Dracula's Guest & Other Weird Tales - The Secret of The Growing Gold

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Secret of the Growing Gold. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
by Hailey Flagg, The Secret of the Growing Gold by
Bram Stoker. When Margaret Delandre went to live at Brent's Rock,

(00:24):
the whole neighborhood awoke to the pleasure of an entirely
new scandal. Scandals in connection with either the Delandre family
or the Brents of Brent's Rock were not few, and
if the secret history of the county had been written
in full, both names would have been found well represented.
It is true that the status of each was so
different that they might have belonged to different continents, or

(00:45):
to different worlds. For the matter of that, for hitherto
their orbits had never crossed. The Brents were accorded by
the whole section of the county a unique social dominance,
and had ever held themselves as high above the yoming
class to which Margaret Delandre belonged, as blue blooded Spanish
Hidalgo out tops his peasant tenantry. The Delaundres had an
ancient record and were proud of it in their way,

(01:07):
as the Brents were of theirs. But the family had
never risen above yeomanry, and although they had been once
well to do in the good old times of foreign
wars and protection, their fortunes had withered under the scorching
of the free trade sun and the piping times of peace.
They had, as the elder members used to assert, stuck
to the land, with the result that they had taken

(01:27):
root in it, body and soul. In fact, they, having
chosen the life of vegetables, had flourished as vegetation does,
blossomed and thrived in the good season, and suffered in
the bad. Their holding Dander's Croft seemed to have been
worked out, and to be typical of the family which
had lived in it. The latter had declined generation after generation,

(01:48):
sending out now and again some abortive shoot of unsatisfied
energy in the shape of a soldier or sailor who
had worked his way to the minor grades of the services,
and had there stopped cut short, either from unheeding gallantry action,
or from that destroying cause. To men without breeding or
youthful care, the recognition of a position above them which
they feel unfitted to fill, so little by little the

(02:10):
family dropped lower and lower, the men brooding and dissatisfied
and drinking themselves into the grave, the women drudging at
home or marrying beneath them, or worse. In process of time,
all disappeared, leaving only two in the croft, Wickham Delandre
and his sister Margaret. The man and women seemed to
have inherited, in masculine and feminine form, respectively, the evil

(02:32):
tendency of their race, sharing in common the principles, though
manifesting them in different ways of sullen passion, voluptuousness, and recklessness.
The history of the Brens had been something similar, but
showing the causes of decadence in their aristocratic and not
their plebeian forms. They too had sent their shoots to
the wars, but their positions had been different, and they

(02:54):
had often attained honor, for without flaw they were gallant,
and brave deeds were done by them before the selfishness
dissipation which marked them had sapped their vigor. The present
head of the family, if family it could now be called,
when one remained of the direct line, was Jeffrey Brent.
He was almost a type of worn out race, manifesting
in some ways its most brilliant qualities and in others

(03:16):
its utter degradation. He might be fairly compared with some
of those antique Italian nobles whom the painters have preserved
to us, with their courage, their unscrupulousness, their refinement of
lust and cruelty, the voluptuary actual with the fiendish potential.
He was certainly handsome, with that dark, aquiline commanding beauty
which women so generally recognize is dominant with men. He

(03:39):
was distant and cold, but such a bearing never deters womankind.
The unscrutable laws of sex are so arranged that even
a timid woman is not afraid of a fierce and
haughty man. And so it was that there was hardly
a woman of any kind or degree who lived within
view of Brent's Rock who did not cherish some form
of secret admiration for the handsome wastrel category was a

(04:00):
wide one, for Brent's Rock rose up steeply from the
midst of a level region, and for a circuit of
one hundred miles it lay on the horizon, with its
high old towers and steep roofs cutting the level edge
of wood a hamlet and far scattered mansions. So long
as Jeffrey Brent confined his dissipations to London and Paris
and Vienna, anywhere out of sight and sound of his home,

(04:21):
opinion was silent. It is easy to listen to far
off echoes unmoved, and we can treat them with disbelief
or scorn or disdain, or whatever attitude of coldness may
suit our purpose. But when the scandal came close to home,
it was another matter, and the feelings of independence and integrity,
which is in people of every community which is not
utterly spoiled, asserted itself and demanded that condemnation should be expressed. Still,

