[Music] hello and welcome to bite-sized audio on YouTube I'm Simon Stanhope actor audiobook narrator and curator of this channel on the channel you can hear my narrations more than a hundred to date and more to come of classic short stories mostly from the Victorian and Edwardian eras including vintage ghost stories detective stories and other classic Tales of mystery and suspense to accompany the narrations I put a short profile of the authors in the video description as well as some general ba
ckground notes on the stories for those who'd like to know more if you enjoy this content please hit subscribe like share leave a comment if you'd like to and thank you for listening thank you foreign [Music] the secret of the growing gold by Bram Stoker when Margaret delandra went to live at Brent's Rock the whole neighborhood awoke to the pleasure of an entirely new scandal scandals in connection with either the delandra family or the brents of Brent's Rock were not few and if the secret histo
ry 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 to different worlds for the matter of that for hitherto their orbits had never crossed the brents were recorded by the whole section of the country a unique social dominance and had ever held themselves as high above the Yeoman class to which Margaret delandra belonged as a blue-blooded Spanish Hid
algo out tops his peasant tenantry the delandras had an ancient record and were proud of it in their way as the Brent's word 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 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 they're holding dander's Croft seemed to have been worked out and to be typical of the family which had inhabited it the latter had declined generation after generation sending out now and again some abortive shoot of unsatisfied energy in the shape of a soldier or sailor who had worked his way into the minor grades of the services and had there st
opped cut short either from unheeding gallantry in 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 family dropped lower and lower the men brooding and dissatisfied and drinking themselves into the grave the women dredging at home or marrying beneath them or worse in process of time all disappeared leaving only two in the Croft Wickham delandra and his sister Margaret th
e man and woman seemed to have inherited in masculine and feminine form respectively the evil tendency of their race sharing in common the principles though manifesting them in different ways of cell and passion voluptuousness and recklessness the history of the brents 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 had often attained honor
for without flaw they were gallant and brave Deeds were done by them before the selfish dissipation which marked them had sapped their vigor the present head of the family if family it could now be called when one remained in 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 its utter degradation he might be fairly compared with some of those antique Italian Nobles whom the painters have preserved to us wit
h their Carriage their unscrupulousness their refinement of lust and cruelty the voluptuary actual with the fiend potential he was certainly handsome with that dark aquiline commanding Beauty which women so generally recognized as dominant with men he was distant and cold but such a bearing never deters womankind the inscrutable laws of sex have 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 live
d within view of Brent's Rock who did not cherish some form of secret admiration for the handsome wastel the category was a wide one for Brent's Rock rose up steeply from the midst of a level region and for a circuit of a hundred miles it'd lay on the horizon with its high old towers and steep roofs cutting the level edge of wood and Hamlet and far scattered mansions so long is Jeffrey Brent can find his dissipations to London and Paris and Vienna anywhere Out of Sight and Sound of his home opin
ion 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 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 there was a certain reticence in all and no more notice was taken of the existing
facts than was absolutely necessary Margaret delandra bore herself so fearlessly and so openly she accepted her position as the Justified companion 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 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 de
landra 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 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 b
elongings had walked out of the house on the threshold she had paused for a moment to hurl a bitter threat at Wickham that he would rule in shame and despair to the last hour of his life his act of that day some weeks 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 then the entire neighborhood knew before nightfall that she had taken up her Abode at the Rock it was no subject of surprise that Br
ent 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 de londra was furious at the news he vowed Vengeance and to keep his mind level with his passion drank deeper than ever he tried several times to see his sister but she contemp
tuously 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 a veil poor Jeffrey was not a man to be stopped against his will several actual encounters took place between the two men and many more were threatened and avoided at last Wickham de laundre settled down to her morose vengeful acceptance of the situation neither Margaret nor Jeffrey was of a Pacific temperament and it was not long before there began t
o 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 be exchanged in uncompromising language that fairly odd 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 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 de laundre 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 at last there came a time when the absence from Brent's Rock became longer than bef
ore 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 delandra also went away and it was some weeks before he returned it was 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 and then there came a rumor certified later on that an accident had occurred in the zermat valley whilst crossing a dangerous pass the carriage containing an English lady and the driver had fallen over a precipice the gentleman of the party Mr Jeffrey Brent having been fortunately saved as he had been walking up
the hill to ease the horses he gave information and search was made the broken rail 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 and the body of one horse were found in an E
ddy of the river later on the body of the driver was found on the Sandy torrent swept waste near taish 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 among the Eddies of the Rhone on its way down to the lake of Geneva made all the inquiries possible but could not find any trace of the missing woman he found however in the books of the various hotels the name of Mr and Mrs Jeffrey Brent and he had a stone erected at Ze
rmatt 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 dander's Croft were situated there was a lapse of nearly a year after the excitement of the matter had worn away and the whole neighborhood had gone on its accustomed way Brent was still absent and delandra more drunken more morose and more revengeful than before then there was a new excitement Brent Rock was being made ready for a new mistress it was official
ly announced by Jeffrey himself in a letter to the vicar that he had been married some months 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 plane sounded and a general layout 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 work men departed leaving only materials for the doing of the old Hall when Jeffrey Brent should have returned b
efore 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 she 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 great wooden tank or box for mixing the lime which was laid in bags beside it when the new mistress of Brent's Rock ar
rived 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 he had learned were spoken in such a sweet and pretty broken way that 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 unheard by others and so months passed and the whisper grew that at last Brent's Rock was to have an heir Jeffrey 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 wives were not lacking he seemed to have set all his hopes on the child that was comi
ng and as he looked deeper into the future the dark shadow that had come over his face seemed to die gradually away all the time Wickham de laundre 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 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 a little better than a ruin without dignity or picturesqueness of any kind he had been drinking heavily for some time and was more than half stupefied he thought he had 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 quotations presently
