mitzin sits yonder near the coroner, grave, watchful, and with a look which Sybil takes for sympathy. Really a handsome young man, whispers Mrs. Stormont through that thick veil of hers to Mrs. Groshen. He looks like a gentleman, too. Rather the air of an adventurer I fancy, replies Mrs. Groshen. The witnesses are examined and there is much repetition of evidence given on the previous examination. Joel Pilgrim, calm, precise, and faultless of intonation, relates the discovery

Starting point is 17:36:23 of mr trenchard's death at what hour had you last seen him alive inquires the coroner at ten o'clock on the previous evening when i bade him good-night you had access to him at any hour of the night i believe interposes mr leveson joel looks at the questioner somewhat insolently am i to answer this person's questions he inquires of the coroner yes so long as they are irrelevant to the case. I don't know what you mean by having access, answers Joel. Mr. Trenchard's bedroom door was locked. There was a second door, but that opened on a back landing and was only used by the butler. But it was equally convenient for you had you wanted to see Mr. Trenchard in the night, I think, says Mr. Levinson.

Starting point is 17:37:20 I don't see that, answers Joel currently. don't you allow me to make the fact clearer to you here is a little plan of the landing on the back staircase he exhibits a sheet of cartridge paper with a ground plan in pen and ink here are doors number one two three number one mr trenchard's bedroom number two his dressing-room number three your bedroom you perceive that from the same room number two his dressing-room number three your bedroom you perceive that from the secondary door of your bedroom to the secondary door of Mr. Trencher's bedroom is but a step. That is right enough, but I never entered Mr. Trenchard's room by that secondary door. What? Not upon the night but one before the murder? When you had an important conversation with Mr. Trenchard upon financial matters? A conversation which was overheard by a witness I shall produce by and by. Overheard in consequence of your having left that secondary door ajar?

Starting point is 17:38:28 Mr. Levison looks fixedly at the witness as he asks this question. Mr. Secretan's eyes are also turned upon that tawny countenance, and every eye in the court follows those other eyes. A curious change comes over that dusky complexion of Mr. Pilgrims. It is not pallor, but rather a deeper tint of olive, which makes him look like a sufferer in an advanced stage of yellow jaundice. Did you make use of that secondary door? asks Levison. Never, replies the witness, resolutely.

Starting point is 17:39:05 And you have no recollection of that particular conversation? I can recall no particular conversation of the kind. Mr. Trenchard and I had been in business together and had many conversations upon financial matters. Was not some of Mr. Trenchard's capital engaged in your business at the time of his death? Mr. Trenchard took all he could take out of the business when he left Calcutta, but he still retained a share in the business and had a claim to his share of profits arising therefrom? What can my business relations have to do with this inquiry, exclaims Joel angrily?

Starting point is 17:39:46 These questions are simply impertinent. We are here to ask the same. the cause of Mr. Trencher's death. I beg your pardon, replies Levison sharply. Medical evidence has established the cause of death. We are here to find out who killed him. And to get at the murderer, we have to discover the motive.

Starting point is 17:40:08 I venture to affirm that no motive can be ascribed to the lady now under arrest. The name of Levison is such a power in the criminal court that the Red Castle coroner, who might have restricted the inquiries of a lesser man, allows Mr. Levison full license. The coroner, being a medical man, has not that affection for legal formulas which distinguishes some of his brother officials, and is content to let another man have his share in the development of the case. Podmore is the next witness examined. He has not forgotten the coroner's reproof and has brought his mind.

Starting point is 17:40:49 mind to as near an approach to sobriety as it is possible for a brain so steeped in alcohol to arrive at on short notice. He gives pretty much the same evidence as he gave on the previous occasion, and of him, Mr. Levison asks no questions. Next comes a witness whose appearance causes a feeling of compunction, even in those minds most set against the accused. This is Jane Fonthorpe, who stands before the assembly in her black frock and black straw hat cheap mourning provided by the parish doctor's scanty purse with her face paler than it has ever been seen before and her eyelids swollen with weeping she has but one feeling and that is the conviction that sybil is to be hung and that the hanging will be in some measure her own work she has not forgotten that speech of her uncles about her having put a rope around her sister's neck she looks at sybil piteously her eyes brimming with tears and the corners of her mouth remorsefully depressed i can't help it sybil she whispers it isn't my fault do you know the nature of an oath my dear asks the coroner i know that it is very dreadful and one mustn't do it replies the tearful child

Starting point is 17:42:17 the question is explained to her and the oath administered and then comes the ordeal she is made to tell everything reluctantly and with many tears she gives a detailed account of sybil's visit to the surgery and her own remarks about the odor of bitter almonds But I know why she took that horrid stuff, adds Jane. It wasn't to poison Uncle Trenchard, but to poison herself, poor dear thing. And I know why she wanted to poison herself. Really, Mr. Coroner, interposes Joel. If these childish speculations are to be admitted as evidence, Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, says the coroner, gravely, let the little girl tell us her opinion it can do no harm i know that sybil was very unhappy pursues jane eagerly uncle trenchard wanted her to marry him pointing to joel

Starting point is 17:43:17 you must not point at people says the coroner you must tell us whom you mean well then mr pilgrim uncle trenchard wanted her to marry mr pilgrim and she didn't like him and couldn't have married him if she had liked him because she had a husband already, and there he is, pointing to Alexis. And how can he let his wife be taken up for murder is more than I can understand, concludes Jane indignantly? And you think your sister may have taken that poison with an idea of destroying herself? inquires the coroner. I'm almost sure she did. When we have done with these expressions of juvenile opinion,

Starting point is 17:44:00 and I suppose we shall pass on to actual evidence, says Joel with a sneer. You and I are at one as to the object of this inquiry, I hope, Mr. Pilgrim, replies the coroner gravely. Mr. Levinson asks more questions of Jenny, all tending to show Sybil's distress of mind at the time of her abstracting the poison, and that this distress was occasioned by her uncle's endeavor to force her into a marriage with his friend. It was quite dreadful at the last, says Jane. Things were to be huddled up anyhow. She was to be married after a few days' notice, without a single bridesmaid or a wedding dress or anything,

Starting point is 17:44:44 and then go out to India. And she had a husband already. And so what could she do but poison herself or run away? After this, Jenny is dismissed and retires weeping. On the whole, she has made. made an impression in Sybil's favor, except upon some of the feminine members of the audience, Mrs. Stormont in particular, who whispers to Mr. Groshen. That girl is a massive deception, to which the banker's wife nods acquiescence,

Starting point is 17:45:16 so not very clear as to whether that girl means Sybil or Jenny. Sybil keeps her seat, meanwhile, pale, but very calm. She gives an upward look at her husband now and then, in the course of the proceedings, a look that is full of trustful affection, and which goes straight to the heart of Sir Wilford Cardinal, who surveys the scene from the back of the crowd at the other side of the room. Sir Wilford would give much to be in Mr. Secretan's place, I, although that awful suspicion hung over his wife, the possibility of Sybil's guilt has never entered his mind, although Phoebe and Lavinia have been loud in their denunciations. and have gone so far as to say that they saw secret poisoner written upon miss fontthor's countenance while she was staying at the how loud will be their self-congratulations and crowings by and by when they hear that this chosen of their brothers was a married woman all the while and that poor wilford has been deluded by a designing adventuress they are not present at this examination they would not degrade themselves by being interested in this business. It is all very well for the town to be in a fever of curiosity. The county sits aloof amidst its gardens and stables in poor schools and vested interests and can afford to let the topic of the day go by.

Starting point is 17:46:46 After Jenny's examination, the coroner adjourns the inquiry with a view to obtaining additional evidence. But before this adjournment, the coroner and Mr. Levinson talk confidentially together for some minutes, and it is clear to everyone present that the additional evidence will be given by witnesses suggested by Mr. Leveson, witnesses for the defense. The suspended inquiry closes somewhat abruptly, as it seems to the audience, and there is a sense of disappointment at this unfinished condition of things. Alexis leaves the court full of anxiety, yet more hopeful than he had been before the inquest. He has seen that curious change in Joel Pilgrim's countenance when pressed by Mr. Levison's questions, and he's convinced that Joel Pilgrim is in some manner

Starting point is 17:47:36 concerned in the murder. He accompanies Sybil back to jail, and then returns to the hotel to meet his legal advisor, eager to know what Mr. Levison has to say of the day's work. Well, he asks as soon as they are closeted together. What do you think of Joel Pilgrim? I think he did the trick, replies Mr. Levison, after one of his long pauses, which are aggravating to a man as anxious as Alexis. And I think he'll bolt. Bolt? Yes. Try to get out of the country. My questions hit him hard. He sees, the game is up. The case is simple enough. The old man wanted to ring money out of him, a lump of money, and he was under the old man's thumb in some way. The old man could wind up his business,

Starting point is 17:48:27 had a bill of sale or partnership deed that gave him unlimited power, and threatened to crush Pilgrim unless the money was forthcoming. And not being able to get the money, Mr. Pilgrim took the easiest way out of the difficulty by giving his partner a dose of prussic acid. He must have known that detection was inevitable. I'm not so sure of that. there's a great deal of ignorance in this enlightened age of ours.

