Run to Earth by M. E. Braddon

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

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CHAPTER XXIX.

AT WATCH.

Sanguine as Victor Carrington had been, confidently as he had
calculated upon the fascination which Paulina had exerted over Douglas
Dale, he was not prepared for the news contained in Miss Brewer's
promised letter, which reached him punctually, a few hours after
Paulina had become the affianced wife of Douglas Dale. This was indeed
success beyond his hopes. He had not expected this result for some
days, at the very earliest, and the surprise and pleasure with which he
learned it were almost equal. Carrington did not believe in good; he
absolutely distrusted and despised human nature, and he never dreamed
of imputing Madame Durski's conduct to anything but coquetry and
fickleness. "She's on with the new love, beyond a doubt," said he to
himself, as he read Miss Brewer's letter; "whether she's off with the
old is quite another question, and rests with him rather than with her,
I fancy."

Victor Carrington's first move was to present himself before Madame
Durski on the following day, at the hour at which she habitually
received visitors. He took up the confidential conversation which they
had had on the last occasion of their meeting, as if it had not been
dropped in the interval, and came at once to the subject of Douglas
Dale. This plan answered admirably; Paulina was naturally full of the
subject, and the ice of formalism had been sufficiently broken between
her and Victor Carrington, to enable her to refer to the interview
which had taken place between herself and Douglas Dale without any
impropriety. When she had done so, Carrington began to play his part.
He assured Paulina of his warm interest in her, of the influence which
he possessed over Sir Reginald Eversleigh, and the fears which he
entertained of some treacherous proceeding on Reginald's part which
might place her in a most unpleasant position.

"Reginald has no real love for you," said Carrington; "he would not
hesitate to sacrifice you to the meanest of his interests, but his
vanity and his temper are such that it is impossible to calculate upon
what sort of folly he may be guilty."

Paulina Durski was a thorough woman; and, therefore, having utterly
discarded Reginald from her heart, having learned to substitute utter
contempt for love, she was not averse to receiving any information, to
learning any opinion, which tended to justify her change of feeling.

"What harm can he do me with Douglas?" asked Paulina, in alarm.

"Who can tell that, Madame Durski?" replied Carrington. "But this is
not to the purpose. I don't pretend to be wholly disinterested in this
matter. I tell you plainly I am not so; it is very important to me that
Sir Reginald should marry a woman of fortune, and should not marry
you."

"He never had any intention of marrying me," said Paulina, hastily and
bitterly.

"No, I don't believe he had; but he would have liked very well to have
compromised you in the eyes of society, so that no other man would have
married you, to have bragged of relations existing between you which
never did exist, and to have effectually ruined your fortunes in any
other direction than the gaming-table. Now this I am determined he
shall not do, and as I have more power over him than any one else, it
lies with me to prevent it. What that power springs from, or how I have
hitherto exercised it, you need not inquire, Madame Durski; I only wish
you to believe that I exercise it in this instance for your good, for
your protection."

Paulina murmured some vague words of acknowledgment. He continued--

"If Reginald Eversleigh knows I am here, constantly cognizant of the
state of affairs, and prepared to act for your advantage, he will not
dare to come here and compromise you by his violent and unreasonable
jealousy; he will be forced--it is needless to explain how--to keep his
envy and rage to himself, and to suppress the enmity with which he
regards Douglas Dale. Let me tell you, Madame Durski, Reginald's enmity
is no trifling rock ahead in life, and your engaged lover has that rock
to dread."

Paulina turned very pale.

"Save him from it, Mr. Carrington," she said, appealingly. "Save him
from it, and let me have a little happiness in this weary world, if
such a thing there be."

"I will, Madame Durski," replied Victor. "You have already done as I
have counselled you, and you have no reason to regret the result."

The soft, dreamy smile of happy love stole over Paulina's face as she
listened to him.

"Let me be here with you as much as possible, and you will have no
reason to fear Reginald. He is capable of anything, but he is afraid of
me, and if he knows that I am determined to advance the marriage of
yourself and Douglas Dale, he will not venture to oppose it openly. But
there is one condition which I must append to my frequent presence
here"--he spoke as though he were conferring the greatest favour on
her--"Mr. Dale must not know me as Victor Carrington."

With an expression in which there was something of the suspicious
quickness which Miss Brewer had manifested when Carrington made a
similar statement to her, Paulina asked him why.

