Run to Earth by M. E. Braddon

M >> M. E. Braddon >> Run to Earth

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Had any fatal accident happened to her and her companion?--or were
Honoria Eversleigh and Victor Carrington two guilty creatures, who had
abandoned themselves to the folly and madness of a wicked attachment,
and had fled together, reckless alike of reputation and fortune?

He tried to believe that this latter chance was beyond the region of
possibility; but horrible suspicions racked his brain as he paced to
and fro, waiting for the issue of the search that was being made.

Better that he should be told that his wife had been found lying dead
upon the hard, cruel road, than that he should hear that she had left
him for another; a false and degraded creature!

"Why did she trust herself to the companionship of this man?" he asked
himself. "Why did she disgrace herself by leaving her guests in the
company of a young man who ought to be little more than a stranger to
her? She is no ignorant or foolish girl; she has shown herself able to
hold her own in the most trying positions. What madness could have
possessed her, that she should bring disgrace upon herself and me by
such conduct as this?"

The grooms came back after a search that had been utterly in vain. No
trace of the missing lady had been discovered. Inquiries had been made
everywhere along the road, but without result. No gig had been seen to
pass between the neighbourhood of the Wizard's Cave and Raynham Castle.

Sir Oswald abandoned himself to despair.

There was no longer any hope: his wife had fled from him. Bitter,
indeed, was the penalty which he was called upon to pay for his
romantic marriage--his blind confidence in the woman who had fascinated
and bewitched him. He bowed his head beneath the blow, and alone,
hidden from the cruel gaze of the world, he resigned himself to his
misery.

All that night he sat alone, his head buried in his clasped hands,
stunned and bewildered by his agony.

His valet, Joseph Millard, knocked at the door at the usual hour,
anxious to assist at his master's toilet; but the door was securely
locked, and Sir Oswald told his servant that he needed no help. He
spoke in a firm voice; for he knew that the valet's ear would be keen
to mark any evidence of his misery. When the man was gone, he rose up
for the first time, and looked across the sunlit woods.

A groan of agony burst from his lips as he gazed upon that beautiful
landscape.

He had brought his young wife to be mistress of this splendid domain.
He had shown her that fair scene; and had told her that she was to be
queen over all those proud possessions until the day of her death. No
hand was ever to rob her of them. They were the free gift of his
boundless love! to be shared only by her children, should heaven bless
her and her husband with inheritors for this ancient estate. He had
never been weary of testifying his devotion, his passionate love; and
yet, before she had been his wife three months, she left him for
another.

While he stood before the open window, with these bitter thoughts in
his mind, he heard the sound of wheels in the corridor without. The
wheels belonged to an invalid chair, used by Captain Copplestone when
the gout held him prisoner, a self-propelling chair, in which the
captain could make his way where he pleased.

The captain knocked at his old comrade's door.

"Let me in, Oswald" he said; "I want to see you immediately."

"Not this morning, my dear Copplestone; I can't see any one this
morning," answered the baronet.

"You can see _me_, Oswald. I must and will see you, and I shall stop
here till you let me in."

A loud knock at the door with a heavy-headed cane accompanied the close
of his speech.

Sir Oswald opened the door, and admitted the captain, who pushed his
chair dexterously through the doorway.

"Well," said this eccentric visitor, when Sir Oswald had shut the door,
"so you've not been to bed all night?"

"How do you know that?"

"By your looks, for one thing: and by the appearance of your bed, which
I can see through the open door yonder, for another. Pretty goings on,
these!"

"A heavy sorrow has fallen upon me, Copplestone."

"Your wife has run away--that's what you mean, I suppose?"

"What!" cried Sir Oswald. "It is all known, then?"

"What is all known?"

"That my wife has left me."

"Well, my dear Oswald, there is a rumour of that kind afloat, and I
have come here in consequence of that rumour. But I don't believe
there's a word of truth in it."

The baronet turned from his friend with a bitter smile of derision.

"I may strive to hoodwink the world, Copplestone," he said, "but I have
no wish to deceive you. My wife has left me--there is no doubt of it."

"I don't believe it," cried the captain. "No, Oswald Eversleigh, I
don't believe it. You know what I am. I'm not quite like the Miller of
Dee, for I do care for somebody; and that somebody is my oldest friend.
When I first heard of your marriage, I told you that you were a fool.
That was plain-spoken enough, if you like. When I saw your wife, I
told you that had changed my mind, and that I thought your folly an
excusable one. If ever I saw purity and truth in a woman's face, I saw
them in the face of Lady Eversleigh; and I will stake my life that she
is as true as steel."