Starting point is 17:48:54 This man has been brought up in the east, where crime of this kind is commoner and easier than it is here. He may not be very well posted in English law or English customs. He may have thought then in a sleepy little town like this Red Castle, no inquiry would have been made as to the cause of the old man's death. He was ailing and he died and there an end. Or he may have thought that the death would, have been put down to suicide, or supposing him to be a very bad lot, he may have intended from the outset

Starting point is 17:49:28 to lay the crime at your wife's door. He knew of her possession of that prussic acid. How do you know that? From her own lips when I talked this matter over with her half an hour before the inquest. She had shown him the bottle of poison and threatened to kill herself if he molested her with such attention. as he might have thought he had a right to pay to his a fiancée wife she let him know that she had the poison in her possession and then in the hurry of her flight she forgot the existence of the bottle and left it she does not remember where it was found in her work-basket where no doubt he put it when he had used his contents might not just the same thing have been done by podmore how was podmore to know that your wife had that bottle in her possession or granted that he did know it, I don't see his motive. Servants have murdered their masters for the sake of plunder or to come into the possession of a legacy.

Starting point is 17:50:31 True, but I don't think Podmore is the man. I've had the two men under my eye and have taken my measure of both. So what are we to do at Pilgrim makes a bolt? Stop him. I've taken measures for that already. I telegraphed to Scotland Yard for a man I can depend on. He came down by the first train this morning, and Mr. Pilgrim is under that man's surveillance. He'll play with him as a clever angler plays with his fish, and if it's to be done, he'll land him. But we want the bolt to be decided, and we want Pilgrin to throw up the sponge.

Starting point is 17:51:09 An attempt to get away may help us fix him with the fact, for you see the case is a very difficult one. We have to get that prussic acid bottle, known to be in your wife's position. transferred to the hands of Pilgrim. It's not enough for us to show that there was sufficient motive for his putting the old man out of the way. We must show that he actually did the deed. I don't see how it is to be done, says Alexis despondingly. No more do I, just as presence.

Starting point is 17:51:39 Do you think the jury were favorably impressed as regards my wife by today's examination? Well, yes, I should say rather favorably than otherwise. wise. Your wife is very handsome, you see, and beauty has a great influence upon juries. Then that little girl's evidence, though it was awkward as to the possession of the poison, was good in some points. Children are capital witnesses if you work them carefully. They always excite sympathy. The little girl suggested a motive for Mrs. Secretan securing the poison, suicide, persecuted, unprotected, and so on. That idea fits in with,

Starting point is 17:52:19 with her flight from Redcastle. Yes, I think on the whole, the little girl's evidence was good. It is 7 o'clock by this time, and Mr. Levinson is ready for his dinner, a substantial fact in the day which he is not inclined to ignore, even though a client's life and fair name tremble in the balance. The two gentlemen dined together, Alex is too anxious to eat, a condition of things which Mr. Levison severely reproves. if you want to see your wife safely through this business you must begin by taking care of yourself mr secretan says the lawyer helping himself to a second supply of fish this salmon is the finest i have ever eaten in this part of england try a little bit of the back

Starting point is 17:53:06 but salmon cannot tempt alexis who is full of anxieties this evening the post has just brought a letter from dick enclosing another from linda chalice and telling him that the little boy has arrived at the Grange. He's a dear little fellow, writes Dick. But he frets a good deal about Miss Chalice, and it's as much as the maid servant and I can do to comfort him. We found a pony for him, and we are teaching him to ride up and down the meadow, which we find very consoling. He laughs and enjoys himself very much during the ride, but when it is all over, he still cries for Mammy. I'm afraid that in the process of consolation, we've given him rather more strawberries and other fruit than may be quite advisable. I dare say when you come back he will speedily reconcile himself to his new home. He is to go and see Grandpapa Benfield on Sunday afternoon.

Starting point is 17:54:02 Miss Chalice has gone to the south of France on a sketching tour. I dare say she has told you all about it in her letter. This is rather startling news to receive at such a time. His boy at home, Linda gone? He hastens to read her letter. Dear Mr. Secretan, a little quiet reflection has convinced me that you and you alone have a right to the custody of my darling trot. Providence brought him to our home. Providence brought you there to claim your own. What can I wish for him better than a happy home and his father's love? Parting with him is a wrench that must almost break my heart, but the pain would be just the same, let the parting come when it might. Knowing this, I've made up my mind to give him up at once and send him to you this day. In order that I may not feel the loss of my

Starting point is 17:54:58 darling quite so keenly as I must feel it if I stayed in the home that he has brightened, I have determined to go abroad for a short time. I'm going to can, to an old lady, an aunt of my father's who keeps a boarding house there. I shall be enabled to practice my favorite art, of landscape painting among strange scenes, and the change will be altogether an advantage to me. Of course, you will understand that I shall not stay away too long from my dear old grandfather. Goodbye, dear Mr. Secretan. May my darling Trot be as happy as I wish him, and a source of unfailing happiness to you. I shall expect to see him grown quite a big boy when I come back to Dorley.

Starting point is 17:55:43 Very sincerely yours, Linda Chalice. Alexis folds up the letter with a sigh. So ends his brief romance of Dorley Mill. That Linda has been dearer to him than she should have been, he knows but too well. That her heart has been touched by some feeling warmer than pity for a helpless invalid he more than half suspects. But he has never harbored one dishonorable feeling. He has never cherished one guilty wish. And he feels that in thus leaving Dorely for a little while,

Starting point is 17:56:16 Linda has shown herself as wise as she is good. Pity for his wife's most pitiable condition has strangled that unpermitted love in its birth. He can think of Linda now with a pathetic tenderness, hardly akin to pain, as of one he is loved and lost long ago. He answers Dick's letter before he leaves the hotel and gives him a string of directions about Trot. the things that are to be done and the things that are to be left undone. No mother writing about her firstborn could be more careful. He posts this letter himself on his way to the jail.

Starting point is 17:56:55 He spends a quiet hour with Sybil, but says not a word about his boy. He cannot bring himself to talk of trot within these walls. It will be time enough when Sybil is free from this horrible suspicion, and he can take her to Chesell Grange. End of Chapter 51. Chapter 52 of Dead Men's Shoes This is the Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 17:57:32 For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Judy Mason Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 52 The Podmores Think of Emigration It is 9 o'clock when Alexis leaves the prison The latest hour to which he can by any stretch of authority be allowed to remain It is a moonless night with a drizzling rain and the road is wet and muddy In going back to the coach and horses he has to pass Lancaster Lodge

Starting point is 17:58:12 and here something arrests his attention. It is a cab loaded with boxes standing before the lodge gate. He sees this vehicle from a little way off, and it is driven through the bar before he reaches the lodge door. He rings the bell sharply. Who is that just gone away in a cab, he asks. Mr. Podmore, sir, the butler, answers the woman at the lodge. Do you know where he's going?

Starting point is 17:58:41 to the railway station sir yes of course but where afterwards i don't know for certain sir but i think i heard mrs podmore she came to pack her husband's belongings make mention of liverpool i believe it's his own sir but his wife and children lived in this town didn't they what do you mean by liverpool being his home yes sir they lived here podmore being in service here but they was only lodgers i believe liverpool is his own when he is at home when does the train go at half-past nine sir and where can i get a cab none nearer than the coach and horses thanks alexis looks at his watch there's just time for him to walk the distance at his fastest and he would rather trust his own legs than wait for a fly to be got ready at the coach and horses always a slow business he is at the station just as the bell rings the platform is clear no sign of podmore or podmore's family alexis rungs along by the side of the carriages catches a glimpse of the podmore household almost snowed up in bandboxes and bundles in a second-class compartment and then jumps into a carriage himself calling a porter to get a his ticket. There's no time to get a ticket, and Alexis has to defer that operation till the next station. He's hardly in the carriage when the train start. At Cramston, he sees the Podmore troop struggling along the platform, a slatternly woman in a trailing shawl, with a frowsy bonnet

Starting point is 18:00:16 hanging to the back of her head, two bare-legged children hanging onto her long shawl, Podmore, hurried and excited, trying to do two things at once, namely to look at the after his luggage and to inquire what train he is to take for Liverpool. 1015 gasps the guard without looking at the inquirer. Second platform on the right, change at Wondlethorpe, change at Spilbury. Alexis hears this and follows the Pardmore party at a respectful distance. He waits to see Pardmore take tickets for Liverpool, sees him and his belonging safely shipped in another second-class compartment, both children crying, and missing.

