Run to Earth by M. E. Braddon

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

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In that house there was but one person who would profit by Douglas
Dale's death, and she would profit largely.

"She has never loved me," he thought to himself. "She still loves
Reginald Eversleigh. My death will give her both fortune and liberty;
it will leave her free to wed the man she really loves."

He no longer trusted his own love. He believed that he had been made
the dupe of a woman's treachery; and that the hand which had so often
been pressed passionately to his lips, was the hand which, day by day,
had mingled poison with his cup, sapping his life by slow degrees.
Against the worldly wisdom of his friends he had opposed the blind
instinct of his love; and now that events conspired to condemn this
woman, he wondered that he could ever have trusted her.

At the end of a fortnight Douglas Dale returned from Paris, and went
immediately to Paulina. He believed that he had been the dupe of an
accomplished actress--the vilest and most heartless of women--and he
was now acting a part, in order to fathom the depth of her iniquity.

"Let me know her--let me know her in all her baseness," he said to
himself. "Let me tax the murderess with her crime! and then, surely,
this mad love will be plucked for ever from my heart, and I shall find
peace far from the false syren whose sorcery has embittered my life."

Douglas had received several letters from Paulina during his visit to
Paris--letters breathing the most devoted and disinterested love; but
to him every word seemed studied, every expression false. Those very
letters would, a few short weeks ago, have seemed to Douglas the
perfection of truth and artlessness.

He returned to England wondrously restored to health. Jarvis had been
his constant attendant in Paris, and had brought him every morning a
cup of coffee made by his own hands.

At the Temple, he found a note from Paulina, telling him that he was
expected hourly at Hilton House.

He lost no time in presenting himself. He endeavoured to stifle all
emotion--to conquer the impatience that possessed him; but he could
not.

Madame Durski was seated by one of the windows in the drawing-room when
Mr. Dale was announced.

She received her lover with every appearance of affection, and with an
emotion which she seemed only anxious to conceal.

But to the jaundiced mind of Douglas Dale this suppressed emotion
appeared only a superior piece of acting; and yet, as he looked at his
betrothed, while she stood before him, perfect, peerless, in her
refined loveliness, his heart was divided by love and hate. He hated
the guilt which he believed was hers. He loved her even yet, despite
that guilt.

"You are very pale, Douglas," she said after the first greetings were
over. "But, thank heaven, there is a wonderful improvement. I can see
restored health in your face. The fever has gone--the unnatural
brightness has left your eyes. Oh, dearest, how happy it makes me to
see this change! You can never know what I suffered when I saw you
drooping, day by day."

"Yes, day by day, Paulina," answered the young man, gravely. "It was a
gradual decay of health and strength--my life ebbing slowly--almost
imperceptibly--but not the less surely."

"And you are better, Douglas? You feel and know yourself that there is
a change?"

"Yes, Paulina. My recovery began in the hour in which I left London. My
health has improved from that time."

"You required change of air, no doubt. How foolish your doctor must
have been not to recommend that in the first instance! And now that
you have returned, may I hope to see you as often as of old? Shall we
renew all our old habits, and go back to our delightful evenings?"

"Were those evenings really pleasant to you, Paulina?" asked Mr. Dale,
earnestly.

"Ah, Douglas, you must know they were!"

"I cannot know the secrets of your heart, Paulina," he replied, with
unspeakable sadness in his tone. "You have seemed to me all that is
bright, and pure, and true. But how do I know that it is not all
seeming? How do I know that Reginald Eversleigh's image may not still
hold a place in your heart?"

"You insult me, Douglas!" exclaimed Madame Durski, with dignity. "But I
will not suffer myself to be angry with you on the day of your return.
I see your health is not entirely restored, since you still harbour
these gloomy thoughts and unjust suspicions."

His most searching scrutiny could perceive no traces of guilt in the
lovely face he looked at so anxiously. For a while his suspicions were
almost lulled to rest. That soft white hand, which glittered with gems
that had been his gift, could not be the hand of an assassin.

