Run to Earth by M. E. Braddon

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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42

Reginald Eversleigh feared that it must be so, when he found the few
young men he met at his club rather disinclined to avail themselves of
Madame Durski's hospitality.

"Have you been to Fulham lately, Caversham?" he asked of a young
lordling, who was master of a good many thousands per annum, but not
the most talented of mankind.

"Fulham!" exclaimed Lord Caversham; "what's Fulham? Ah, to be sure, I
remember--place by the river--very nice--villas--boat-races, and that
kind of thing. Let me see, bishops, and that kind of church-going
people live at Fulham, don't they?"

"I thought you would have remembered one person who lives at Fulham--a
very handsome woman, who made a strong impression upon you."

"Did she--did she, by Jove?" cried the viscount; "and yet, upon my
honour, Eversleigh, I can't remember her. You see, I know so many
splendid women; and splendid women are perpetually making an impression
upon me--and I am perpetually making an impression upon splendid women.
It's mutual, by Jove, Eversleigh, quite mutual. And pray, who is the
lady in question?"

"The beautiful Viennese, Paulina Durski."

The lordling made a wry face.

"Paulina Durski! Yes, Paulina is a pretty woman," he murmured,
languidly; "a very pretty woman; and you're right, Eversleigh--she did
make a profound impression upon me. But, you see, I found the
impression cost me rather too much. Hilton House is the nicest place in
the world to visit; but if a fellow finds himself losing two or three
hundred every time he crosses the threshold, you can be scarcely
surprised if he prefers spending his evenings where he can enjoy
himself a little more cheaply. However, perhaps you'll hardly
understand my feelings on this subject, Eversleigh; for if I remember
rightly you were always a winner when I played at Madame Durski's."

"Was I?" said Sir Reginald, with the air of a man who endeavours to
recall circumstances that are almost forgotten.

The lordling was not altogether without knowledge of the world and of
his fellow-men, and there had been a certain significance in his speech
which had made Eversleigh wince.

"Did I win when you were there?" he asked, carelessly. "Upon my word, I
have forgotten all about it."

"I haven't," answered Lord Caversham. "I bled pretty freely on several
occasions when you and I played _ecarte_; and I have not forgotten the
figures on the cheques I had the pleasure of signing in your favour.
No, my dear Eversleigh, although I consider Madame Durski the most
charming of women, I don't feel inclined to go to Hilton House again."

"Ah!" said Sir Reginald, with a sneer; "there are so few men who have
the art of losing with grace. We have no Stavordales now-a-days. The
man who could win eleven thousand at a coup, and regret that he was not
playing high, since in that case he would have won millions, is an
extinct animal."

"No doubt of it, dear boy; the gentlemanly art of losing placidly is
dying out; and I confess that, for my part, I prefer winning," answered
Lord Caversham, coolly.

This brief conversation was a very unpleasant one for Sir Reginald
Eversleigh. It told him that his career as a gamester must soon come to
a close, or he would find himself a disgraced and branded wretch,
avoided and despised by the men he now called his friends.

It was evident that Viscount Caversham suspected that he had been
cheated; nor was it likely that he would keep his suspicions secret
from the men of his set.

The suspicion once whispered would speedily be repeated by others who
had lost money in the saloons of Madame Durski. Hints and whispers
would swell into a general cry, and Sir Reginald Eversleigh would find
himself tabooed.

The prospect before him looked black as night--a night illumined by one
lurid star, and that was the promise of Victor Carrington.

"It is time for me to have done with poverty," he said to himself.
"Lord Caversham's insolent innuendoes would be silenced if I had ten
thousand a year. It is clear that the game is up at Hilton House.
Paulina may as well go back to Paris or Vienna. The pigeons have taken
fright, and the hawks must seek a new quarry."

Sir Reginald drove straight from his club to the little cottage beyond
Malda Hill. He scarcely expected to find the man whom he had last seen
at an inn in Dorsetshire; but, to his surprise, he was conducted
immediately to the laboratory, where he discovered Victor Carrington
bending over an alembic, which was placed on the top of a small
furnace.

The surgeon looked up with a start, and Reginald perceived that he wore
the metal mask which he had noticed on a former occasion.

"Who brought you here?" asked Victor, impatiently.

"The servant who admitted me," answered Reginald. "I told her I was
your intimate friend, and that I wanted to see you immediately. She
therefore brought me here."

