M E Braddon

Lady Audley's Secret M E Braddon

At the end of this avenue there was an old arch and a clock tower, with a stupid, bewildering clock, which had only one hand-and which jumped straight from one hour to the next-and was therefore always in extremes. Through this arch you walked straight into the gardens of Audley Court. A smooth lawn lay before you, dotted with groups of rhododendrons, which grew in more perfection here than anywhere else in the county. To the right there were the kitchen gardens, the fish-pond, and an orchard bordered by a dry moat, and a broken ruin of a wall, in some places thicker than it was high, and everywhere overgrown with trailing ivy, yellow stonecrop, and dark moss.