Then Victor told her his version of the story of Honoria Eversleigh,
the "unfortunate woman," whom Douglas Dale's unhappy and misguided
uncle had raised to such undoubted rank and fortune, and the wild and
absurd accusations the wretched woman had made against him.

"Mr. Dale never saw me," said Victor, "and I know not whether he was
thoroughly aware of the absurdity, the insanity of this woman's
accusations. At all events, I don't wish to recall any unpleasantness
to his mind, and therefore I venture to propose that I should visit
here, and be introduced to him as Mr. Carton. The fraud is a very
harmless one; what do you say, Madame Durski?"

Paulina had her full share of the feminine love of mystery and
intrigue, and she consented at once. "What can the name matter," she
thought, "if it is really necessary for this man to be here?"

"And there is another consideration which we must take into account,"
said Victor; "it is this. Mr. Dale may not like to find any man
established here, in the degree of intimacy to which (in your
interests) I aspire; and therefore I propose, with your leave, to pass
as a relation of Miss Brewer's--say, her cousin. This will thoroughly
account for my intimacy here. What do you say, Madame Durski?"

"As you please," said Paulina, carelessly. "I am sure you are right,
Mr. Carrington--Carton, I mean, and I am sure you mean kindly and well
by me. But how odd it will seem to Charlotte and me, lonely creatures,
waifs and derelicts as we have been so long, to have any one with whom
we can claim even a pretended kinship!"

She spoke with a mingled bitterness and levity which have been painful
to any man of right feelings, but which was pleasant to Victor
Carrington, because it showed him how helpless and ignorant she was,
how her mind had been warped, how ready a tool he had found in her.
When the interview between them came to an end, it had been arranged
that Mr. Dale was to be introduced on the following day at Hilton House
to Miss Brewer's cousin, Mr. Carton.

The introduction took place. A very short time, well employed in close
observation, sufficed to assure Victor that Douglas Dale was as much in
love as any man need be to be certain of committing any number of
follies, and that Paulina was a changed woman under the influence of
the same soul-subduing sentiment which, though not so strong in her
case, was assuming strength and intensity as each day taught her more
and more of her lover's moral and intellectual excellence. Douglas Dale
was much pleased with Mr. Carton; and that gentleman did all in his
power to render himself agreeable, and so far succeeded that, before
the close of the evening, he had made a considerable advance towards
establishing a very pleasant intimacy with Sir Reginald Eversleigh's
cousin.

Victor Carrington, always an observant man, had peculiarly the air of
being on the watch that day during dinner. He noticed everything that
Paulina ate and drank, and he took equal note of Miss Brewer's and
Douglas Dale's choice of meats and wines. Miss Brewer drank no wine,
Paulina very little, and Douglas Dale exclusively claret. When the
dinner had reached its conclusion, a stand of liqueurs was placed upon
the table, one of the few art-treasures left to the impoverished
adventuress, rare and fragile Venetian flacons, and tiny goblets of
opal and ruby glass. These glasses were the especial admiration of
Douglas Dale, and Paulina filled the ruby goblet with curacoa. She
touched the edge of the glass playfully with her lips as she handed it
to her lover; but Victor observed that she did not taste the liqueur.

"You do not affect curacoa, madame?" he asked, carelessly.

"No; I never take that, or indeed, any other liqueur."

"And yet you drink scarcely any wine?"

"No," replied Paulina, indifferently; "I take very little wine."

"Indeed!"

There was the faintest possible significance in Carrington's tone as he
said this. He had watched Madame Durski closely during dinner, and he
had noted an excitement in her manner, a nervous vivacity, such as are
generally inspired by something stronger than water. And yet this woman
had taken little else than water during the dinner. And it was to be
observed that the almost febrile gaiety which distinguished her manner
this evening had been as apparent when she first entered the drawing-
room as it was now. This was a physiological or psychological enigma,
extremely interesting to Mr. Carrington. He was not slow to find a
solution that was, in his opinion, sufficiently satisfactory. "That
woman takes opium in some form or other," he said to himself.

Miss Brewer did not touch the liqueur in question, and her cousin took
Maraschino. After a very short interval, Douglas Dale and his new
friend rose to join the ladies. They crossed the hall together, but as
they reached the drawing-room door, Mr. Carrington discovered that he
had dropped a letter in the dining-room, and returned to find it, first
opening the drawing-room door that Dale might pass through it.