"She had no right to do so. However, no matter. When did you return? I
scarcely expected to see you in town as soon."

"I scarcely expected to find you hereafter our meeting at Frimley,"
replied the baronet.

"There was nothing to detain me in the country. I came back some days
ago, and have been busy with my old studios in chemistry."

"You still dabble with poisons, I perceive," said Sir Reginald,
pointing to the mask which Victor had laid aside on a table near him.

"Every chemist must dabble in poisons, since poison forms an element of
all medicines," replied Victor. "And now tell me to what new dilemma of
yours do I owe the honour of this visit. You rarely enter this house
except when you find yourself desperately in need of my humble
services. What is the last misfortune?"

"I have just come from the Phoenix, where I met Caversham, I thought I
should be able to get a hundred or so out of him at _ecarte_ to-night;
but the game is up in that quarter."

"He suspects that he has been--_singularly_ unfortunate?"

"He knows it. No man who was not certain of the fact would have dared
to say what he said to me. He insulted me, Carrington-insulted me
grossly; and I was not able to resent his insolence."

"Never mind his insolence," answered Victor; "in six months your
position will be such that no man will presume to insult you. So the
game is up at Hilton House, is it? I thought you were going on a little
too fast. And pray what is to be the next move?"

"What can we do? Paulina's creditors are impatient, and she has very
little money to give them. My own debts are too pressing to permit of
my helping her; and such being the case, the best thing she can do will
be to get back to the Continent as soon as she can."

"On no account, my dear Reginald!" exclaimed Carrington. "Madame Durski
must not leave Hilton House."

"Why not?"

"Never mind the why. I tell you, Reginald, she must stay. You and I
must find enough money to stave off the demands of her sharpest
creditors."

"I have not a sixpence to give her," answered the baronet; "I can
scarcely afford to pay for the lodging that shelters me, and can still
less afford to lend money to other people."

"Not even to the woman who loves you, and whom you profess to love?"
said Victor, with a sneer. "What a noble-minded creature you are, Sir
Reginald Eversleigh--a pattern of chivalry and devotion! However,
Madame Durski must remain; that is essential to the carrying out of my
plans. If you will not find the money, I know who will."

"And pray who is this generous knight-errant so ready to rush to the
rescue of beauty in distress?"

"Douglas Dale. He is over head and ears in love with the Austrian
widow, and will lend her the money she wants. I shall go at once to
Madame Durski and give her a few hints as to her line of conduct."

There was a pause, during which the baronet seemed to be thinking
deeply.

"Do you think that a wise course?" he asked, at last.

"Do I think what course wise?" demanded his friend.

"The line of conduct you propose. You say Douglas is in love with
Paulina, and I myself have seen enough to convince me that you are
right. If he is in love with her, he is just the man to sacrifice every
other consideration for her sake. What if he should marry her? Would
not that be a bad look-out for us?"

"You are a fool, Reginald Eversleigh," cried Victor contemptuously;
"you ought to know me better than to fear my discretion. Douglas Dale
loves Paulina Durski, and is the very man to sacrifice all worldly
interests for her sake; the man to marry her, even were she more
unworthy of his love than she is. But he never will marry her,
notwithstanding."

"How will you prevent such a marriage?"

"That is my secret. Depend upon it I will prevent it. You remember our
compact the night we met at Frimley."

"I do," answered Reginald, in a voice that was scarcely above a
whisper.

"Very well; I will be true to my part of that compact, depend upon it.
Before this new-born year is out you shall be a rich man."

"I have need of wealth, Victor," replied the baronet, eagerly; "I have
bitter need of it. There are men who can endure poverty; but I am not
one of them. If my position does not change speedily I may find myself
branded with the stigma of dishonour--an outlaw from society. I must be
rich at any cost--at any cost, Victor."

"You have told me that before," answered the Frenchman, coolly, "and I
have promised that you shall be rich. But if I am to keep my promise,
you must submit yourself with unquestioning faith to my guidance. If
the path we must tread together is a dark one, tread it blindly. The
end will be success. And now tell me when you expect to see Douglas
Dale in London."

Sir Reginald explained his cousin's plans, and after a brief
conversation left the cottage. He heard Mrs. Carrington's birds
twittering in the cold January sunshine, and a passing glimpse through
the open doorway of the drawing-room revealed to him the exquisite
neatness and purity of the apartment, which even at this season was
adorned with a few flowers.