Starting point is 18:00:57 is Podmore frantic about a missing bandbox, and then he hurries to the telegraph office, and sends the following message, Mr. Levinson, at the Cochin Horses, Redcastle. Podmore is off to Liverpool with family. This looks like a bolt. I am after him. Telegraph your instructions to the Washington Hotel. This done, Mr. Secretan takes a second-class ticket for Liverpool, and gets into the compartment adjoining that occupied by the Podmores. whence come sounds of infantine wailing and wifely remonstrance, and the husky tones of Podmore as if in pacification of these avenging spirits.

Starting point is 18:01:37 Wondlethorpe Junction at midnight is about as dismal a place as a student of the hideous need care to behold. It is on the bank of an inky canal, and coal barges and railway trucks seem to be mixed up in hopeless entanglement. Huge cranes stand up in iron ugliness against night's purple sky, sidings run off at impossible angles, and unknown lines dip under bridges as if they would take the traveler into the bowels of the earth. Lights are sparsely sprinkled on the gloom, at what lamps there are have lurid glare, suggestive of the underworld. Solitary engines block the anxious traveler's way

Starting point is 18:02:19 and snort defiance at him from their sonorous thrift. as he tries to cross the labyrinth of iron rails. The soil is coal dust, and the atmosphere smoke. In the horrible deeps of that infernal world, which Dante saw in his midway of life, this last and lowest horror of a railway junction in the coal districts was wanting. Here, on a dark platform, Alexis is able to keep pretty close to the Podmore family, who are too much occupied with their own affairs, to perceive that they are watched.

Starting point is 18:02:55 Podmore consoles himself with a tumbler of hot gin and water at the refreshment counter and gives the same balm to his wife, while the children with solemn sleepy faces resolutely gnaw their way through buns of the most indigestible order. There is half an hour to wait at Wondelthorpe, and then a journey of an hour in the slowest of trains, through a Coley district on the border of a canal, brings them to spillbridge. where they arrive in a chilly hour on the edge of night, and where they have again to wait for another train to take them on to Liverpool.

Starting point is 18:03:31 It is gray morning when they arrive at that busy port, having wasted more time at junctions than the actual journey has occupied, and having spent more time altogether in the transit than would have been required for a journey from Liverpool to London. The Podmore family have a weary look as they select their belongings from the heterogeneous contents of the luggage van. The elder child reposes on his father's shoulder. The head of the younger infant hangs helplessly across the mother's arm.

Starting point is 18:04:03 When does the Horanokey sail, asks Podmore of a porter? American Steamer, inquire at the office. I hope we're in time, says Mrs. Podmore, to Lord. If we are to go, the sooner we sail the better. We shan't do no good dragging about here, spending money in a strange place. Oronoko, says a man of seafaring aspect

Starting point is 18:04:26 who has just possessed himself of a huge green chest. Oronoko, for New York? You best look sharp if you're going in her, mate. She sails at 10 o'clock this morning. 10 o'clock, Eckerspod, more, then there's time enough to get a bit of breakfast

Starting point is 18:04:42 anyhow. And I'm that faint, I'm ready to drop, adds his wife, plaintively. such dragging about of we's gone through i never did i feel as if i've been travelling for a week at a stretch and is dizzy in my poor head hold you jaw says podmore sternly there never was such a woman to whine you're worse than the children podmore arranges with a porter for the conveyance of his boxes inquires for a decent coffee-house at which he made breakfast and then leaves the station his wife straggling after him clutching a child with one arm and a band-box with the other and trailing her gown through the liver puddly and mud which is a compound sui generis and a little worse than anything to be found at the east end of london alexis follows the family party to a side street near the station and into a coffee-house in whose dusky window three empty breakfast cups a stale muffin two yellow-looking eggs and a plate of watercress are suggestive of the temperate refreshment to be obtained within mr podmore is just seating himself at a table in a corner when alexis taps him on the shoulder

Starting point is 18:05:59 i think you'd better have a private room mr podmore he says for i want a little chat with you while you are eating your breakfast podmore stares at him with a bewildered air did you ring sir he asks and then recalling his scattered senses i beg your pardon sir i haven't the honour of your acquaintance oh yes you have mr podmore and you'll know more of me before we've done with each other waiter can we have a private room asks alexis appealing to a sleepy youth in a white apron who is making a good kneel of unnecessary clatter with some cups and saucers in the endeavour to keep himself awake yes sir convenient room upstairs families and private parties this way sir now then mr podmore says alexis but really remonstrates podmore alexis half pushes him up the stairs following close upon his heels The wife follows, dragging her children after her. When they are all safe inside the room, Alexis turned to the waiter and whispers, Go and fetch the cleverest police officer in Liverpool, and let him wait outside this door till I want him.

Starting point is 18:07:15 I'll take care of you if you look sharp about it. I'm fly, answers the youth, brightening at the prospect of excitement and remuneration. Case of bezzlement, I suppose, sir, I'll get you the right kind of man in a quarter of an hour, if you can keep your party quiet till then. Ham and eggs and coffee for four, says Alexis, aloud as he enters the private room, a musty den, reddland of the meals that have been consumed within the last month.

Starting point is 18:07:42 The atmosphere without, not being much purer than the atmosphere within, opening the window to admit fresh airs but a choice of evils. Now, sir, says Podmore, plucking up his spirit and assuming a defiant air, may i ask by what authority you take me and my family in hand and order us up to this here room for which we shall have to pay extra interject mrs podmore shrill with indignation and ordering of our breakfasts am and eggs is no choice of mine protest mrs podmore if they're in i would rather have a yarmouth bloater who are you sir may i ask to take all this upon yourself inquires podmore finally i'll tell you mr podmore i am the husband of a lady you know something about a lady you have known as miss sybil faunthorpe that lady has been accused most unjustly of being concerned in the murder of her uncle and what i am here to do is to find the murderer

Starting point is 18:08:49 you won't find him here shrieks mrs podmore at which maternal outburst the two children set up their loudest wail the youngest cry his hardest with all his fingers in his mouth and his innocent nose streaming sympathetically i don't know anything about the murderer says podmore doggedly oh yes you do replies alexis resolutely you know so much that you're either a principal or an accomplice that is why you have left redcastle stealthily under cover of night although bound to appear as a witness at the adjourned inquest that's why you are on your way to america and let me tell you mr podmore that an accessory before the fact is a principle and that if you knew that this deed was to be done and stood by it while it was done i didn't i didn't know it i was as innocent as that baby there then why have you tried to get away come mr podmore if your share in this work is not that of a principle if you can clear yourself from actual participation in the crime or consent to it the best thing is the best thing is that of a principle if you can clear yourself from actual participation in the crime or consent to it the best thing thing you can do is to make a clean breast of it. Help me to prove my wife's innocence, and I'll stand your friend through thick and thin. I may have better friends than you, grumbled Paudmore with a dogged air. Friends is willing to help me and better able to do it. Yes, cries Alexis at a venture. Such a friend is Mr. Pilgrim, who gave you the money to go to New York,

Starting point is 18:10:22 who wants to get you out of the way, who poisoned Stephen Trenchard with your knowledge and consent. The bow drawn at a venture has sent its shaft home. Alexis can see that in the butler's face. Mrs. Podmore sits by, open-eyed, open-mouthed, horror depicted in her countenance. Whatever the butler's secret may be, it is evident that his wife has not shared it. Not with my knowledge, nor yet with my consent, cries Podmore affrightedly. But he did it, and he did it. and you knew that he did it after the fact, perhaps,

Starting point is 18:11:01 in which case you'd better turn Queen's evidence. Come, Mr. Podmore, your only chance lies in candor. This attempt to get away from the country is in itself enough to condemn you. You had access to your master all through the night. You gave him his medicine. Who so likely is you to have given the fatal dose? Come, I have a police officer waiting outside this door with a warrant for your arrest. run and look outside Liz this here's only bluster says Podmore

Starting point is 18:11:31 but before his wife can reach the door Alexis has turned the key and put it into his pocket neither you nor your wife will leave this room till you've told me all you know about Stephen Trenchard's death Podmore cries the wife distractedly What have you been and done What disgrace and trouble have you gone and brought on your your innocent wife and children.