He began to feel the soothing influence of hope. Night and day he
prayed that he might discover the innocence of her he so fondly loved.
But just as he had begun to abandon himself to that sweet influence,
despair again took possession of him. All the old symptoms--the fever,
the weakness, the unnatural thirst, the dry, burning sensation in his
throat--returned; and this time Jarvis was far away. His master had
sent him to pay a visit to a married daughter, comfortably settled in
the depths of Devonshire.

Douglas Dale went to one of the most distinguished physicians in London.
He was determined to consult a new adviser, in order to discover
whether the opinion of that other adviser would agree with the opinion
of Dr. Harley Westbrook.

Dr. Chippendale, the new physician, asked all the questions previously
asked by Dr. Westbrook, and, after much deliberation, he informed his
patient, with all proper delicacy and caution, that he was suffering
from the influence of slow poison.

"Is my life in danger, Dr. Chippendale?" he asked.

"Not in immediate danger. The poison has evidently been administered in
infinitesimal doses. But you cannot too soon withdraw yourself from all
those who now surround you. Life is not to be tampered with. The
poisoner may take it into his head to increase the doses."

Douglas Dale left his adviser after a long conversation. He then went
to take his farewell of Paulina Durski.

There was no longer the shadow of doubt in his mind. The horrible
certainty seemed painfully clear to him. Love must be plucked for ever
from his breast, and only contempt and loathing must remain where that
divine sentiment had been enthroned.

Since his interview with the physician, he had carefully recalled to
memory all the details of his life in Paulina's society.

She had given him day by day an allotted portion of poison.

How had she administered it?

This was the question which he now sought to solve, for he no longer
asked himself whether she was guilty or innocent. He remembered that
every evening after dinner he had, in Continental fashion, taken a
single glass of liqueur; and this he had received from Paulina's own
hand. It had pleased him to take the tiny, fragile glass from those
taper fingers. The delicate liqueur had seemed sweeter to him because
it was given by Paulina.

He now felt convinced that it was in this glass of liqueur the poison
had been administered to him.

On more than one occasion he had at first declined taking it; but
Paulina had always persuaded him, with some pretty speech, some half
coquettish, half caressing action.

He found her waiting him as usual: her toilet perfection itself; her
beauty enhanced by the care with which she always strove to render
herself charming in his eyes. She said playfully that it was a tribute
which she offered to her benefactor.

They dined together, with Miss Brewer for their sole companion. She
seemed self-contained and emotionless as ever; but if Douglas had not
been so entirely absorbed by his thoughts of Paulina, he might have
perceived that she looked at him ever and anon with furtive, but
searching glances.

There was little conversation, little gaiety at that dinner. Douglas
was absent-minded and gloomy. He scarcely ate anything; but the
constant thirst from which he suffered obliged him to drink long
draughts of water.

After dinner, Miss Brewer brought the glasses and the liqueur to Madame
Durski, after her customary manner.

Paulina filled the ruby-stemmed glass with curacoa, and handed it to
her lover.

"No, Paulina, I shall take no liqueur to-night."

"Why not, Douglas?"

"I am not well," he replied, "and I am growing rather tired of
curacoa."

"As you please," said Paulina, as she replaced the delicate glass in
the stand from which she had just taken it.

Miss Brewer had left the room, and the lovers were alone together. They
were seated face to face at the prettily decorated table--one with
utter despair in his heart.

"Shall I tell you why I would not take that glass from your hands just
now, Paulina Durski?" asked Douglas, after a brief pause, rising to
leave the table as he spoke. "Or will you spare me the anguish of
speaking words that must cover you with shame?"

"I do not understand you," murmured Paulina, looking at her lover with
a gaze of mingled terror and bewilderment.

"Oh, Paulina!" cried Douglas; "why still endeavour to sustain a
deception which I have unmasked? I know all."

"All what?" gasped the bewildered woman.

"All your guilt--all your baseness. Oh, Paulina, confess the treachery
which would have robbed me of life; and which, failing that, has for
ever destroyed my peace. If you are human, let some word of remorse,
some tardy expression of regret, attest your womanhood."

"I can only think that he is mad," murmured Paulina to herself, as she
gazed on her accuser with wondering eyes.

"Paulina, at least do not pretend to misunderstand me."