"Strange!" he thought to himself, as he left the house; "any stranger
entering that abode would imagine it the very shrine of domestic peace
and simple happiness, and yet it is inhabited by a fiend."

He went back to town. He dined alone in his dingy lodging, scarcely
daring to show himself at his club--Lord Caversham had spoken so
plainly; and had, no doubt, spoken to others still more plainly.
Reginald Eversleigh's face grew hot with shame as he remembered the
insults he had been obliged to endure with pretended unconsciousness.

He feared to encounter other men who also had been losers at Hilton
House, and who might speak as significantly as the viscount had spoken.
This man, who violated the laws of heaven and earth with little terror
of the Divine vengeance, feared above all to be cut by the men of his
set.

This is the slavery which the man of fashion creates for himself--these
are the fetters which such men as Reginald Eversleigh forge for their
own souls.

But before we trace the progress of Sir Reginald from step to step in
this terrible career, we must once more revert to the strange visitors
at Frimley.

Jane Payland by no means approved of passing Christmas-day in the
uninteresting seclusion of a country inn, with nothing more festive to
look forward to than a specially ordered, but lonely dinner, and
nothing to divert her thoughts but the rural spectacle afforded by the
inn-yard. As to going out for a walk in such weather, she would not
have thought of such a thing, even if she had any one to walk out with;
and to go alone--no--Jane Payland had no fancy for amusement of that
order. The day had been particularly dreary to the lady's maid, because
the lady had been busily engaged in affairs of which she had no
cognizance, and this ignorance, not a little exasperating even in town,
became well-nigh intolerable to her in the weariness, the idleness, and
the dullness of Frimley. When Lady Eversleigh went out in the dark
evening, accompanied by the mysterious personage in whom Jane Payland
had recognized their fellow-lodger, the amazement which she experienced
produced an agreeable variety in her sensations, and the fact that the
man with the vulture-like beak carried a carpet-bag intensified her
surprise.

"Now I'm almost sure she is something to him; and she has come down
here with him to see her people," said Jane Payland to herself, as she
sat desolately by the fire in her mistress's room, a well-thumbed novel
lying neglected on her knee; "and she's mean enough to be ashamed of
them. Well, I don't think I should be that of my own flesh and blood,
if I was ever so great and so grand. I suppose the bag is full of
presents--I'm sure she might have told me if it was clothes she was
going to give away; I shouldn't have grudged 'em to the poor things."

Grumbling a good deal, wondering more, and feasting a little, Jane
Payland got through the time until her mistress returned. But for all
her grumbling, and all her suspicion, the girl was daily growing more
and more attached to her mistress, and her respect was increasing with
her liking. Lady Eversleigh returned to the inn alone late on that
dismal Christmas-night, and she looked worn, troubled, and weary. After
a few kind words to Jane Payland, she dismissed the girl, and went to
bed, very tired and heart-sick. "How am I to prove it?" she asked
herself, as she lay wearily awake. "How am I to prove it? in my
borrowed character I am suspected; in my own, I should not be believed,
or even listened to for a moment. He is a good man, that Lionel Dale,
and he is doomed, I fear."

On the morning of the twenty-sixth Mr. Andrew Larkspur had another long
private conference with Lady Eversleigh, the immediate result of which
was his setting out, mounted on the stout pony which we have seen in
difficulties in a previous chapter, and vainly endeavouring to come up
with Lionel Dale at the hunt. When Mr. Andrew Larkspur arrived at the
melancholy conviction that his errand was a useless one, and that he
must only return to Frimley, and concert with Lady Eversleigh a new
plan of action, he also became aware that he was more hurt and shaken
by his fall than he had at first supposed. When he reached Frimley he
felt exceedingly sick and weak, ("queer," he expressed it), and was
constrained to tell his anxious and unhappy client that he must go away
and rest if he hoped to be fit for anything in the evening, or on the
next day. "I will see Mr. Dale to-night, if he and I are both alive,"
said Mr. Larkspur; "but if he was there before me I could not say a
word to him now. I don't mean to say I have not had a hurt or two in
the course of my life before now, but I never was so regularly dead-
beat; and that's the truth."

Thus it happened that the acute Mr. Larkspur was _hors de combat_ just
at the time when his acuteness would have found most employment, and
thus Lady Eversleigh's project of vengeance received, unconsciously,
the first check. The game of reprisals was, indeed, destined to be
played, but not by her; Providence would do that, in time, in the long
run. Meanwhile, she strove, after her own fashion, to become the
executor of its decrees.