All was undisturbed in the dining-room; the table was just as they had
left it. Victor approached the table, took up the carafon containing
curacoa, and, holding it up to the light with one hand, poured the
contents of a small phial into it with the other. He watched the one
liquid mingling with the other until no further traces of the operation
were visible; and then setting the carafon softly down where he had
found it, went smiling across the hall and joined the ladies.

CHAPTER XXX.

FOUND WANTING.

Reginald Eversleigh was in complete ignorance of Victor Carrington's
proceedings, when he received the letter summoning him to an interview
with his friend at a stated time. Carrington's estimate of Reginald's
character was quite correct. All this time his vanity had been chafing
under Paulina's silence and apparent oblivion of him.

He had not received any letter from Paulina, fond as she had been of
writing to him long, half-despairing letters, full of complaint against
destiny, and breathing in every line that hopeless love which the
beautiful Austrian woman had so long wasted on the egotist and coward,
whose baseness she had half suspected even while she still clung to
him.

Sir Reginald had been in the habit of receiving these letters as coolly
as if they had been but the fitting tribute to his transcendant merits.

"Poor Paulina!" he murmured sometimes, as he folded the perfumed pages,
after running his eyes carelessly over their contents; "poor Paulina!
how devotedly she loves me. And what a pity she hasn't a penny she can
call her own. If she were a great heiress, now, what could be more
delightful than this devotion? But, under existing circumstances, it is
nothing but an embarrassment--a bore. Unfortunately, I cannot be brutal
enough to tell her this plainly: and so matters go on. And I fear, in
spite of all my hints, she may believe in the possibility of my
ultimately making a sacrifice of my prospects For her sake."

This was how Reginald Eversleigh felt, while Paulina was scattering at
his feet the treasures of a disinterested affection.

He had been vain and selfish from boyhood, and his vices grew stronger
with increasing years. His nature was hardened, and not chastened, by
the trials and disappointments which had befallen him.

In the hour of his poverty and degradation it had been a triumph for
him to win the devotion of a woman whom many men--men better than
himself--had loved in vain.

It was a rich tribute to the graces of him who had once been the
irresistible Reginald Eversleigh, the favourite of fashionable drawing-
rooms.

Thus it was that, when Paulina's letters suddenly ceased, Sir Reginald
was at once mortified and indignant. He had made up his mind to obey
Victor's suggestion, or rather, command, by abstaining from either
visiting or writing to Paulina; but he had not been prepared for a
similar line of proceeding on her part, and it hurt his vanity much.
She had ceased to write. Could she have ceased to care for him? Could
any one else, richer--more disinterested--have usurped his place in her
heart?

The baronet remembered what Victor Carrington had said about Douglas
Dale; but he could not for one moment believe that his cousin--a man
whom he considered infinitely beneath him--had the power to win Paulina
Durski's affection.

"She may perhaps encourage him," he said to himself, "especially now
that his income is doubled. She might even accept him as a husband--
women are so mercenary. But her heart will never cease to be mine."

Sir Reginald waited a week, a fortnight, but there came no letter from
Paulina. He called on Carrington, according to appointment, but his
friend had changed his mind, or his tactics, and gave him no
explanation.

Victor had been a daily visitor at Hilton House during the week which
had intervened since the day he had dined there and been introduced to
Douglas Dale. His observation had enabled him to decide upon
accelerating the progress of his designs. The hold which Paulina had
obtained upon Douglas Dale's affection was secure; he had proposed to
her much sooner than Victor had anticipated; the perfect understanding
and confidence subsisting between them rendered the cautious game which
he had intended to play unnecessary, and he did not now care how soon a
final rupture between Paulina and Reginald should take place. Indeed,
for two of his purposes--the establishment of an avowed quarrel between
Douglas Dale and his cousin, Sir Reginald, and the infliction of ever-
growing injury on Paulina's reputation,--the sooner such a rupture
could be brought about the better. Therefore Victor Carrington assumed
a tone of reserve and mystery, which did not fail to exasperate Sir
Reginald.

"Do not question me, Reginald," he said. "You are afflicted with a lack
of moral courage, and your want of nerve would only enfeeble my hand.
Know nothing--expect nothing. Those who are at work for you know how to
do their work quietly. Oh, by the way, I want you to sign a little
document--very much the style of thing you gave me at Raynham Castle."