(04:47):
there was a certain reticence in all, and no more
notice was taken of the existing facts than was absolutely necessary.
Margaret Delandre bore herself so fearlessly and so openly. She
accepted her position as the justified con of Jeffrey Brent,
so naturally that people came to believe that she was
secretly married to him, and therefore thought it wiser to
hold their tongues lest time should justify her and also

(05:09):
make her an active enemy. The one person who by
his interference could have settled all doubts, was debarred by
circumstances from interfering in the matter. Wickham Delandre had quarreled
with his sister, or perhaps it was that she had
quarreled with him, and they were on terms not merely
of armed neutrality, but of bitter hatred. The quarrel had

(05:30):
been antecedent to Margaret going to Brent's rock. She and
Wickham had almost come to blows. There had certainly been
threats on one side and on the other, and in
the end, Wickham, overcome with passion, had ordered his sister
to leave his house. She had risen straight away, and
without waiting to pack up even her own personal belongings,
had walked out of the house. On the threshold. She

(05:51):
had paused for a moment to hurl a bitter threat
at Wickham that he would ruin shame and despair to
the last hour of his life. His act of that day.
Week had since passed, and it was understood in the
neighborhood that Margaret had gone to London when she suddenly
appeared driving out with Jeffrey Brent, and the entire neighborhood
knew before nightfall that she had taken up her abode
at the Rock. It was no subject of surprise that

(06:14):
Brent had come back unexpectedly, for such was his usual custom.
Even his own servants never knew when to expect him,
for there was a private door of which he alone
had the key, by which he sometimes entered without anyone
in the house being aware of his coming. This was
his usual method of appearing after a long absence. Wickham
Delandre was furious at the news. He vowed vengeance, and

(06:37):
to keep his mind level with his passion drank deeper
than ever. He tried several times to see his sister,
but she contemptuously refused to meet him. He tried to
have an interview with Brent and was refused by him also.
Then he tried to stop him in the road, but
without avail, for Geoffrey was not a man to be
stopped against his will. Several actual encounters took place between

(06:57):
the two men, and many more were threatened, and at
last Wickham Delandre settled down to a morose, vengeful acceptance
of the situation. Neither Margaret nor Jeffrey was of a
pacific temperament, and it was not long before there began
to be quarrels between them. One thing would lead to another,
and wine flowed freely at Brent's Rock. Now and again,
the quarrels would assume a bitter aspect, and threats would

(07:20):
be exchanged in uncompromising language that fairly awed the listening servants.
But such quarrels generally ended where domestic altercations do, in
reconciliation and in a mutual respect for the fighting qualities
proportionate to their manifestation. Fighting for its own sake is
found by a certain class of persons all the world
over to be a matter of absorbing interest, and there

(07:43):
is no reason to believe that domestic conditions minimize its potency.
Jeffrey and Margaret made occasional absences from Brent's Rock, and
on each of these occasions Wickham Delandre also absented himself,
but as he generally heard of the absence too late
to be of any service, he returned home each time
in a more bitter and discontented frame of mind than before.

(08:04):
At last, there came a time when the absence from
Brent's Rock became longer than before. Only a few days earlier,
there had been a quarrel exceeding in bitterness anything which
had gone before. But this too had been made up,
and a trip on the continent had been mentioned before
the servants. After a few days, Wickham Delandre also went away,
and it was some weeks before he returned. It was

(08:26):
noticed that he was full of some new importance, satisfaction, exaltation,
they hardly knew how to call it. He went straight
away to Brent's Rock and demanded to see Jeffrey Brent, and,
on being told that he had not yet returned, said
with a grim decision, which the servants noted, I shall
come again. My news is solid. It can wait, and
turned away. Week after week went by, and month after month,

(08:50):
and then there came a rumor certified later on, that
an accident had occurred in the Zermatt Valley. Whilst crossing
a dangerous pass. The carriage containing an English lady and
the driver had fallen over a precipice. The gentlemen of
the party, mister Jeffrey Brent, having been fortunately saved as
he had been walking up the hill to ease the horses,
He gave information and a search was made the broken rail,