Sir Oswald clasped his friend's hand, too deeply moved for words. There
was unspeakable consolation in such friendship as this. For the first
tame since midnight a ray of hope dawned upon him. He had always
trusted in his old comrade's judgment. Might he not trust in him
still?

When Captain Copplestone left him, he went to his dressing-room, and
made even a more than usually careful toilet, and went to face "the
world."

In the great dining-room he found all his guests assembled, and he took
his seat amongst them calmly, though the sight of Honoria's empty place
cut him to the heart.

Never, perhaps, was a more miserable meal eaten than that breakfast.
There were long intervals of silence; and what little conversation
there was appeared forced and artificial.

Perhaps the most self-possessed person--the calmest to all appearance,
of the whole party--was Sir Oswald Eversleigh, so heroic an effort had
he made over himself, in order to face the world proudly. He had a few
words to say to every one; and was particularly courteous to the guests
near him. He opened his letters with an unshaking hand. But he
abstained from all allusion to his wife, or the events of the previous
evening.

He had finished breakfast, and was leaving the room, when his nephew
approached him--

"Can I speak to you for a few moments alone?" asked Reginald.

"Certainly. I am going to the library to write my letters. You can go
with me, if you like."

They went together to the library. As Sir Oswald closed the door, and
turned to face his nephew, he perceived that Reginald was deadly pale.

"What is amiss?" he asked.

"You ask me that, my dear uncle, at a time when you ought to know that
my sympathy for your sorrow--"

"Reserve your sympathy until it is needed," answered the baronet,
abruptly. "I dare say you mean well, my dear Reginald; but there are
some subjects which I will suffer no man to approach."

"I beg your pardon, sir. Then, in that case, I can tell you nothing. I
fancied that it was my duty to bring you any information that reached
me; but I defer to you entirely. The subject is a most unhappy one, and
I am glad to be spared the pain involved in speaking of it."

"What do you mean?" said the baronet. "If you have anything to tell
me--anything that can throw light upon the mystery of my wife's
flight--speak out, and speak quickly. I am almost mad, Reginald.
Forgive me, if I spoke harshly just now. You are my nephew, and the
mask I wear before the world may be dropped in your presence."

"I know nothing personally of Lady Eversleigh's disappearance," said
Reginald; "but I have good reason to believe that Miss Graham could
tell you much, if she chose to speak out. She has hinted at being in
the secret, and I think it only right you should question her."

"I will question her," answered sir Oswald, starting to his feet. "Send
her to me, Reginald."

Mr. Eversleigh left his uncle, and Miss Graham very speedily appeared--
looking the very image of unconscious innocence--and quite unable to
imagine what "dear Sir Oswald" could want with her.

The baronet came to the point very quickly, and before Lydia had time
for consideration, she had been made to give a full account of the
scene which she had witnessed on the previous evening between Victor
Carrington and Honoria.

Of course, Miss Graham told Sir Oswald that she had witnessed this
strange scene in the most accidental manner. She had happened to be in
a walk that commanded a view of the fir-grove.

"And you saw my wife agitated, clinging to that man?"

"Lady Eversleigh was terribly agitated."

"And then you saw her take her place in the gig, of her own free will?"

"I did, Sir Oswald."

"Oh, what infamy!" murmured the baronet; "what hideous infamy!"

It was to himself that he spoke rather than to Miss Graham. His eyes
were fixed on vacancy, and it seemed as if he were scarcely aware of
the young lady's presence.

Lydia was almost terrified by that blank, awful look. She waited for a
few moments, and then, finding that Sir Oswald questioned her no
further, she crept quietly from the room, glad to escape from the
sorrow-stricken husband. Malicious though she was, she believed that
this time she had spoken the truth.

"He has reason to repent his romantic choice," she thought as she left
the library. "Perhaps now he will think that he might have done better
by choosing a wife from his own set."

The day wore on; Sir Oswald remained alone in the library, seated
before a table, with his arms folded, his gaze fixed on empty space--a
picture of despair.

The clock had struck many times; the hot afternoon sun blazed full upon
the broad Tudor windows, when the door was opened gently, and some one
came into the room. Sir Oswald looked up angrily, thinking it was one
of the servants who had intruded on him.