Nothing could be more careless than the Frenchman's tone and manner as
he said this; but the document in question was a deed of gift, by which
Reginald Eversleigh bestowed upon Victor Carrington the clear half of
whatever income should arise to him, from real or personal property,
from the date of the first day of June following.

"I am to give you half my income?"

"Yes, my dear Reginald, after the first of next June. You know that I
am working laboriously to bring about good fortune for you. You cannot
suppose that I am working for nothing. If you do not choose to sign
this document, neither do I choose to devote myself any longer to your
interest."

"And what if you fail?"

"If I fail, the document in question is so much waste paper, since you
have no income at present, nor are likely to have any income between
this and next June, unless by my agency."

The result was the same as usual. Reginald signed the deed, without
even taking the trouble to study its full bearing.

"Have you seen Paulina lately?" he asked, afterwards.

"Not very lately."

"I don't know what's amiss with her," exclaimed Reginald, peevishly;
"she has not written to me to ask explanation of my absence and
silence."

"Perhaps she grew tired of writing to a person who valued her letters
so lightly."

"I was glad enough to hear from her," answered Reginald; "but I could
not be expected to find time to answer all her letters. Women have
nothing better to do than to scribble long epistles."

"Perhaps Madame Durski has found some one who will take the trouble to
answer her letters," said Victor.

After this, the two men parted, and Reginald Eversleigh called a cab,
in which he drove down to Hilton House.

He might have stayed away much longer, in self-interested obedience to
Carrington, had he been sure of Paulina's unabated devotion; but he was
piqued by her silence, and he wanted to discover whether there was a
rival in the field.

He knew Madame Durski's habits, and that it was not till late in the
afternoon that she was to be seen.

It was nearly six o'clock when he drove up to the door of Hilton House.
Carlo Toas admitted him, and favoured him with a searching and somewhat
severe scrutiny, as he led the way to the drawing-room in which Paulina
was wont to receive her guests.

Here Sir Reginald felt some little surprise, and a touch of
mortification, on beholding the aspect of things. He had expected to
find Paulina pensive, unhappy, perhaps ill. He had expected to see her
agitated at his coming. He had pondered much upon the cessation of her
letters; and he had told himself that she had ceased to write because
she was angry with him--with that anger which exists only where there
is love.

To his surprise, he found her brilliant, radiant, dressed in her most
charming style.

Never had he seen her looking more beautiful or more happy.

He pressed the widow's hand tenderly, and contemplated her for some
moments in silence.

"My dear Paulina," he said at last, "I never saw you looking more
lovely than to-night. And yet to-night I almost feared to find you
ill."

"Indeed; and why so?" she asked. Her tone was the ordinary tone of
society, from which it was impossible to draw any inference.

"Because it is so long since I heard from you."

"I have grown tired of writing letters that were rarely honoured by
your notice."

"So, so," thought the baronet; "I was right. She is offended."

"To what do I owe this visit?" asked Madame Durski.

"She is desperately angry," thought the baronet. "My dear Paulina," he
said, aloud, "can you imagine that your letters were indifferent to me?
I have been busy, and, as you know, I have been away from London."

"Yes," she said; "you spent your Christmas very agreeably, I believe."

"Not at all, I assure you. A bachelors' party in a country parsonage is
one of the dullest things possible, to say nothing of the tragical
event which ended my visit," added Reginald, his cheek paling as he
spoke.

"A bachelors' party!" repeated Paulina; "there were no ladies, then, at
your cousin's house?"

"None."

"Indeed!"

Paulina Durski's lip curled contemptuously, but she did not openly
convict Sir Reginald of the deliberate falsehood he had uttered.

"I am very glad you have come to me," she said, presently, "because I
have urgent need of your help."

"My dear Paulina, believe me--" began the baronet

"Do not make your protest till you have heard what I have to ask," said
Madame Durski. "You know how troublesome my creditors had become before
Christmas. The time has arrived when they must be paid, or when I--"

She stopped, and looked searchingly at the face of her companion.

"When you--what?" he asked. "What is the alternative, Paulina?"

"I think you ought to know as well as I," she answered. "I must either
pay those debts or fly from this place, and from this country,
disgraced. I appeal to you in this bitter hour of need. Can you not
help me--you, who have professed to love me?"