Starting point is 18:11:59 This is all along of drink, Podmore. I always said you'd bring us to the workhouse, but I didn't suppose you'd bring yourself to the scaffold. Hold your noise, you lunaticle, idiot, roars Podmore. I've done nothing to bring me to harm, but I may know something about them that have. Remember that to help or comfort a murderer or to conceal his crime is to become an accessory

Starting point is 18:12:25 after the fact, Mr. Podmore, says Alexis. Tell what you know, Podmore, and clear yourself, cries the wife, clasping her hands. Clear yourself and clear your innocent wife and children. I never did like the looks of this sudden scuffling of us off to New York. It's all very well to emigrate. But I'd like to emigrate at my leisure, not a thing fit to put on me or the children is there in them boxes,

Starting point is 18:12:52 and not so much as a bottle of Daffy for the baby. be a nice thing to have this blessed innocent in convulsions with his teeth on board ship and me that seasick i couldn't do nothing for him hold your tongue lyza exclaims the ex-butler testily come now he says turning to alexis if i tell what i've got to tell am i to be kept clear of the law yes if it's in my power or in the power of leveson and leveson to clear you and what am i to get for standing by you you and helping you to clear your wife, Miss Sybil Fonthorpe, that was, everything. That ain't definite enough for me. I want 500 pounds to set me up in the public line. Hang, New York. I ain't going to be pitched and tossed across the Atlantic if I can get myself comfortably provided for at home. Give me a written undertaking to pay me 500 pounds if I get your wife clear off. Take me around to a lawyer's office and do it all in legal form. from Scundum Hartum as a master of mine used to say,

Starting point is 18:13:59 and I'll go back to Redkessel with you, and bear the brunt of having kept something back as I ought to have told. I expect I shall get a twelve-month for it, but I shan't so much mind that if I've got a snug bit of capital to fall back upon. Podmore, shrieks the wife. You shan't go to prison if Leveson and Leveson can get you off Scott free, says Alexis. And now we'd better get back to Redcastle as fast as we can. and the agreement can be drawn up there by mr leveson oh come now when you've got me back you won't care about the agreement i'm not such a fool as to walk into a trap of that sort

Starting point is 18:14:37 if you don't come of your own free will you have to come in custody replies alex firmly it wasn't an empty threat of mine about the police officer he's outside he has heard a firm foot on the stair he turns the key opens the door a little way and looks out yes there stands there stands officer, steady as a rock. The gentleman outside is ready to take you into custody, Podmore, says Alexis, unless you accept my offer and come back quietly with me. As a proof of good faith, I'm prepared to hand you 50 pounds on account of the 500. He produces his purse and takes out a bank note for 50 pounds. He had written to his bankers for a supply of ready cash on the day of his arrival at Redcastle, knowing that the sinews of war would be needed at this juncture. The sight of the crisp new note and of the officer waiting outside has a wonderful effect upon Podmore. He looks at his wife, dubiously, contemplates his children whose tears have been

Starting point is 18:15:41 dried by their mother's judicious administration of peppermint rock, and who are now engaged in looking out of the window and printing impressions of their sticky paws upon the dingy glass. I don't want to go to New York. No more don't she, he says, with a jerk of his head toward his wife. But we've sent all our traps on board, and it'll be very awkward. All awkwardness can be got over by the expenditure of a pound or two. Here are five sovereigns for Mrs. Podmore. She can see to the recovery of the luggage and bring it back to Redcastle by a later train.

Starting point is 18:16:18 We had better catch the next that starts. golden coin has a pacifying effect upon mrs podmore's nerves she takes the sovereigns up one by one and turns them over rings them on the table and finally engulfs them in a greasy-looking leather purse podmore is thoughtful but consentient alexis says a few words of the officer and that functionary accompanies mr secretan in his charge to the railway station sees them comfortably into their carriage and there leaves them satisfied with with the Monast Autrarium, which Alexis slips into his palm at the last moment. The train once started, Alexis feels quite capable of dealing with Mr. Podmore single-handed. End of Chapter 52. Chapter 53 of Dead Men's Shoes. This is the Libravox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain.

Starting point is 18:17:25 For more information, or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org Recording by Judy Mason Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 53 Committed for Trial The adjourned inquiry is again resumed before the coroner

Starting point is 18:17:48 two days after the return of Alexis from Liverpool with his companion the butler whom he has contrived to keep snugly hidden under Robert Faunt Thor's roof, where Podmore, his wife and children, have been boarded and lodged, and kept in custody by the faithful Hester, who watches her charges as a cat watches a mouse. Remember, you are not one of you to put so much as your noses out of doors till I come for you, says Alexis impressively. Not a creature in Red Castle is to know of your return till the right moment. As long as I have my meals regular, I'm satisfied.

Starting point is 18:18:27 replied replies Podmore. I never was a prowler about the streets. So the Podmore family occupied the kitchen at Dr. Fondthorps, and no one outside the doctor's house knows anything about these extra inmates. Alexis and Mr. Levinson have crossed each other on the railroad, and that gentleman has returned from a bootless journey to the Washington, considerably out of temper. He has reconciled himself, however to this wasted expedition in finding what his client has done. Joel Pilgrim is still at the coach and horses, where he lives well and seems to enjoy life. He plays billiards and makes himself eminently agreeable to the youth of Red Castle,

Starting point is 18:19:12 Fred Stormont included, but he complains loudly of his detention in the town on account of this sad business of his old friend's mysterious death, while his own affairs need his presence in Calcutta. This doddling old corridor may drag the inquiry out for the next month, he says, and at last arrive at the conclusion that my poor friend was poisoned by some person or a person's unknown. I don't see that there's evidence enough to bring the crime home to that poor girl, and it seems a hard thing that a young and lovely woman should be placed in such a position.

Starting point is 18:19:51 Frederick sighs and shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. It is hard, he says, and I positively worshipped that girl, you know, devoted myself to her quite awfully, and now to find that there was a husband in the background all the while? Shows a want of candor, you know. Proves an artful disposition certainly, replies Mr. Pilgrim, but if every artful young woman took to disposing of people, with prussic acid, there being an alarming decrease in the population.

Starting point is 18:20:26 True, says Fred, well, I'm sure she didn't do it, poor thing, but I'm sorry to say the opinion of the town is against her. He says this with an error, which implies that to be condemned by public opinion, Redcastle, is to have received a sentence from a supreme tribunal and to be found guilty at a bar from which there is no court of appeal. I really feel for her. I really feel for her, you know, says Fred, as he prostrates himself upon the green cloth to aim at a distant ball. But the town thinks badly of the case. She had the poison in her possession, you know, and she ran away, you know. It's difficult to avoid making four out of two such twos. Look suspicious, certainly, replies Mr. Pilgrim. As far as the running away goes, she might have done that to avoid marrying you.

Starting point is 18:21:18 Certainly, says Fred, reflectively. well that would have been a very childish proceeding answers joel she had only to tell me the truth an all question of marriage would have been at an end but women do odd things sometimes you know they're apt to get wrong in their heads when they're frightened i don't think sybil is that sort of girl she must have been a very cool hand to come here to her uncle the wife of a man whose name he detested and pass herself off as a single woman and play her cards to inherit a four fortune. True, says Frederick despondently, and his opinion of Sybil is a little worse than it was before Mr. Pilgrim undertook her defense. It is just possible that Mr. Pilgrim would not remain at Red Castle quite so patiently, were not for a suspicion on his part, that a certain shabby little man in black, who hangs about the public rooms of the hotel, and spends a good deal of his time in the hall and porch, and contrives all. always to be in the way when Mr. Pilgrim goes out, nay, even happens to have business or pleasure that takes him exactly the same way, has been set as a watch upon somebody's movements, and that any attempt to hasten his intended journey to Calcutta might be attended with unpleasant

Starting point is 18:22:39 consequences. Whatever perils may surround Mr. Pilgrim's path will be best overcome by a calm adherence to his present policy, or at least so argues that gentleman, and he quietly awaits the conclusion of the examination in which his evidence is required. On this bright summer morning, the same crowd is again gathered in the well-known assembly room, a room famous for town and county balls for concerts and fancy fairs and other local festivities, but affording a scene of more absorbing interest today than the most aristocratic of dances or charity bazaars. Mrs. Stormont is there again with her constant ally Mrs. Grotian, wearing the same veils and bonnets and seated in the same sheltered corner near the reporter's table.