(09:14):
the excoriated roadway the marks where the horses had struggled
on the decline before finally pitching over into the Torrent.
All told the sad tale. It was a wet season
and there had been much snow in the winter, so
that the river was swollen beyond its usual volume, and
the eddies of the stream were packed with ice. All
search was made, and finally the wreck of the carriage

(09:34):
and the body of one horse were found in an
eddy of the river. Later, the body of the driver
was found on the sandy Torrent swept waste near Tash,
but the body of the lady, like that of the
other horse, had quite disappeared, and was what was left
of it by that time, whirling amongst the eddies of
the Rhone on its way down to the Lake of Geneva.
Wickham Delandre made all the inquiries possible, but could not

(09:57):
find any trace of the missing woman. He found, however,
in the books of the various hotels the name of
mister and missus Jeffrey Brent, and he had a stone
erected at Zermatt to his sister's memory under her married name,
and a tablet put up in the church at Breton,
the parish in which both Brent's Rock and Danderscroft were situated.
There was a lapse of nearly a year after the

(10:19):
excitement of the matter had worn away, and the whole
neighborhood had gone on in its accustomed way. Brent was
still absent, and de Laundre more drunken, more morose, and
more revengeful than before. Then there was a new excitement.
Brent's Rock was being made ready for a new mistress.
It was officially announced by Jeffrey himself in a letter
to the Vicar that he had been married some months

(10:39):
before to an Italian lady, and that they were then
on their way home. Then a small army of workmen
invaded the house, and hammer and planes sounded, and a
general air of size and paint pervaded the atmosphere. One
wing of the old house, the south, was entirely redone,
and then the great body of the workmen departed, leaving
only materials for the doing of the old hall. When

(11:00):
Jeffrey Brynch should have returned, for he had directed that
the decoration was only to be done under his own eyes,
he had brought with him accurate drawings of a hall
in the house of his bride's father, for he wished
to reproduce for her the place to which he had
been accustomed, As the molding had all to be redone,
some scaffolding poles and boards were brought in and laid
on one side of the Great Hall, and also a

(11:22):
great wooden tank or box for mixing the lime, which
was laid in bags beside it. When the new mistress
of Brent's Rock arrived, the bells of the church rang out,
and there was a general jubilation. She was a beautiful creature,
full of the poetry and fire and passion of the South,
and the few English words which she had learned were
spoken in such a sweet and pretty broken way that

(11:42):
she won the hearts of the people, almost as much
by the music of her voice as by the melting
beauty of her dark eyes. Jeffrey Brent seemed more happy
than he had ever before appeared, but there was a dark,
anxious look on his face that was new to those
who knew him of old, and he started at times
as though at some noise that was on heard by others.
And so months passed, and the whisper grew that at

(12:04):
last Brent's Rock was to have an air Jeoffrey was
very tender to his wife, and the new bond between
them seemed to soften him. He took more interest in
his tenants and their needs than he had ever done,
and works of charity on his part, as well as
on his sweet young wife's, were not lacking. He seemed
to have set all his hopes on the child that
was coming, and as he looked deeper into the future,

(12:24):
the dark shadow that had come over his face seemed
to die gradually away. All the time Wickham delandre nursed
his revenge. Deep in his heart had grown up a
purpose of vengeance which only waited an opportunity to crystallize
and take a definite shape. His vague idea was somehow
centered in the wife of Brent, for he knew that
he could strike him best through those he loved, and

(12:47):
the coming time seemed to hold in its womb the
opportunity for which he longed. One night, he sat alone
in the living room of his house. It had once
been a handsome room in its way, but time and
neglect had done their work, and it was now little
better than a ruin without dignity or picturesqueness of any kind.
He had been drinking heavily for some time, and was

(13:07):
more than half stupefied. He thought he heard a noise
as of someone at the door, and looked up. Then
he called half savagely to come in, but there was
no response. With a muttered blasphemy, he renewed his potations. Presently,
he forgot all around him, sank into a daze, but
suddenly awoke to see standing before him someone or some

(13:29):
thing like a battered ghostly addition of his sister. For
a few moments there came upon him a sort of fear.
The woman before him, with distorted features and burning eyes,
seemed hardly human, and the only thing that seemed a
reality of his sister as she had been was her
wealth of golden hair, and this was now streaked with gray.