"Surely, Paulina, you cannot doubt my love," replied Sir Reginald;
"unhappily, there is no magical process by which the truest and purest
love can transform itself into money. I have not a twenty-pound note in
the world."

"Indeed; and the four hundred and fifty pounds you won from Lord
Caversham just before Christmas--is that money gone?"

"Every shilling of it," answered Reginald, coolly.

He had notes to the amount of nearly two hundred pounds in his desk;
but he was the last man in Christendom to sacrifice money which he
himself required, and his luxurious habits kept him always deeply in
debt.

"You must have disposed of it very speedily. Surely, it is not all
gone, Reginald. I think a hundred would satisfy my creditors, for a
time at least."

"I tell you it is gone, Paulina. I gave you a considerable sum at the
time I won the money--you should remember."

"Yes, I remember perfectly. You gave me fifty pounds--fifty pounds for
the support of the house which enabled you to entrap your dupes, while
I was the bait to lure them to their ruin. Oh, you have been very
generous, very noble; and now that your dupes are tired of being
cheated--now that your cat's paw has become useless to you--I am to
leave the country, because you will not sacrifice one selfish desire to
save me from disgrace."

"This is absurd, Paulina," exclaimed the baronet, impatiently; "you
talk the usual nonsense women indulge in when they can't have
everything their own way. It is not in my power to help you to pay your
creditors, and you had much better slip quietly away while you are free
to do so, and before they contrive to get you into prison. You know
what Sheridan said about frittering away his money in paying his debts.
There's no knowing where to leave off if you once begin that sort of
thing."

"You would have me steal away in secret, like what you English call a
swindler!"

"You needn't dwell upon unpleasant names. Some of the best people in
England have been obliged to cross the water for the same reasons that
render your residence here unpleasant. There's nothing to be gained by
sentimental talk about the business, my dear Paulina. My friends at the
clubs have begun to grow suspicious of this house, and I don't think
there's a chance of my ever winning another sovereign in these rooms.
Why, then, should you remain to be tormented by your creditors? Return
to Paris, where you have twice as many devoted slaves and admirers as
in this detestable straight-laced land of ours. I will slip across as
soon as ever I can settle my affairs here some way or other, and once
more you may be queen of a brilliant _salon_, while I--"

"While you may find a convenient cat's paw for getting hold of new
plunder," cried Paulina, with unmitigated scorn. Then, with a sudden
burst of passion, she exclaimed, "Oh, Sir Reginald Eversleigh, I thank
Providence for this interview. At last--at last, I understand you
completely. I have been testing you, Sir Reginald--I have been sounding
your character. I have stooped to beg for help from you, in order that
I might know the broken reed on which I have leaned. And now I can
laugh at you, and despise you. Go, Sir Reginald Eversleigh; this house
is mine--my home--no longer a private gambling-house--no longer a snare
for the delusion of your rich friends. I am no longer friendless. My
debts have been paid--paid by one who, if he had owned but one
sixpence, would have given it to me, content to be penniless himself
for my sake. I have no need of your help. I am not obliged to creep
away in the night like a felon, from the house that has sheltered me. I
can now dare to call myself mistress of this house, unfettered by debt,
untrammelled by the shameful secrets that made my life odious to me;
and my first act as mistress of this house shall be to forbid its doors
to you."

"Indeed, Madame Durski!" cried Reginald, with a sneer; "this is a
wonderful change."

"You thought, perhaps, there were no limits to a woman's folly," said
Paulina; "but you see you were wrong. There is an end even to that. And
now, Sir Reginald Eversleigh, I will wish you good evening, and
farewell."

"Is this a farce, Paulina?" asked the baronet, in a voice that was
almost stifled by rage.

"No, Sir Reginald, it is a stern reality," answered Madame Durski,
laying her hand on the bell.

Her summons was speedily answered by Carlo Toas.

"Carlo, the door," she said, quietly.

The baronet gave her one look--a dark and threatening glance--and then
left the room, followed by the Spaniard, who conducted him to his cab
with every token of grave respect.

"Curse her!" muttered Sir Reginald, between his set teeth, as he drove
away from Hilton House. "It must be Douglas Dale who has given her the
power to insult me thus, and he shall pay for her insolence. But why
did Victor bring those two together? An alliance between them can only
result in mischief to me. I must and will fathom his motive for conduct
that seems so incomprehensible."