Starting point is 18:23:32 There is Mr. Levinson sitting near the corner with that Memnunt's head of his, stony and inexpressive, but certainly not given to melodious breathings at sunrise or any other time. there sits sibyl pale as marble and calm as a statue her husband standing behind her chair today there are fresh witnesses to be examined so runs the rumour and there is an eager curiosity about these new witnesses and the evidence they may give the first witness called is beth shiba skinner spinster lately cook and housekeeper in the employment of the deceased What can that woman have to say about the case, mutters Joel Pilgrim to Colonel Stormont, who is standing next to him? Not much, I should think, unless she poisoned him in one of her curries, replies the colonel. Deucid good curries they were! Beth Sheba Skinner is sworn, and stands up before the assembly, vinegar-faced, but eminently

Starting point is 18:24:38 respectable, with black kid gloves, a trifle too long in the fingers on her industrious hands, and a pictorial brooch a little smaller than a cheese plate, clasping her rusty black lace shawl. You were in the habit of preparing all nourishment that was taken up to Mr. Trenchard's room, says the coroner, after a few preliminary questions. Broths, arrowroot, and so on. Yes, sir, I did it all with my own hands. There was many things I might have left to the kitchen made, but I felt it was my duty to see to it myself.

Starting point is 18:25:12 there was not a thing in the way of beef tea or jelly or tapioca or arrowroot that went up to mr trenchard which was not prepared by my own hands and are you sure that nothing of a poisonous nature entered into any of these things as sure as i am that i'm alive sir come you may have used essences to flavour your jelly or your tapioca essential oil of almonds or at any rate essence of almonds that's is a favorite flavoring with cooks and a dangerous one didn't you use essence of almonds to flavor mr trenchard's jelly i hadn't a drop in the house sir i never have held with such stuff when i want almond flavoring i use the best jordan's at two shillings a pound but i know my business better than to use almond flavoring of any kind for an invalid invalid cookery can't be too simple you did not even use bitter almonds or retaffia peach kernels or anything of that kind? No, sir. You slept on the same floor as Podmore, the butler, I believe. Yes, sir. My room was next to his. Did you hear anything remarkable, any unusual stir or movement, in short, anything at all out of the common course in Podmore's room or on the stairs leading to Podmore's room during the night of your master's death? well sir i did hear something which struck me at the time as curious and yet it might mean nothing i mentioned it afterwards to podmore and he put me down you mustn't tell us what you said to podmore or how he answered you that isn't evidence we want to know what you heard on the night of the twenty third of june

Starting point is 18:27:04 well sir i am a light sleeper at all times and perhaps i was extra weightful on that night on account of the wedding that was fixed for the next day it was to be quite a quiet wedding and there was no breakfast ordered but i'd cooked a tongue and a pair of fowls and made a jelly and a cream or two and boiled a bit of salmon for a mayonnaise and got everything in order to put a pretty little luncheon on the table and the fag and worry of that had over-tire me so that i got very little sleep it was broad daylight and i was just dropping off when i heard podmore get up and go downstairs in his creaky slippers he's gone down to give master his medicine says i to myself i won't try to go to sleep no more till he comes up again or else he'll be startling me just as i'm dropping off comfortable again he won't be gone above five minutes well i waited and waited but instead of being gone five minutes as usual. It was a good half hour before Podmore came upstairs again. Did you look at your watch? asked the precise juryman. Lorne, no, sir, but I can guess a half hour as well as anyone. I've got into the way of it over my roasting. A good cook knows the value of time. It was a full half hour before Podmore came up,

Starting point is 18:28:27 and then he came up ever so slowly, holding to the baluster and his footstep was as heavy as lead. And when he got into his room, he flung himself down on his bed and gave a groan. What was the matter with you last night? I asked him at breakfast time. At first he didn't seem as if he understood what I meant. But when I told him, I'd heard him groaning. He said he'd had an attack of spasms, and he'd been down to the pantry to look for some mustard for a poultice. I didn't think much more of it after that. And an hour later, the house was all upset by my master's death.

Starting point is 18:29:06 but i've thought of it since many times do you know what time it was when podmore went downstairs it was a few minutes after five i'd heard the stable clock strike a little before and i took particular notice on account of it being just an hour late for mr trincer's medicine for four o'clock was the hour at which he ought to have took it there was nothing else he remarked that night no sir i think that will do i beg your pardon interposes mr levison i should like to ask the witness one or two questions pray will you be kind enough mrs skinner to tell the jury of a conversation which you heard outside mr trenchard's door on the last evening but one before his death i did certainly overhear a conversation sir what can any such conversation or any eavesdropping whatever have to do with the question at issue cries joel pilgrim livid with anger of fear the change in his countenance is noticed by everyone just as the less marked change during the last examination was noticed by a few. We shall see how far the conversation is relevant, sir, replies the coroner, when Mrs. Skinner has answered Mr. Levinson's question. I did hear a conversation, sir, between my master and Mr. Pilgrim, says Mrs. Skinner, with a vindictive look at Joel, but I was not eavesdropping. I've lived too long in the best of families to be an eavesdropper, or to be suspected of being such

Starting point is 18:30:38 by any gentleman calling himself a gentleman. What I heard that night, I heard promiscuous, and I stayed to hear no more than reached my ears promiscuous as I went past Mr. Trenchard's door. Mrs. Skinner goes on to relate the conversation which she had described to Alexis on his visit to Lancaster Lodge. Gentlemen, cries Joel vehemently, this is an abominable fabrication prompted by some hidden influence.

Starting point is 18:31:06 No such conversation to be a woman. place my mr trenchard held no such threat over me mrs skinner must have been a long time crossing the landing to hear all this gentleman of the jury i tell you that she could not have heard it in that time she did not hear it at any time but she invented it or it has been invented for her mr pilgrim i really cannot allow this said the coroner you will better appreciate mr pilgrim's warmth when you have heard the next witness says Mr. Levison. A faint flush of color warm Sybil's marble cheek. She feels as if light were coming swiftly through the gloom. Her husband has told her nothing except to trust in Providence and in him. She has so trusted, and those quiet, monotonous days in Red Castle jail

Starting point is 18:31:58 are the most peaceful days she is known since she fled from Dixom Street and the poverty more than three years ago. Joel Pilgrim looks intently to the other end of the room, watching for the appearance of that witness of whom Mr. Levinson has spoken. He starts, and the leaden hue of his countenance takes a more death-like shade, when someone calls, Joseph Podmore! Podmore advances to the little railed-off space which has been made for the witnesses.

Starting point is 18:32:29 He is very pale, and is evidently nervous, but he is perfectly sober. Now Mr. Podmore, says Leveson, when a few questions chiefly repetitive had been asked by the corridor, will you be good enough to state what happened within your knowledge on the night of Mr. Trenchard's death? The ex-butler rubs his hands nervously, looks around the assembly, shifts his balance from one foot to the other, coughs dubiously, and then begins. Gentlemen of the jury and your worship, I'm about to make a state, which i ought to have made before it is preyed upon my mind having kept it back but i am a poor man with a young family dependent upon my exertions in service i actually was on my way to new york gentlemen of the jury and your honour and i got as far on my voyage as liverpool when the facts in question prayed upon my mind to that degree that i felt i must come back to this town to reveal them i hope this will plead in my favour your worship and gentlemen of the jury if there is any irregularity in my not having made this revelation sooner the man is drunk or mad cries joel savagely the man is sober to-day mr pilgrim says the coroner go on mr podmore the statement i have to make relates to the night of my master's death the night of june twenty third i was an hour late gentleman

Starting point is 18:33:59 on that night and going downstairs to give my master his medicine. I had slept extra heavy, and it was five o'clock instead of four when I woke. I went down as usual. The house was very quiet, but I took notice that the door of Mr. Pilgrim's bedroom, the secondary door opening onto the landing, stood ajar. So, thinks I, Mr. Pilgrim is with my master, perhaps he has given the old gentleman his medicine. I wasn't so much surprised as I might have been at Mr. Pilgrim being a stir so early, for he was always early. It was one of his Indian ways. Well, gentlemen of the jury, I goes to my master's door, and when I puts my hand against it, the door opens a little way, without any noise. For the locks at Lancaster Lodge are old-fashioned box locks, and the catches give way,

Starting point is 18:34:52 so that half your time, though a door looks to be shut, it's not really fair. fastened. The door gave way to my hand, and I looked in. Mr. Trenchard was sitting up in bed, and Mr. Pilgrim was opening a bottle of soda water on the dressing table. I saw him pour some of the soda water into a tumbler, and then I saw him, quick as lightning, pour something out of a bottle in his other hand. As I live, gentlemen of the jury, it didn't strike me at that moment that there was any harm. I thought it was some kind of medicine or drops like curledine or coral, or some of those newfangled opiates, and I didn't feel myself called on to interfere. There was no time for me to turn it over in my mind, you see, there wasn't a moment between Mr. Pilgrims pouring the stuff into the glass

Starting point is 18:35:42 and is handing the glass to my master. Mr. Trencher drank it off as a draft. It weren't above a third of a bottle of soda water. He sat for an instant, bolt up. upright, his eyes straining out of his head and glassy. Then he gave one long gasp and fell back on his pillow, purple in the face, as if you'd clutched him by the throat and strangled him. I rushed into the room and lifted him up in my arms. I thought at first he was in a fit, but when I stooped over, I smelt a sharp, strong smell like bitter almonds. And then I knew it was preric acid. What have you given him? I asked. But Mr. Mr. Pilgrim made no answer.