(13:50):
She eyed her brother with a long, cold stare, and he, too,
as he looked and began to realize the actuality of
her presence, found the hatred of her which he had
had once again surging up in his heart. All the
brooding passion of the past year seemed to find a
voice at once as he asked her, why are you here?
You're dead and buried. I am here. Wickham Delandre for

(14:12):
no love of you, but because I hate another even
more than I do you. A great passion blazed in
her eyes him, he asked, in so fierce a whisper
that even the woman was for an instant startled till
she regained her calm. Yes, him, she answered, But make
no mistake. My revenge is my own, and I merely
use you to help me to it. Wickham asked, suddenly,

(14:35):
did he marry you? The woman's distorted face broadened out,
and a ghastly attempt at a smile. It was a
hideous mockery, for the broken features and seamed scars took
strange shapes, and strange colors, and queer lines of white
showed out as the straining muscles pressed on the old Cicatrice's.
So you would like to know it would please your
pride to feel that your sister was truly married. Well,

(14:58):
you shall not know. That was my revenge on you,
and I do not mean to change it by a
hair's breadth. I have come here to night simply to
let you know that I am alive, so that if
any violence be done me where I am going there
may be a witness. Where are you going, demanded her brother.
That is my affair, and I have not the least

(15:18):
intention of letting you know. Wickham stood up, but the
drink was on him, and he reeled and fell. As
he lay on the floor, he announced his intention of
following his sister, and with an outburst of splenetic humor,
told her that he would follow her through the darkness
by the light of her hair and of her beauty.
At this she turned on him and said that there
were others beside him that would rue her hair and

(15:40):
her beauty too, as he will. She hissed, for the
hair remains, though the beauty be gone. When he withdrew
the lynch pin and sent us over the precipice into
the torrent, he had little thought of my beauty. Perhaps
his beauty would be scarred like mine where he whirled
as I was among the rocks of the visp and

(16:01):
frozen on the ice pack in the drift of the river.
But let him beware his time is coming, And with
a fierce gesture, she flung open the door and passed
out into the night. Later on that night, missus Brent,
who was but half asleep, became suddenly awake and spoke
to her husband, Geoffrey, was not that the click of

(16:23):
a lock somewhere below our window. But Geoffrey, though she
thought that he too had started at the noise, seemed
sound asleep and breathed heavily. Again. Missus Brent dozed, but
this time awoke to the fact that her husband had
arisen and was partially dressed. He was deadly pale, and
when the light of the lamp, which he had in
his hand, fell on his face, she was frightened at

(16:44):
the look in his eyes. What is it, Geoffrey, What
dost thou, she asked, Hush, little one, He answered, in
a strange, hoarse voice, go to sleep. I am restless
and wished to finish some work I left undone. Bring
it here, my husband, she said, I am lonely and
I feel when thou art away. For a reply, he
merely kissed her and went out, closing the door behind him.

(17:06):
She lay awake for a while, and then nature asserted
itself and she slept. Suddenly she started broad awake with
the memory in her ears of a smothered cry from
somewhere not far off. She jumped up and ran to
the door and listened, but there was no sound, she
grew alarmed for her husband and called out Jeffrey, Jeffrey.
After a few moments, the door of the Great Hall opened,

(17:29):
and Geoffrey appeared at it, but without his lamp. Hush,
he said, in a sort of whisper, and his voice
was harsh and stern. Hush, Get to bed.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
I am working and must not be disturbed. Go to sleep,
and do not wait the house.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
With a chill in her heart, for the harshness in
her husband's voice was new to her, she crept back
to bed and lay there, trembling, too frightened to cry,
and listened to every sound. There was a long pause
of silence, and then the sound of some iron implements
striking muffled blows. Then there came a clang of heavy stone,
followed by a muffled curse, then a dragging sound, and