"Your words," replied Madame Durski, "seem to me the utterances of a
madman. For pity's sake, calm yourself, and speak plainly."

"I think that I have spoken, very plainly."

"I can discover no meaning in your words. What is it you would have me
regret? Of what crime do you accuse me?"

"The worst and darkest of all crimes," replied Douglas; "the crime of
murder."

"Murder?"

"Yes; the crime of the secret poisoner!"

"Douglas!" cried Paulina, with a stifled shriek of terror; and then,
recoiling from him suddenly, she fell half fainting into a chair. "Oh,
why do I try to reason with him?" she murmured, piteously; "he is mad--
he is mad! My poor Douglas!" continued Paulina, sobbing hysterically,
"you are mad yourself, and you will drive me mad. Do not speak to me.
Leave me to myself. You have terrified me by your wild denunciations.
Leave me, Douglas: for pity's sake, leave me."

"I will leave you, Paulina," answered her lover, in a grave, sad voice;
"and our parting will be for ever. You cannot deny your guilt, and you
can no longer deceive me."

"Do as you please," replied Madame Durski, her passionate indignation
changing suddenly to an icy calmness. "You have wronged me so deeply,
you have insulted me so shamefully, that it matters little what further
wrong or insult I suffer at your hands. In my own justification, I will
say but this--I am as incapable of the guilt you talk of as I am of
understanding how such a wild and groundless accusation can come from
you, Douglas Dale, my affianced husband--the man I have loved and
trusted, the man whom I have believed the very model of honour and
generosity. But this must be madness, and I am not bound to endure the
ravings of a lunatic. You have said our farewell was to be spoken to-
night. Let it be so. I could not endure a repetition of the scene with
which you have just favoured me. I regret most deeply that your
generosity has burthened me with, pecuniary obligations which I may
never be able to repay, and has, in some measure, deprived me of
independence. But even at the hazard of being considered ungrateful, I
must tell you that I trust we may meet no more."

No one can tell the anguish which Paulina Durski endured as she uttered
these words in cold, measured accents. It was the supreme effort of a
proud, but generous-minded woman, and there was a kind of heroism in
that subjugation of a stricken and loving heart.

"Let it be so, Paulina," answered Douglas, with emotion. "I have no
wish to see your fair, false face again. My heart has been broken by
your treachery; and my best hope lies in the chance that your hand may
have already done its wicked work, and that my life may be forfeited to
my confidence in your affection. Let no thought of my gifts trouble
you. The fortune which was to have been shared with you is henceforth
powerless to purchase one blessing for me. And of the law which you
have outraged you need have no few; your secret will never be revealed
to mortal ears by me. No investigation will drag to light the details
of your crime."

"_You_ may seek no investigation, Douglas Dale," cried Paulina, with
sudden passion; "but I shall do so, and without delay. You have accused
me of a foul and treacherous crime--on what proof I know not. It is for
me to prove myself innocent of that black iniquity; and if human
ingenuity can fathom the mystery, it shall be fathomed. I will bring
you to my feet--yes, to my feet; and you shall beseech my pardon for
the wicked wrong you have done me. But even then this breach of your
own making shall for ever separate us. I may learn to forgive you,
Douglas, but I can never trust you again. And now go."

She pointed to the door with an imperious gesture. There was a quiet
dignity in her manner and her bearing which impressed her accuser in
spite of himself.

He bowed, and without another word left the presence of the woman who
for so long had been the idol of his heart.

He went from her presence bowed to the very dust by a sorrow which was
too deep for tears.

"She is an accomplished actress," he said to himself; "and to the very
last her policy has been defiance. And now my dream is ended, and I
awake to a blank, joyless life. A strange fatality seems to have
attended Sir Oswald Eversleigh and the inheritors of his wealth. He
died broken-hearted by a woman's falsehood; my brother Lionel bestowed
his best affections on the mercenary, fashionable coquette, Lydia
Graham, who was ready to accept another lover within a few weeks of her
pretended devotion to him; and lastly comes my misery at the hands of a
wicked adventuress."

Douglas Dale resolved to leave London early next day. He returned to
his Temple chambers, intending to start for the Continent the next
morning.