Starting point is 18:36:26 You've killed him, I said, and then he told me that it was accident. He had taken the wrong bottle. He had taken a bottle of pressic acid, which Mr. Trenchard kept in his medicine chest, among other drugs, instead of coral. He seemed in a dreadful state of mind. I couldn't help feeling for him. Who could tell whether it wasn't an accident? And if it was, anybody might have found themselves in the same position. spare us your reflections if you please says the coroner had your master any medicine chest in his room yes there was a small box with about half a dozen bottles in partitions do you know one of these bottles to have contained prussic acid in any form whatever i can't say that i do your worship there was heart-shorn and cattle-put oil and tincter of rhubub and such like you have named three bottles out of

Starting point is 18:37:20 the half-dozen says the coroner mr levison whispers into his ear yes that would be best says the coroner and he beckons one of the men in attendance and dispatches him on some errand did mr pilgrim offer you money to hold your tongue about what you had seen asked the coroner podmore fences with this question for a little but ends by confessing that joel pilgrim did offer him money that he gave him twenty pounds on the spot and promised to provide for him hereafter. He further admits that Joel had instigated him to emigrate to America and had given him neither rest nor peace till he had made all the arrangements for his departure. Mr. Pilgrim had paid his passage on board the Orinoco. By the time this question is settled, the man who has been sent out by the coroner returns, carrying a small mahogany case with brass plates at the corners an old-fashioned case divided into six compartments each containing a small square bottle of very thick glass. These bottles the coroner takes out one by one, examines them,

Starting point is 18:38:31 and exhibits them to the jury. The six bottles contain heart shorn, salvolato, opium, tincture of rhubarb, cadgepute oil, and syrup of squills. Each bottle is carefully labeled with a label in Stephen Trenchert's handwriting. writing, pasted on the glass. Gentlemen, says the coroner, I think we have now arrived at a stage in this inquiry when a further adjournment will be necessary. It will be as well to give time for the inquiry

Starting point is 18:39:01 which is going on before the magistrate. There is a little consultation, and the jury are dismissed. White to the very lips, Joel Pilgrim, turns to Colonel Stormont with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. Was there ever anything so absurd as the manner of this inquiry, he asked? There's actually a premium offered for perjury. This man, Secretan, has had ample time to bribe any number of false witnesses.

Starting point is 18:39:30 What more easy than for him to get up this story and pay the housekeeper and Butler for perjuring themselves? Colonel Stormont makes no reply. He feels rather uncomfortable in Mr. Pilgrim's neighborhood after the butler's evidence. The story may be a tissue of lies woven by Sybil's husband, but on the other hand, it is as likely to be true, and that dark face of Joel Pilgrim's tells strange tales. There's a general move towards the door. Mr. Pilgrim is about to pass out with the rest, when a hand is laid upon his shoulder, and Mr. Judbury, the detective officer, takes possession of him. what do you mean by this asks joel indignantly only that i have a warrant for your apprehension under suspicion of being concerned in the murder of mr trenchard replies jubbery coolly i've had my eye upon you for a good time but it's always foolish to hurry these things and if we'd hurried you we shouldn't have had podmore's attempt to get away to new york which brought matters to what i call a focus come along sir i've got to fly outside you may just as well come quietly. And Joel submits, knowing quite enough about English law and English customs,

Starting point is 18:40:50 to be aware that anything in the way of resistance would be worse than useless. He shrugs his shoulders and affects to take the matter lightly, though those white lips and haggard eyes of his give the lie to his assumed carelessness. If your Redcastle magistrates choose to take me into custody on a fabricated charge, They do it at their own peril, he says, loud enough for those around him to hear. I shall make them pay as heavily for their pig-headed folly as the law will enable me. Step inside, sir, says Mr. Judbury, you shall have plenty of law, free, gratis for nothing. The fly drives off, and Joel makes his interest for the first time under that medieval archway,

Starting point is 18:41:34 whose gates were opened just a week ago to admit Sybil. There is a further examination before a third examination before a little. the magistrates next day. The same witnesses repeat the same evidence. Mr. Leveson crossed questions and is unusually active. Joel Pilgrim sits in the seat of the accused, side by side with Sybil. He is defended or rather the cases watched for him by a rival of Mr. Leveson's, a gentleman equal and renowned in the criminal courts. Further details are extorted from Podmore under this cross-firing of interrogation, but Joel Pilgrim solicitor strives in vain to shake one iota of his testimony. If this be perjury, there never was a more accomplished perjurer, or a false witness

Starting point is 18:42:23 that held more firmly to the lesson he had learned. When the examination of witnesses is concluded, Mr. Levison addresses the magistrates and urges that his client shall be dismissed without a stain upon her character. The magistrates confer together and agree that there is not sufficient evidence to connect Sybil Secretan with the murder and that she may therefore be set at liberty. This being done, Mr. Levison suggests that she shall be placed in the witness box and examined as to her possession of the prussic acid. Pale and trembling a little, Sybil takes the necessary oath upon the small black book and waits to answer the magistrate's questions. You have heard your sister's evidence as to your abstraction of the prostic acid from the bottle in your uncle's surgery?

Starting point is 18:43:16 Yes. Do you admit to the truth of that statement? Yes, I was in great distress of mind at the time, and I thought if there were no other way out of my troubles, I might destroy myself. I do not say that I meant to do such a wicked thing. I only consider. I only consider. considered it as a means of release from my difficulties open to me at the very last extremity and you took the prussic acid with that idea yes you had no other design whatever in taking it none whatever did mr pilgrim know that you had this poison in your possession he did how did that happen am i obliged to answer this question asked Sybil? Yes, it is positively necessary for you to tell us everything relating to your possession of this prussic acid. It had been arranged by my uncle Trenchard that Mr. Pilgrim and I were to be married. My uncle did not know that I was married already. He had a prejudice against my husband's family,

Starting point is 18:44:27 and I had been so foolish as to keep my marriage secret from him. Mr Pilgrim went to York to obtain the license, and we were to have been married on the Saturday, the day on which I left Lancaster Lodge. I made up my mind of runaway at the last, rather than to tell Mr. Trenchard about my marriage. It was a cowardly act, I dare say, but I had deceived him so long

Starting point is 18:44:50 that I feared his anger on hearing the truth. How does this bear upon Mr. Joel Pilgrim's knowing about the prussic acid? I'm coming to that. it was on the night of his return from york with the marriage license he came up to my little sitting-room late that night between ten and eleven and told me about the license he had been dining and he seemed in very high spirits do you mean that he was intoxicated oh no he was only a little more excited than usual he talked a good deal about our marriage and for the first time in his life he tried to kiss me i showed him the prussic acid bottle and told him that I would sooner poison myself than let him touch my lips. He was very angry, and he told me that prussic acid was a dangerous thing for a woman to carry about her, and that I was playing with edged tools.

Starting point is 18:45:46 Did he take the bottle from you? No. What became of the bottle after that? I really can't tell. My intention was to put it back into my pocket, but I was very much flurried at this time. left it on the table among the books and other things. There were a great many things on the table. When did you miss the bottle? Not till I was in London when it recurred to my memory. Searched my

Starting point is 18:46:14 pocket for it, but it was not to be found. Were you wearing the same dress you had on upon the evening when you showed Mr. Pilgrim the bottle? Yes, it is the dress I'm wearing now. This is all. is again adjourned. The inquiry before the coroner is concluded next day. The verdict, willful murder against Joel

Starting point is 18:46:43 Pilgrim. The inquiry before the magistrates is concluded the day after by Joel Pilgrim's committal for trial on the capital charge. End of chapter 53. Chapter 54 of Dead Men's Shoes.

Starting point is 18:47:06 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Michelle Eaton. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 54 A Dark Tale, Darkly Finished Sibyl is free once more.