It was his wife who stood before him, dressed in the white robes she
had worn at the picnic; but wan and haggard, white as the dress she
wore.

"Oswald," she cried, with outstretched hands, and the look of one who
did not doubt she would be welcome.

The baronet sprang to his feet, and looked at that pale face with a
gaze of unspeakable indignation.

"And you dare to come back?" he exclaimed. "False-hearted adventuress--
actress--hypocrite--you dare to come to me with that lying smile upon
your face--after your infamy of last night!"

"I am neither adventuress, nor hypocrite, Oswald. Oh, where have your
love and confidence vanished that you can condemn me unheard? I have
done no wrong--not by so much as one thought that is not full of love
for you! I am the helpless victim of the vilest plot that was ever
concocted for the destruction of a woman's happiness."

A mocking laugh burst from the lips of Sir Oswald.

"Oh," he cried, "so that is your story. You are the victim of a plot,
are you? You were carried away by ruffians, I suppose? You did not go
willingly with your paramour? Woman, you stand convicted of your
treachery by the fullest evidence. You were seen to leave the Wizard's
Cave! You were seen clinging to Victor Carrington--were seen to go with
him, _willingly_. And then you come and tell me you are the victim of a
plot! Oh, Lady Eversleigh, this is too poor a story. I should have
given you credit for greater powers of invention."

"If I am guilty, why am I here?" asked Honoria.

"Shall I tell you why you are here?" cried Sir Oswald, passionately,
"Look yonder, madam! look at those wide woodlands, the deer-park, the
lakes and gardens; this is only one side of Raynham Castle. It was for
those you returned, Lady Eversleigh, for the love of those--and those
alone. Influenced by a mad and wicked passion, you fled with your lover
last night; but no sooner did you remember the wealth you had lost, the
position you had sacrificed, than you repented your folly. You
determined to come back. Your doting husband would doubtless open his
arms to receive you. A few imploring words, a tear or so, and the poor,
weak dupe would be melted. This is how you argued; but you were wrong.
I have been foolish. I have abandoned myself to the dream of a dotard;
but the dream is past. The awakening has been rude, but it has been
efficacious. I shall never dream again."

"Oswald, will you not listen to my story?"

"No, madam, I will not give you the opportunity of making me a second
time your dupe. Go--go back to your lover, Victor Carrington. Your
repentance comes too late. The Raynham heritage will never be yours. Go
back to your lover; or, if he will not receive you, go back to the
gutter from which I took you."

"Oswald!"

The cry of reproach went like a dagger to the heart of the baronet. But
he steeled himself against those imploring tones. He believed that he
had been wronged--that this woman was as false as she was beautiful.

"Oswald," cried Honoria, "you must and shall hear my story. I demand a
hearing as a right--a right which you could not withhold from the
vilest criminal, and which you shall not withhold from me, your
lawfully wedded and faithful wife. You may disbelieve my story, if you
please--heaven knows it seems wild and improbable!--but you shall hear
it. Yes, Oswald, _you shall_!"

She stood before him, drawn to her fullest height, confronting him
proudly. If this was guilt, it was, indeed, shameless guilt. Unhappily,
the baronet believed in the evidence of Lydia Graham, rather than in
the witness of his wife's truth. Why should Lydia have deceived him? he
asked himself. What possible motive could she have for seeking to
blight his wife's fair name?

Honoria told her story from first to last; she told the history of her
night of anguish. She spoke with her eyes fixed on her husband's face,
in which she could read the indications of his every feeling. As her
story drew to a close, her own countenance grew rigid with despair, for
she saw that her words had made no impression on the obdurate heart to
which she appealed.

"I do not ask you if you believe me," she said, when her story was
finished. "I can see that you do not. All is over between us, Sir
Oswald," she added, in a tone of intense sadness--"all is over. You are
right in what you said just now, cruel though your words were. You did
take me from the gutter; you accepted me in ignorance of my past
history; you gave your love and your name to a friendless, nameless
creature; and now that circumstances conspire to condemn me, can I
wonder if you, too, condemn--if you refuse to believe my declaration of
my innocence? I do not wonder. I am only grieved that it should be so.
I should have been so proud of your love if it could have survived this
fiery ordeal--so proud! But let that pass. I would not remain an hour
beneath this roof on sufferance. I am quite ready to go from this house
to-day, at an hour's warning, never to re-enter it. Raynham Castle is
no more to me than that desolate tower in which I spent last night--
without your love. I will leave you without one word of reproach, and
you shall never hear my name, or see my face again."