But when the next day came he did not carry out his intention. He found
himself disinclined to seek change of scene, which he felt could bring
him no relief of mind. Go where he would, he could not separate himself
from the bitter memories of the past few months.

He determined to remain in London; for, to the man who wishes to avoid
the companionship of his fellow-men, there is no hermitage more secure
than a lodging in the heart of busy, selfish London. He determined to
remain, for in London he could obtain information as to the conduct of
Paulina.

What would she do now that the stage-play was ended, and deception
could no longer avail? Would she once more resume her old habits--open
her saloons to the patrician gamblers of West-end London, and steep her
weary, guilt-burdened soul in the mad intoxication of the gaming-table?

Would Sir Reginald Eversleigh again assume his old position in her
household?--again become her friend and flatterer? She had affected to
despise him; but that might have been only a part of the great
deception of which Douglas had been the victim.

These were the questions the lonely, heartbroken man asked himself that
night, as he sat brooding by his solitary hearth, no longer able to
find pleasure in the nightly studies which had once been so delightful
to him.

Ah! how deeply he must have loved that woman, when the memory of her
guilt poisoned his existence! How madly he still clung to the thought
of her!--how intensely he desired to penetrate the secrets of her life!

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

"THY DAY IS COME!"

"What is it, Jane?" asked Lady Eversleigh, rather impatiently, of her
maid, when her knock at the door of her sitting-room in Percy Street
interrupted the conversation between herself and the detective officer,
a conversation intensely and painfully interesting.

"A person, ma'am, who wants to see Mr. Andrews, and will take no
denial."

"Indeed," said Mr. Larkspur; "that's very odd: I know of nothing up at
present for which they should send any one to me here. However," and he
rose as he spoke, "I suppose I had better see this person. Where is
he?"

"In the hall," replied Jane.

But Lady Eversleigh interposed to prevent Mr. Larkspur's departure.
"Pray do not go," she said, "unless it concerns this business, unless
it is news of my child. This may be something to rob me of your time
and attention; and remember I alone have a right to your services."

"Lor' bless you, my lady," said Mr. Larkspur, "I haven't forgot that;
and that's just what puzzles me. There's only one man who knows the lay
I'm on, and the name I go by, and he knows I would not take anything
else till I have reckoned up this; and it would be no good sending
anybody after me, unless it were something in some way concerning this
business."

In an instant Lady Eversleigh was as anxious that Mr. Larkspur should
see the unknown man as she had been unwilling he should do so. "Pray go
to him at once," she urged; "don't lose a moment."

Mr. Larkspur left the room, and Lady Eversleigh dismissed Jane Payland,
and awaited his return in an agony of impatience. After the lapse of
half an hour, Mr. Larkspur appeared. There were actually some slight
traces of emotion in his face, and the colour had lessened considerably
in his vulture-like beak. He was followed by a tall, stalwart, fine-
looking man, with the unmistakeable gait and air of a sailor. As Lady
Eversleigh looked at him in astonishment, Mr. Larkspur said:--

"I ain't much of a believer in Fate in general, but there's surely a
Fate in this. My lady, this is Captain George Jernam!"

* * * * *

The time had passed slowly and wearily for Rosamond Jernam, and all the
efforts conscientiously made by her husband's aunt, who liked the girl
better the more she saw of her, and entirely acquitted her of blame in
the mysterious estrangement of the young couple, failed to make her
cheerful. She was wont to roam disconsolately for hours about the
secluded coast, giving free course to her sadness, and cherishing one
dear secret. Rosamond was so much changed in appearance of late that
Susan Jernam began to feel seriously uneasy about her. She had lost her
pretty fresh colour, and her face wore a haggard, weary look; it was
plain to every eye that some hidden grief was preying on her mind. Mrs.
Jernam, though a quiet person, and given to the minding of her own
affairs, was not quite without "cronies," and to one of these she
confided her anxiety about her niece. The _confidante_ was a certain
Mrs. Miller, a respectable person, but lower in the social scale than
Mrs. Jernam. She was a widow, and lived in a tiny cottage, close to the
beach at Allanbay; she kept no servant, but her trim little dwelling
was always the very pink and pattern of neatness. She was of a silent,
though not a morose temperament. It was generally understood that Mrs.
Miller's husband had been a seafaring man, and had been drowned many
years before she went to live at Allanbay. She had no relatives, and no
previous acquaintances in that quiet nook; and if she had been a little
higher in the social scale, belonging to that class which requires
introductions, she might have lived a life of unbroken solitude. As it
was, the neighbours made friends with her by degrees, and the poor
widow's life was not an unhappy or solitary one. Mrs. Jernam had early
learned the particulars of her case, and a friendship had grown up
between them, of which Mrs. Miller duly acknowledged the condescension
on Mrs. Jernam's part.