Starting point is 18:47:29 She has been endurance scarcely a fortnight, yet it is a new thing for her to come out into the light of day, and feel that she is at liberty to go where she pleases. It is a wondrous and a strange relief to know that the awful suspicion which has been hanging over her, separating her from all the rest of the world, is removed. But her first anxiety is to escape from Red Castle. The place has become hateful to her.

Starting point is 18:47:54 She knows that the eyes of those who once flattered and courted her have been turned upon her in cold, unpitying curiosity. That of all her summer friends, not one has remained true to her, in the hour of adversity and she is eager to get beyond ken of those hard faces beyond the sound of those false voices which have spoken her fairly in the day of prosperity and kept silence when she had need of comfort i have no one but you alex she says humbly no one but you and dear old uncle robert i wonder that you are both so good to me she goes straight from the court to dr fawn thorpe's house and is curiously gentle and affectionate in her demeanour to her uncle and the two girls marian plunges into vehement hysterics at the sight of her elder sister and on recovering from that attack embraces sybil warmly and is more demonstrative of sisterly affection than she has been for a long time she is far more kindly disposed towards sybil penniless and the mark of the will's scorn than she ever felt towards the supposed heiress to stephen trenchard's wealth as for jenny she goes fairly mad hugs her sister to desperation is very proud of her own performance in the witness-box and finally rushes out to the kitchen to ask hester to make hot cakes for tea no one who has not eaten yorkshire cakes and seen them made and baked in a yorkshire kitchen by a brisk and energetic yorkshire housewife

Starting point is 18:49:19 can have a just idea of the celerity with which this operation can be performed but on this particular evening sybil is far too languid to be tempted into injuring her digestion by the consumption of hot buttered cakes she sits in a corner of the old parlour sofa and takes her cup of tea impensive silence and the anxious little doctor sees that the events of the last few months have had a destroying influence upon his niece's health and beauty he creeped close to beside her and feels her pulse it is quick and irregular you want rest my love he says you must stay with us for a few weeks in your old room and let me doctor you and hester nurse you till you get strong again i like my old room uncle robert and i love to be with you but i hate redcastle i should never get well here let me go with my husband to his new home if he will have me she looked pleadingly at alexis and sees that she has been been forgiven. My home is yours, Sybil, and I will take you there as soon as you are free to go, but I think you had better accept your uncle's hospitality for a little while, as your evidence will be required for Mr Pilgrim's trial. What? asked Sybil. Is it not all over? No, my love, the trial has to come yet, and the witnesses examined by the coroner and magistrate will have to repeat their evidence. How dreadful, sighed Sybil. It is an ordeal to be gone through, my love. but when that is over we shall be free to go to cheswall grange and all our troubles will be over i hope and before the summer is ended your uncle and your sisters must come and pay us a visit in hampshire that will be delightful cries jenny rapturously have you a nice garden

Starting point is 18:51:06 a glorious old garden jenny with about a mile of wall fruit such plums and peaches a nursery for english cholera says the doctor and there's a pony jane you'd like that i think observes a lexer said i just but before you come to cheswall grange i should like you to cure yourself of one bad habit jane i won't mention it before company but if you recall to mind a certain interview between a gentleman and a young lady i dare say you will understand what i mean jenny blushes vehemently remembering that little romance about mrs yokohama grey so all is forgiveness and peace in the shabby old house at the end of the town and alexis touched to the heart by his wife's contrition, and by those sad eyes of hers, which have a weary look that tells of suffering born and hidden, feels that his old love for her is not quite dead, and that after all, faulty though she has been, she is the woman he would choose to sit by his fireside in the old house at Cheswald. Alexis returns to his hotel that evening, where there is much talk of Joel Pilgrim and his arrest. No one has any doubt of his guilt, and many go so far as to affirm that they

Starting point is 18:52:18 have been convinced of it from the first, and have declared their convictions to their friends and acquaintance. These being called upon to bear witness to this fact answer meanly that they don't exactly remember, that such opinions may have been expressed, but that they fail to recall them, in any case, Joel is prejudged in Redcastle, and there is a wonderful reaction about Sybil, who is exalted into a heroine and martyr, as if to have been wrongfully suspecting, was equivalent to having performed some great and noble action. Mrs. Stormont calls for the first time in her life at the shabby old house at the lower end of the town and leaves quite a packet of cards for Dr. Faunthorpe and his nieces, and one of the Colonel's cards for the special benefit of Mr. Secretan, for it has become known to Redcastle

Starting point is 18:53:08 that Alexis has a pretty little estate in Hampshire, and is by no means that fortuneless adventurer he was supposed to be on his first appearance upon the Red Castle stage. Everybody is eager for the trial, and there is a great deal of speculation, as to the exact date at which it will come on, and who will be the Crown lawyer, and who will defend the accused? Before midnight there runs a rumour that Pilgrim has secured the famous Valentine for his defender, and there is an idea that he will get off. A clever council could shake the butler's evidence,

Starting point is 18:53:41 make the jury disbelieve him altogether, and without the judge, his evidence, how are they to bring the crime home to Pilgrim? Ask the knowing ones. Before noon next day, it is known that Joel Pilgrim has accepted his early defeat and has gone forth to meet the theatre of a more terrible judge than that sage and learned lawyer who would have sat in judgment upon him at the forthcoming assizes. Early on the morning following his arrest, he has found means to elude the vigilance of his warder and has opened a vein with a small penknife, which he has contrived to keep hidden in the silken lining of his coat sleeve. Lying quietly on his prison bed, the ward are slumbering on a pallet by his side.

Starting point is 18:54:22 He has given himself his death wound, and let life ebb silently without a groan. He has occupied the earlier part of the night in writing, and this is the result, which is speedily devoured by the ravening moors of a thousand different newspapers and given to the world. It figures on the hoardings before news vendor's shops in fat black capital startling revelation the red castle murder dying confession of joel pilgrim if it is any satisfaction to the world at large which never gave me anything that i did not obtain by an appeal to its self-interest to know the history of a man whose hours are now numbered i give it in a few words i am the son of stephen trenchard the only offspring of his marriage with a hindoo dancing girl and that marriage about as legal a union as a european of some social standing cares to contract with a low-cast Indian. My mother had, I believe, little except her beauty to recommend her to an Englishman's notice, but she was inoffensive and she died young, two merits which secured her husband's respect. My father never acknowledged this marriage

Starting point is 18:55:31 or me as his son, but he took me into his office at an early age and finding that I was tolerably shrewd and of his own way of thinking in commercial matters, had me well. I, educated between the age of 18 and 24 and at 25 took me for his partner. The fortunes of our house varied as years went on. We made money very fast, but we had the misfortune sometimes to lose it even faster. Our gains generally tempted us to make losses, and each successful transaction brought an unlucky follower at its heels. Thus, if we made 100% by Indigo one year, we perhaps lost 150% by Indigo the next, being lured into some reckless speculation, time bargains and the rest of it.

Starting point is 18:56:19 Our opium trade brought us most money, and we trafficked in other goods, which proved profitable merchandise, but somewhat damaged the character of our house. In other words, rather than let our vessels ground upon their beef bones, for want of a remunerative cargo, we occasionally went in quietly for the slave trade, supplied our Demerera friends with coolies and shipped a good deal of livestock of this kind at different ports. To put it briefly, we were general dealers on a large scale. The business had never been weaker than in that year when my father suddenly took it into his head that it was time for him to retire and drew £10,000 out of the house.

Starting point is 18:57:00 Some thousands beyond our real capital. It left me with a crippled business and I felt that my father had done me a great wrong by this selfish retirement. for the first year after his return to england fortune favoured me and the prospects of the house brightened i made one or two lucky hits and began to pluck up spirit but this state of things did not last long i lost a shipload of coolies under somewhat painful circumstances the ship and supposed cargo not the coolies were heavily insured the underwriters refused to pay and there was some talk of scuttling this scandal although strangled in the birth did me harm. A commercial man's reputation is as delicate a blossom as a hot house flower, any chill wind nips it. When I found things going to the bad in Calcutta, I came home, thinking that my father might help me out of my difficulties, or at least enable me to float, my unwieldy ship a little while longer by the use of a few of those thousands he had squeezed

Starting point is 18:58:01 out of the business. This he peremptorily refused, and had the injustice to accuse me of bad trading we had bitter words on the subjects on many occasions and not content with refusing to help me he urged me to raise money to pay off the remaining ten thousand pounds due to him by a deed of dissolution which he had made me sign before he left he resigning his share of the business in consideration of receiving twenty thousand pounds ten thousand at the time of execution of the deed ten thousand within three years from that date the time had expired and he urged me repeatedly to raise the money. When he found that I had set my heart upon marrying his niece, whom I naturally supposed to be a single woman, he made my payment of this ten thousand pounds a condition of my marriage. No money? No wife, he said, thus using my tenderest feelings as a lever to wrench money out of me. I think this plan of proceeding hardly comes under the head of fatherly affection. Of the tragedy which terminated the story of my father's existence,

Starting point is 18:59:06 I have nothing to say. Time may perhaps make that mystery clear. I shall not gratify idle curiosity by any revelation, supposing it to be in my power to reveal anything touching this question, which I leave as a subject for speculation, to that new school which devotes its labours, to the studies of psychological mysteries. This is all.