The news of Lionel Dale's sudden disappearance, and the alarm to which
it gave rise, reached the little town of Frimley in due course; but it
was slow to reach the lonely lady at the inn. Lady Eversleigh had taken
counsel with herself after Mr. Larkspur had left her, and had come to
the determination that she would tell Lionel Dale the whole truth. She
resolved to lay before him a full statement of all the circumstances of
her life, to reveal all she knew, and all she suspected concerning Sir
Reginald Eversleigh, and to tell him of Carrington's presence in her
neighbourhood, as well as the designs which she believed him to
cherish. She told herself that her dead husband's kinsman could
scarcely refuse to believe her statement, when she reminded him that
she had no object to serve in this revelation but the object of truth
and respect for her husband's memory. When he, Lionel Dale, could have
rehabilitated her in public opinion by taking his place beside her, he
had not done so; it was too late now, no advance on his part could undo
that which had been done, and he could not therefore think that in
taking this step she was trying to curry favour with him in order to
further her own interest. After debating the question for some time,
she resolved to write a letter, which Larkspur could carry to the
rectory.

A great deal of time was consumed by Lady Eversleigh in writing this
letter, and the darkness had fallen long before it was finished. When
she rang for lights, she took no notice of the person who brought them,
and she directed that her dinner should not be served until she rang
for it. Thus no interruption of her task occurred, until Mr. Larkspur,
looking very little the better for his rest and refreshment, presented
himself before her. Lady Eversleigh was just beginning to tell him what
she had done, when he interrupted her, by saying, in a tone which would
have astonished any of his intimates, for there was a touch of real
feeling in it, apart from considerations of business--

"I'm afraid we're too late. I'm very much afraid Carrington has been
one too many for us, and has done the trick."

"What do you mean?" asked Lady Eversleigh, rising, in extreme
agitation, and turning deadly pale. "Has any harm come to Lionel Dale?"

Then Mr. Andrew Larkspur told Lady Eversleigh the report which had
reached the town, and of whose truth a secret instinct assured them
both, only too completely. They were, indeed, powerless now; the enemy
had been too strong, too subtle, and too quick for them. Mr. Larkspur
did not remain long with Lady Eversleigh; but having counselled her to
keep silence on the subject, to ask no questions of any one, and to
preserve the letter she had written, which Mr. Larkspur, for reasons of
his own, was anxious to see, he left her, and set off for the rectory.
He reached his destination before the return of the party who had gone
to search for the missing man. He mingled freely, almost unnoticed,
with the servants and the villagers who had crowded about the house and
lodges, and all he heard confirmed him in his belief that the worst had
happened, that Lionel Dale had, indeed, come by his death, either
through the successful contrivance of Carrington, or by an
extraordinary accident, coincident with his enemy's fell designs. Mr.
Larkspur asked a great many questions of several persons that night,
and as talking to a stranger helped the watchers and loiterers over
some of the time they had to drag through until the genuine
apprehension of some, and the curiosity of others, should be realized
or satisfied, he met with no rebuffs. But, on the other hand, neither
did he obtain any information of value. No stranger had been seen to
join the hunt that day, or noticed lurking about Hallgrove that
morning, and Mr. Larkspur's own reliable eyes had assured him that
Carrington was not among the recipients of the rector's hospitality on
Christmas-day. The footman, who had directed the unknown visitor by the
way past the stables to the lower road, did not remember that
circumstance and so it did not come to Mr. Larkspur's knowledge. When
the party who had led the search for Lionel Dale returned to the
rectory, and the worst was known, Mr. Larkspur went away, after having
arranged with a small boy, who did odd jobs for the gardener at
Hallgrove, that if the body was brought home in the morning, he should
go over to Frimley, on consideration of half-a-crown, and inquire at
the inn for Mr. Bennett.

"It's no good thinking about what's to be done, till the body's found,
and the inquest settled," thought Mr. Larkspur. "I don't think anything
can be done _then_, but it's clear there's no use in thinking about it
to-night. So I shall just tell my lady so, and get to bed. Confound
that pony!"