(18:04):
then more noise of stone on stone. She lay all
the while in an agony of fear, and her heart
beat dreadfully. She heard a curious sort of scraping sound,
and then there was silence. Presently, the door opened gently
and Jeffrey appeared. His wife pretended to be asleep, but
through her eyelashes she saw him wash from his hands,

(18:24):
something white that looked like lime. In the morning, he
made no allusion to the previous night, and she was
afraid to ask any question. From that day there seemed
some shadow over Geoffrey Brent. He neither ate nor slept
as he had been accustomed, and his former habit of
turning suddenly as though some one were speaking from behind
him revived. The old Hall seemed to have some kind

(18:46):
of fascination for him. He used to go there many
times in the day, but grew impatient if anyone, even
his wife, entered it. When the builder's foreman came to
inquire about continuing his work, Jeoffrey was out driving. The
man went into the hall, and when Jeffrey returned, the
servant told him of his arrival and where he was.
With a frightful oath, he pushed the servant aside and

(19:06):
hurried up to the old hall. The workman met him
almost at the door, and as Jeffrey burst into the room,
he ran against him. The man apologized, beg pardon, sir,
but I was just going out to make some inquiries.
I directed twelve sacks of lamb to be sent here,
but I see there are only ten curse the ten
sacks and the twelve too, was the ungracious and incomprehensible rejoinder.

(19:27):
The workman looked surprised and tried to turn the conversation.
I see, sir, there's a little matter which our people
must have done, but the governor will of course see
it set right at his own cost. What do you
mean that ea a stone, sir. So idiot must have
put a scaffold pole on it and cracked it right
down the middle, and it's stick enough, you'd think to
stand anything. Jeffrey was silent for quite a minute, and

(19:50):
then said, in a constrained voice, and with much gentler manner,
tell your people that I am.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
Not going on with the work in the hall at present.
I want to leave it as it is for a
while longer, all right.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
Sir, I'll send up a few of our chaps to
take away these poles and line bags and tied it
the place up a bit. No, no, said Geoffrey. Leave
them where they are. I shall send and tell you
when you ought to get home with the work. So
the foreman went away, and his comment to his master was,
I'd send in the bilsurf for the work already done.
Appears to me that money's a little shaky in that quarter.

(20:24):
Once or twice Delaundre tried to stop Brent on the road,
and at last, finding that he could not attain his object,
rode after the carriage, calling out, what has become of
my sister your wife? Jeffrey lashed his horses into a gallop,
and the other, seeing from his white face and from
his wife's collapse, almost into a faint, that his object
was attained, rode away with a scowl and a laugh.

(20:46):
That night, when Jeffrey went into the hall, he passed
over to the great fireplace, and all at once started
back with a smothered cry. Then with an effort, he
pulled himself together and went away, Returning with a light.
He bent down over the broken hearthstone to see if
the moonlight falling through the storied window had in any
way deceived him. Then, with a groan of anguish sank

(21:07):
to his knees. There, sure enough, through the crack and
the broken stone were protruding a multitude of threads of
golden hair, just hinged with gray. He was disturbed by
a noise at the door, and looking round, saw his
wife standing in the doorway. In the desperation of the moment,
he took action to prevent discovery, and, lighting a match

(21:27):
at the table, stooped down and burned away the hair
that rose through the broken stone. Then, rising as nonchalantly
as he could, he pretended surprise at seeing his wife
beside him. For the next week he lived in an agony, for,
whether by accident or design, he could not find himself
alone in the hall for any length of time. At
each visit, the hare had grown afresh through the crack,

(21:49):
and he had to watch it carefully lest his terrible
secret should be discovered. He tried to find a receptacle
for the body of the murdered woman outside the house,
but someone always interrupted him, and once when he was
coming out of the private doorway, he was met by
his wife, who began to question him about it, and
manifested surprise that she should not have before noticed the key,
which he now reluctantly showed her. Jeffrey dearly and passionately

(22:13):
loved his wife, so that any possibility of her discovering
his dread secrets, or even of doubting him, filled him
with anguish, and after a couple of days had passed,
he could not help coming to the conclusion that at
least she suspected something. That very evening, she came into
the hall after her drive and found him there, sitting
moodily by the deserted fireplace. She spoke to him directly, Geoffrey,