Starting point is 18:59:29 Disappointing perhaps to the world in general, but giving Red Castle a new subject for conversation. imagine that horrid indian being mr trenchard's son after all exclaims mrs stormont when she and her dear mrs groshen meet to discuss the latest scandal over their harlequin tea-cups i always thought there was a likeness i can't say that i saw any resemblance such a difference in complexion you know but what a horribly disreputable set these trenchards seem to have been says mrs groshen in a wholesale way as if there had been as if there had been a been a regiment of them yes selling slaves and opium and scuttling ships and doing everything horrid and to think that we would have asked him to dinner cries the banker's wife remembering how often she has squandered her housekeeping money upon hot-house fruit and flowers to decorate the board at which stephen trenchard was to be the chief guest how lucky that dreadful pilgrim never accepted our invitations exclaimed mrs stormont i have no doubt he was afraid to show himself in society. He eats with chopsticks, I dare say. I rather think that chopsticks are Chinese, my dear, replies Mrs Grotian, whose remembrance of the child's guide to useful knowledge has not been weakened by the lapse of so many years as have gone by since her elder friend left a fashionable boarding school, carefully finished in all those elegant accomplishments,

Starting point is 19:00:57 which takes six years to learn and can be comfortably forgotten in three. Thus runs town-talking quiet Redcastle. There will be no trial and among the general public interest in Stephen Trenchard's murder languishes and soon dies for want of nutriment. End of Chapter 54. Chapter 55 of dead men's shoes. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Michelle Eaton. Dead Men's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Chapter 55 Epilogue All through the rest of the summer weather, till the leaves change from green to red and yellow, and the sturdy oak slow to bud, and last to succumb to time the destroyer, have put on their

Starting point is 19:01:53 russ at livery. Sybil lies in the chief bedchamber at Cheswald Grange, sick, nigh unto death. She has broken down utterly, now that the struggle is over, now that all the storms are ended, and her frail bark safe in harbour. There is no violence. illness, no raging fever of brain or body, only an extreme prostration, which for a long time baffles the skill of an intelligent physician and a careful family doctor. She lies in the bright, pretty bedroom, with its old panelled walls, painted pale pink and cream colour, its needlework pictures, its quaint furniture, and many relics of a departed generation. There is a wide window opposite her bed that extends from ceiling to floor, and through this,

Starting point is 19:02:39 she listlessly contemplates the fair landscape the smiling garden the autumnal glory of the park she suffers little pain except such weariness as attends extreme prostration she is at peace and even declares herself happy i have lived long enough alex she says one day when her strength has eb to the lowest point compatible with life and the doctors have begun to despair of the efficiency of the pharmacopoeia in this particular case alexis deeply moved sits by her bed-and and holds her feeble hand in the dim autumn twilight i am content for my earthly race to finish here you have forgiven me that is enough but have you no thought of me sybil is it kind to talk like that dear alex you have been more than good to me but i have not forgotten what you said that evening of our meeting in the old room at mrs bonnies love is dead you told me that was said under the influence of anger sybil i thought it was true but sorrow soon fastened the old knot again sorrow and peril reunited us sybil and do you really love me i know that you have forgiven me but are you sure you love me still very sure as much and as truly as i ever loved you in old kensington gardens under the elms when i told the hazelton children fairy tales and my life and yours seemed as sweet a fairy tale as any of those old nursery stories and as sure of a blissful ending oh alex is that the truth as i live darling then i think i shall make an effort and get well replied sybil with a sigh of utter contentment i have been willing to glide gently out of life believing that however good you were to me i could never hope to win more than your forgiveness but now i shall try very hard to get well she keeps her word whether her illness has reached its natural turning-point the tide of life flowing back to its source or whether the ardent desire of the patient to live helps the work of recovery the medical man cannot say but from this time there is a change slowly but surely but surely health and youth come back to the pale wan face. The lovely eyes lose their glassy luster and grow bright with happy thoughts. Faint gleams of carnation flit like the shadow of a sunset cloud, over the

Starting point is 19:04:51 marble pallor, then linger, and warm the pallid cheek into life and beauty. Your love has won me back from the grave, Alex, whispers Sibble, four or five weeks after that talk in the twilight, when the family doctor, that very Mr. Scalpel, who attended Alexis after his accident, has declared that Mrs. Secretan's recovery is absolutely marvellous. When Sibble is out of danger, Richard Plowden, who has been a faithful friend and comforter, throughout this time of trouble, and has acted as Trott's chief nurse and playmate into the bargain,

Starting point is 19:05:25 departs somewhat abruptly upon a journey. The business and destination whereof he does not reveal to his dear friend, Alexis. It's a little bit of a trip. I've been meditating for a longish time, he says. I'll tell you all about it when I come back. i think i shall start to-morrow you'll write to us while you're away of course dick well yes if i can manage it replies mr plowden with rather a sheepish air but you mustn't be alarmed if you don't hear from me i shall be moving about from place to place you see and i may be out of the way of post-offices off the beaten track you know good gracious exclaims alexis are you going to the centre of africa is my modest geographer coming out as a second sir samuel baker alexis is too much occupying with his wife's recovery just now to be very curious about his friend he thinks dick's movements are somewhat eccentric and that is all perhaps the objects to my being here say sybil who has learned to think very humbly of herself of late object to you sybil why you must know that he is absolutely

Starting point is 19:06:27 devoted to you and has been almost as anxious as I was during your illness. He was prejudiced against you, before he saw you, out of affection for me. Poor fellow thinking that I had been hardly used, but when once you came back to love and duty, he was your slave. For about a month, nothing is heard of Richard Plowden, and Alexis is beginning to feel somewhat uneasy about his friend's fate. When he receives a letter in Dick's neat hand, posted at Cannes, My dear friend, writes Richard, when I left you and Mrs. Secretan so abruptly, I was departing upon so daring and wild an expedition that I felt too much ashamed of my own audacity to tell you my errand. I came to the south of France to discover whether there was any hope of my ever-winning

Starting point is 19:07:15 by long years of patient devotion, the dearest and best, purest and most unselfish of women. You had told me to hope in the day of my despondency, and I had, had hoped although i scorned myself for my foolishness in hoping at last i told myself that it was worse than foolish to go on hoping and dreaming i must put it to the touch and win or lose it all as montrose says so i came here found my sweetest linda working industriously at her art pensive but not altogether unhappy she was delighted to see me not for my own sake you may be sure but because i could tell her all about trot how i have bled that dear child she was never tired of hearing me talk of him i spent all my evenings at her aunt's house such a dear old lady the aunt talking about trot and a little about art and science and literature and my own small views and ambitions what happy evenings they were well alex i am too proud of her too ashamed of my own unworthiness to tell you much more i can only say that god has been very good to me that i am more blessed than ever i hoped to be that if i had been born in the dear old old fairy times which i have told trot so much about that i have grown almost to believe in them myself if i had been the special favourite of some omnipotent good fairy and had had a talking bird and fortunitus's purse and an invisible cat and a flying carpet and the princess with the golden locks for my bride i could not have been one whit happier than i am or more astonished at my own happiness i am in such a state of surprise that i am doubtful of my own idea identity and hardly feel sure that I have any right to sign myself, your faithful friend Dick Plowden. Very happy are Alexis and his wife, one sunny morning, early in December, when Sybil, leaning on her

Starting point is 19:09:10 husband's arm and with trot at her side, makes her first round of the Cheswall domain. The hoar frost whitens the lawn and meadows, yet there are late roses still blooming on the wall. Alexis insists upon his wife seeing everything, hot houses, stables, pigger is even and sibyl inspects and admires rapturously enough to content an exacting lord of the manner it is all lovely she exclaims and what is best of all the place suits you alex and you suit the place to perfection you seem to have been made for a country squire how strange it is to know that providence held this in store for you in that bitter time at mrs bonnies while i was waiting for a dead man's shoes you who never cringed to any man or courted any inheritance have been blessed by fortune, the end. End of Chapter 55 End of Deadmen's Shoes by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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