She moved towards the door as she spoke. There was a quiet earnestness
in her manner which might have gone far to convince Oswald Eversleigh
of her truth; but his mind was too deeply imbued with a belief in her
falsehood. This dignified calm, this subdued resignation, seemed to him
only the consummate art of a finished actress.

"She is steeped in falsehood to the very lips," he thought. "Doubtless,
the little she told me of the history of her childhood was as false as
all the rest. Heaven only knows what shameful secrets may have been
hidden in her past life!"

She had crossed the threshold of the door, when some sudden impulse
moved him to follow her.

"Do not leave Raynham till you have heard further from me, Lady
Eversleigh," he said. "It will be my task to make all arrangements for
your future life."

His wife did not answer him. She walked towards the hall, her head
bent, her eyes fixed on the ground.

"She will not leave the castle until she is obliged to do so," thought
Sir Oswald, as he returned to the library. "Oh, what a tissue of
falsehood she tried to palm upon me! And she would have blackened my
nephew's name, in order to screen her own guilt!"

He rang a bell, and told the servant who answered it to fetch Mr.
Eversleigh. His nephew appeared five minutes afterwards, still very
pale and anxious-looking.

"I have sent for you, Reginald," said the baronet, "because I have a
duty to perform--a very painful duty--but one which I do not care to
delay. It is now nearly a year and a half since I made a will which
disinherited you. I had good reason for that step, as you know; but I
have heard no further talk of your vices or your follies; and, so far
as I can judge, you have undergone a reformation. It is not for me,
therefore, to hold sternly to a determination which I had made in a
moment of extreme anger: and I should perhaps have restored you to your
old position ere this, had not a new interest absorbed my heart and
mind. I have had cruel reason to repent my folly. I might feel
resentment against you, on account of your friend's infamy, but I am
not weak enough for that. Victor Carrington and I have a terrible
account to settle, and it shall be settled to the uttermost. I need
hardly tell you that, if you hold any further communication with him,
you will for ever forfeit my friendship."

"My dear sir, you surely cannot suppose--"

"Do not interrupt me. I wish to say what I have to say, and to have
done with this subject for ever. You know I have already told you the
contents of the will which I made after my marriage. That will left the
bulk of my fortune to my wife. That will must now be destroyed; and in
the document which I shall substitute for it, your name will occupy its
old place. Heaven grant that I do wisely, Reginald, and that you will
prove yourself worthy of my confidence."

"My dear uncle, your goodness overpowers me. I cannot find words to
express my gratitude."

"No thanks, Reginald. Remember that the change which restores you to
your old position is brought about by my misery. Say no more. Better
that an Eversleigh should be master of Raynham when I am dead and gone.
And now leave me."

The young man retired. His face betrayed conflicting emotions. Lost to
all sense of honour though he was, the iniquity of the scheme by which
he had succeeded weighed horribly upon his mind, and he was seized with
a wild fear of the man through whose agency it had been brought about.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI.

"THE WILL! THE TESTAMENT!"

The brief pang of fear and remorse passed quickly away, and Reginald
went out upon the terrace to look upon those woods which were once more
his promised heritage; on which he could gaze, as of old, with the
proud sense of possession. While looking over that fair domain, he
forgot the hateful means by which he had re-established himself as the
heir of Raynham. He forgot Victor Carrington--everything except his own
good fortune. His heart throbbed with a sense of triumph.

He left the terrace, crossed the Italian garden, and made his way to
the light iron gate which opened upon the park. Leaning wearily upon
this gate, he saw an old man in the costume of a pedlar. A broad,
slouched hat almost concealed his face, and a long iron-grey beard
drooped upon his chest. His garments were dusty, as if with many a
weary mile's wandering on the parched high-roads, and he carried a
large pack of goods upon his back.

The park was open to the public; and this man had, no doubt, come to
the garden-gate in the hope of finding some servant who would be
beguiled into letting him carry his wares to the castle, for the
inspection of Sir Oswald's numerous household.

"Stand aside, my good fellow, and let me pass," said Reginald, as he
approached the little gate.

The man did not stir. His arms were folded on the topmost bar of the
gate, and he did not alter his attitude.