he forgot all around him sank into a daze but suddenly awoke to see standing before him someone or something like a battered ghostly edition of his sister for a few moments They 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 she eyed her brother with a long cold stare and he too as he looked and be
gan 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 wikim delonra for 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 sh
e answered but make no mistake my revenge is my own and I merely use you to help me to it Wickham asked suddenly did he marry you the woman's distorted face broadened out in 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 secrecies so you would like to know it would please your pride to feel that your sister was truly married well y
ou shall not know that was my revenge on you and I do not mean to change it by a hare's bread I have come here tonight 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 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 ou
tburst 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 rule her hair and her beauty too will she hissed for the hair remains though the beauty begun when he withdrew the linchpin 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 o
f the Wisp and 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 Mrs Brent who was about half asleep became suddenly awake and spoke to her husband Jeffrey was not that the click of a lock somewhere below our window but Jeffrey though she thought that he too had started at the noise seemed sound asleep and breathed heavily again Mrs Brent dozed but this time aw
oke 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 the look in his eyes is it Jeffrey what thus thou she asked Ash little one he answered in a strange hoarse voice go to sleep I am restless and wish to finish some work I left undone bring it here my husband she said I am lonely and I fear when thou art away for reply he merely kissed her and went out closing the do
or behind him 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 and Jeffrey appeared at it but without his lamp he said in a sort of whisper and his voice was harsh and Stern hush go
to bed I am working and must not be disturbed go to sleep and do not wake the house with a chill in her heart for the harshness of 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 Implement striking muffled blows Then There came the clang of a heavy Stone falling followed by a muffled curse then a dragging sand and then more noise of stone on Stone C
hile all the while in an Agony of fear and her heart beat dreadfully she had 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 something white that looked like lime in the morning he made No Illusion to the previous night and she was afraid to ask any question from that day there seemed some Shadow over Jeffrey Brent he neither ate nor slept as
he had been accustomed and his former habit of turning suddenly as though someone was speaking from behind him revived the old Hall seemed to have some kind 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 Jeffrey 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 hurried up to the old Hall the workmen met him almost at the door and as Jeffrey burst into the room he ran against him the man apologized Peg pardon sir but I was just going out to make some inquiries I directed 12 sacks of lime to be sent here but I see there are only ten damn the 10 sacks and the twelve two was the ungracious and incomprehensible rejoinder the workmen looked surprised and tried to turn the conversation now I see sir there is a little matter which
our people must have done but the governor will of course see it sit right at his own cost what do you mean that here are Stone sir some idiot must have put a scaffold pole on it and cracked it right down the middle and it's thick enough you'd think to stand anything Jeffrey was silent for quite a minute and then said in a constrained voice and with much gentler manner tell your people that I am not going on with the work in the hall at present I want to leave it as it is for a while longer alr
ight sir I'll send up a few of our chaps to take away these poles and lime bags and tidy the place up a bit no no said Jeffrey leave them where they are I shall send and tell you when you are to get on with the work so the foreman went away and his comment to his master was odds end in the bill sir for the work already done appears to me the money's a little shaky in that quarter once or twice delandra tried to stop Brent on the road and at last finding that he could not attain his object rode a
fter 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 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 he sank to his knees there sure enough threw the crack in the broken Stone were protruding a multitude of threads of golden hair just tinged 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 at the lamp stooped down and
burned away the hair that Rose through the broken Stone then Rising is nonchalantly as he could he pretended surprise that 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 hair had grown afresh through the crack and he had to watch it carefully that's his terrible secret should be discovered he tried to find a receptacle for the body of the murdered woman outsid
e 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 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 conclu
sion that at least she suspected something that very evening she came into the Hall after her drive and found him there sitting moodly by the deserted fireplace she spoke to him directly Jeffrey I have been spoken to by that fellow de laundre and he says horrible things he tells to me that a week ago his sister returned to this house the wreck and ruin of her former self with only a golden Heir as of old and announced some failing tension he asked me where she is and oh Jeffrey she is dead she i
s dead so how can she have returned oh I am in the red and I know not where to turn Za Jeffrey burst into a torrent of blasphemy which made her shatter he cursed delandra and his sister and all their kind and in a special he held curse after curse on her golden hair oh hush hush she said and was 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 half but suddenly stopped as he saw a new look of Ter
ror in his wife's eyes he followed their glance and then he too shattered for there on the broken Hearthstone lay a golden streak as the point of the hair Rose through the crack look she shrieked is it some ghost of the Dead Come Away Come Away and seizing her husband by the wrist with the 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 Jeffrey was in despair and in h
is anguish at the danger to 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 her till I come in the morning or till some other doctor has her case in hand 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 Jeffrey'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 feign have stopped her 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 to prevent her wrapped a warm rag around 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 tonight she whispered with a one smile we three no we are but two said Jeffrey with a shatter he feared to say more said his wife as she put out the light is and watched 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 the broken Hearthstone he tried to hide it by placing his feet over the broken place and his
wife drawing her chair beside him Lent over and laid her head on his shoulder now do not stare dear she said let us sit still and watch we shall find the secret of the growing gold he passed his arm around her and sat silent and as the Moonlight stole along 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 colde
r till at last he had not power to stir and sat with his eyes 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 a veil 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 Jeffrey Brent and his young wife sat cold and white and dead her face was peaceful and her eyes were closed in sleep but h
is face was a sight that made all who saw 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 Tresses of golden hair streaked with gray which came through the broken Hearthstone [Music] thank you [Music] you've been listening to a bite-sized audiobook read by me Simon Stanhope if you'd like to help me to keep producing new content you can find links in the video description to my patreon page or to buy me a coffee ano
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