At a reasonably early hour on the following morning, the juvenile
messenger arrived from Hallgrove, and, on inquiring for Mr. Bennett,
was ushered into the presence of Mr. Larkspur. The intelligence he
brought was brief, but important. The rector's body had been found,
much disfigured; he had struck against a tree, the doctors said, in
falling into the river, and been killed by the blow, "as well as
drownded," added the boy, with some appreciation of the additional
piquancy of the circumstance. He was laid out in the library. The fine
folks were gone, or going, except Squire Mordaunt and Sir Reginald, the
rector's cousin. Mr. Douglas took on about it dreadfully; the bay horse
had come home, with his saddle wet, but he was not hurt or cut about,
as the boy knew of. This was all the boy had to tell.

Mr. Larkspur dismissed the messenger, having faithfully paid him the
stipulated half-crown, and immediately sought the presence of Lady
Eversleigh. The realization of all her fears shocked her deeply, and in
the solemnity of the dread event which had occurred she almost lost
sight of her own purpose, it seemed swallowed up in a calamity so
appalling. But Mr. Larkspur was of a tougher and more practical
temperament. He lost no time in setting before his client the state of
the case as regarded herself, and the purpose with which she had gone
to Frimley, now rendered futile. Mr. Larkspur entertained no doubt that
Carrington had been in some way accessory to the death of Lionel Dale,
but circumstances had so favoured the criminal that it would be
impossible to prove his crime.

"If I told you all I know about the horse and about the man," said Mr.
Larkspur, "what good would it do? The man bought a horse very like Mr.
Dale's, and he rode away from here mounted on that horse, on the same
day that Mr. Dale was drowned. I believe he changed the horses in Mr.
Dale's stable; but there's not a tittle of proof of it, and how he
contrived the thing I cannot undertake to say, for no mortal saw him at
the rectory or at the meet; and the horse that every one would be
prepared to swear was the horse that Mr. Dale rode, is safe at home at
the rectory now, having evidently been in the river. Seeing we can't
prove the matter, it's my opinion we'd better not meddle with it, more
particularly as nothing that we can prove will do Sir Reginald
Eversleigh any harm, and, if either of this precious pair of rascals is
to escape, you don't want it to be him."

"Oh, no, no!" said Lady Eversleigh, "he is so much worse than the other
as his added cowardice makes him."

"Just so. Well, then, if you want to punish him and his agent, this is
certainly not the opportunity. Next to winning, there's nothing like
thoroughly understanding and acknowledging what you've lost, and we
have lost this game, beyond all question. Let us see, now, if we cannot
win the next. If I understand the business right, Mr. Douglas Dale is
his brother's heir?"

"Yes," said Lady Eversleigh; "his life only now stands between Sir
Reginald and fortune."

"Then he will take that life by Carrington's agency, as I believe he
has taken Lionel Dale's," said Mr. Larkspur; "and my idea is that the
proper way to prevent him is to go away from this place, where no good
is to be done, and where any movement will only defeat our purpose, by
putting him on his guard--letting him know he is watched (forewarned,
forearmed, you know)--and set ourselves to watch Carrington in London."

"Why in London? How do you know he's there?"

Mr. Larkspur smiled.

"Lord bless your innocence!" he replied. "How do I know it? Why, ain't
London the natural place for him to be in? Ain't London the place where
every one that has done a successful trick goes to enjoy it, and every
one that has missed his tip goes to hide himself? I'll take my davy,
though it's a thing I don't like doing in general, that Carrington's
back in town, living with his mother, as right as a trivet."

So Lady Eversleigh and Jane Payland travelled up to town again, and
took up their old quarters. And Mr. Larkspur returned, and resumed his
room and his accustomed habits. But before he had been many hours in
London, he had ascertained, by the evidence of his own eyes, that
Victor Carrington was, as he had predicted, in town, living with his
mother, and "as right as a trivet."

CHAPTER XXV.

A DANGEROUS ALLIANCE.

In the afternoon of the day following that on which Sir Reginald paid a
visit to Victor Carrington, the latter gentleman presented himself at
the door of Hilton House. The frost had again set in, and this time
with more than usual severity. There had been a heavy fall of snow, and
the park-like grounds surrounding Madame Durski's abode had an almost
fairy-like appearance, the tracery of the leafless trees defined by the
snow that had lodged on every branch, the undulating lawn one bed of
pure white.

He knocked at the door and waited. The woman at the lodge had told him
that it was very unlikely he would be able to see Madame Durski at this
hour of the day, but he had walked on to the house notwithstanding.