"Let me be the first to congratulate the heir of Raynham on his renewed
hopes," he said, quietly.

"Carrington!" cried Reginald; and then, after a pause, he asked, "What,
in heaven's name, is the meaning of this masquerade?"

The surgeon removed his broad-brimmed hat, and wiped his forehead with
a hand that looked brown, wizen, and wrinkled as the hand of an old
man. Nothing could have been more perfect than his disguise.

The accustomed pallor of his face was changed to the brown and sunburnt
hue produced by constant exposure to all kinds of weather. A network of
wrinkles surrounded the brilliant black eyes, which now shone under
shaggy eyebrows of iron-grey.

"I should never have recognized you," said Reginald, staring for some
moments at his friend's face, completely lost in surprise.

"Very likely not," answered the surgeon, coolly; "I don't want people
to recognize me. A disguise that can by any possibility be penetrated
is the most fatal mistake. I can disguise my voice as well as my face,
as you will, perhaps, hear by and by. When talking to a friend there is
no occasion to take so much trouble."

"But why have you assumed this disguise?"

"Because I want to be on the spot; and you may imagine that, after
having eloped with the lady of the house, I could not very safely show
myself here in my own proper person."

"What need had you to return? Your scheme is accomplished, is it not?"

"Well, not quite."

"Is there anything more to be done?"

"Yes, there is something more."

"What is the nature of that something?" asked Reginald.

"Leave that to me," answered the surgeon; "and now you had better pass
on, young heir of Raynham, and leave the poor old pedlar to smoke his
pipe, and to watch for some passing maid-servant who will admit him to
the castle."

Reginald lingered, fascinated in some manner by the presence of his
friend and counsellor. He wanted to penetrate the mystery hidden in the
breast of his ally.

"How did you know that your scheme had succeeded?" he asked, presently.

"I read my success in your face as you came towards this gate just now.
It was the face of an acknowledged heir; and now, perhaps, you will be
good enough to tell me your news."

Reginald related all that had happened; the use he had made of Lydia
Graham's malice; the interview with his uncle after Lady Eversleigh's
return.

"Good!" exclaimed Victor; "good from first to last! Did ever any scheme
work so smoothly? That was a stroke of genius of yours, Reginald, the
use you made of Miss Graham's evidence. And so she was watching us, was
she? Charming creature! how little she knows to what an extent we are
indebted to her. Well, Reginald, I congratulate you. It is a grand
thing to be the acknowledged heir of such an estate as this."

He glanced across the broad gardens, blazing with rich masses of vivid
colour, produced by the artistic arrangement of the flower-beds. He
looked up to the long range of windows, the terrace, the massive
towers, the grand old archway, and then he looked back at his friend,
with a sinister light in his glittering black eyes.

"There is only one drawback," he said.

"And that is--"

"That you may have to wait a very long time for your inheritance. Let
me see; your uncle is fifty years of age, I think?"

"Yes; he is about fifty." "And he has an iron constitution. He has led
a temperate, hardy life. Such a man is as likely to live to be eighty
as I am to see my fortieth birthday. And that would give you thirty
years' waiting: a long delay--a terrible trial of patience."

"Why do you say these things?" cried Reginald, impatiently. "Do you
want to make me miserable in the hour of our triumph? Do you mean that
we have burdened our souls with all this crime and falsehood for
nothing? You are mad, Victor!"

"No; I am only in a speculative mood. Thirty years!--thirty years would
be a long time to wait."

"Who says that I shall have to wait thirty years? My uncle may die long
before that time."

"Ah! to be sure! your uncle may die--suddenly, perhaps--very soon, it
may be. The shock of his wife's falsehood may kill him--after he has
made a new will in your favour!"

The two men stood face to face, looking at each other.

"What do you mean?" Reginald asked; "and why do you look at me like
that?"

"I am only thinking what a lucky fellow you would be if this grief that
has fallen upon your uncle were to be fatal to his life."

"Don't talk like that, Carrington. I won't think of such a thing. I am
had enough, I know; but not quite so bad as to wish my uncle dead."

"You would be sorry if he were dead, I suppose? Sorry--with this domain
your own! with all power and pleasure that wealth can purchase for a
man! You would be sorry, would you? You wish well to the kind kinsman
to whom you have been such a devoted nephew! You would prefer to wait
thirty years for your heritage--if you should live so long!"