(22:38):
I have been spoken to by that fellow Delandre, and
he says horrible things. He tells me that a week
ago his sister returned to his house the reckoned ruin
of her former self, with only her golden hair as
of old, and denounced some fell intention. He asked me
where she is? And oh, Geoffrey, she is dead. She

(22:58):
is dead. So how did she have returned? I am
in dread and I know not where to turn for answer.
Jeffrey burst into a torrent of blasphemy, which made her shudder.
He cursed Alandra and his sister and all their kind,
and in his special he hurled curse after curse on
her golden hair. Oh, hush, hush, she said, and was

(23:18):
then silent, for she feared her husband when she saw
the evil effect of his humor. Jeffrey, in the torrent
of his anger, stood up and moved away from the hearth,
but suddenly stopped as he saw a new look of
terror in his wife's eyes. He followed their glance, and
then he too shuddered, for there on the broken hearthstone
lay a golden streak as the point of the hair

(23:39):
rose through the crack. Look. Look, she shrieked, it is
some ghost of the dead. Come away, Come away, And
seizing her husband by the wrist with a frenzy of madness,
she pulled him from the room. That night, she was
in a raging fever. The doctor of the district attended
her at once, and special aid was telegraphed for to London.

(24:00):
Jeoffrey was in despair, and in his anguish at the
danger of his young wife, almost forgot his own crime
and its consequences. In the evening, the doctor had to
leave to attend to others, but he left Jeffrey in
charge of his wife. His last words were, remember you
must humor.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Her till I come the morning, or till some other
doctor hass her case in hand.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
What you have to dread is another attack of emotion.
See that she is kept warm. Nothing more can be done.
Late in the evening, when the rest of the household
had retired, Jeoffrey's wife got up from her bed and
called to her husband. Come. She said, come to the
old hall. I know where the gold comes from. I
want to see it grow. Jeffrey would fain have stopped her,

(24:41):
but he feared for her life or reason on the
one hand, and lest in a paroxysm she should shriek
out her terrible suspicion, and, seeing that it was useless
to try and prevent her, wrapped a warm rug about
her and went with her to the old hall. When
they entered, she turned and shut the door and locked it.
We want no strangers amongst us. Three to night, she
he whispered, with a wand smile. We three, nayves. We

(25:03):
are two, said Geoffrey with a shudder. He feared to
say more. Sit here, said his wife, as she put
out the light. Sit here by the hearth and watch
the gold growing. The silver moonlight is jealous. See it
steals along the floor towards the gold, our gold. Jeffrey
looked with growing horror and saw that during the hours
that had passed, the golden hair had protruded further through

(25:26):
the broken hearth stone. He tried to hide it by
placing his feet over the broken place, and his wife,
drawing her chair beside him, leant over and laid her
head on his shoulder. Now do not stir, dear, she said,
let us sit still and watch. We shall find the
secrets of the growing gold. He passed his arm round
her and sat silent, And as the moonlight stole along

(25:49):
the floor, she sank to sleep. He feared to wake her,
and so sat silent and miserable. As the hours stole away.
Before his horror struck eyes. The golden hair from the
broken stone grew and grew, and as it increased, so
his heart got colder and colder, till at last he
had not power to stir, and sat with his eyes

(26:11):
full of terror, watching his doom. In the morning, when
the London doctor came, neither Jeffrey nor his wife could
be found. Search was made in all the rooms, but
without avail as a last resource. The great door of
the old hall was broken open, and those who entered
saw a grim and sorry sight. There By the deserted hearth.

(26:34):
Jeoffrey Brent and his young wife sat cold and white
and dead. Her face was peaceful and her eyes were
closed in sleep, But his face was a sight that
made all who saw it shudder, for there was on
it a look of unutterable horror. The eyes were open
and stared glassily at his feet, which were twined with

(26:55):
tresses of golden hair streaked with gray, which came through
the Broken heart Stone. End of the Secret of the
Growing Gold recording by Haley, Flag of Texas,