Mrs. Jernam called on her humble friend one day, to bestow some small
favour, and, to her surprise, found her, not alone as usual, but in the
act of taking leave of a man whose appearance was by no means
prepossessing, and who was apparently very much disconcerted by Mrs.
Jernam's arrival. Mrs. Jernam immediately proposed to go away and
return on another occasion, but the man, who did not hear her name
mentioned, said, gruffly:

"No call, ma'am, no call; I'm going away. Good-bye, Polly. Remember
what you've got to do, and do it." Then he turned off from the cottage-
door, and was out of sight in a few moments.

Mrs. Miller stood looking at her guest, rather awkwardly, but said at
length:

"Pray sit down, ma'am. That's my brother; the only creature I have
belonging to me in the world." And here Mrs. Miller sighed, and looked
as if the possession were not an unqualified advantage.

"Has he been here long?" asked Mrs. Jernam.

"No, ma'am; he only came last night, and is gone again. He came to
bring me a child to take care of, and a great tax it is."

"A child!" said Mrs. Jernam, "whose child?"

"That's more than I can tell you, ma'am," replied Mrs. Miller; "and
more than he told me. She's an orphan, he says, and her father was a
seafaring man, like your nephew, as I've heard you speak of. And I'm to
have the charge of her for a year, and thirty pounds--it's handsome, I
don't deny, but he knows that I'd take good care of any child--and
she's a pretty dear, to tell the truth, as sweet a little creature as
ever walked. She don't talk very plain yet, and she says, as well as I
can make it out, as her name is Gerty."

And then Mrs. Miller asked Mrs. Jernam to walk into her little bedroom,
and showed her, lying on a neat humble bed, carefully covered with a
white coverlet, and in the deep sleep of childhood, the infant heiress
of Raynham! If either of the women had only known at whom she was
looking, as they scrutinized the child's fair face and talked of her
beauty and her innocence in tearful whispers, looking away from the
sleeping form, pitifully, at a little heap of black clothes on a chair
by the bed!

"I suppose she's the child of one of my brother's old shipmates, as
rose to be better off," said Mrs. Miller, "for she's fretted about a
captain, and cried bitter to go to him when I put her to bed." Then the
two returned to the little parlour, and talked long and earnestly about
the child, about the necessity for Mrs. Miller's now employing the
services of "a girl," and about Rosamond Jernam.

Rosamond was greatly delighted with the child left in Mrs. Miller's
care. The little girl interested her deeply, and every day she passed
many hours with her, either at Mrs. Miller's house or her own. The
grace and beauty of the child were remarkable; and as, with the happy
facility of childhood, she began to recover from the first feeling of
strangeness and fear, the little creature was soon happy in her new,
humble home. She was too young to appreciate and lament the change in
her lot; and, as she was well fed, well cared for, and treated with the
most caressing affection, she was perfectly happy. Rosamond began to
feel hopeful under the influence of the child's smiles and playful
talk. The time must pass, she told herself, her husband must return to
her, and soon there would be for them a household angel like this one,
to bring peace and happiness permanently to their home.

Susan Jernam and Rosamond were much puzzled about this lovely child,
Gerty Smith, as she was called. Not only her looks, but certain little
ways she had, contradicted Mrs. Miller's theory of her birth, and
though they fully credited the good woman's statement, and believed her
as ignorant of the truth as themselves, they became convinced that
there was some mystery about this child. Mrs. Miller had never spoken
of her brother until he made his sudden and brief appearance at
Allanbay; and unsuspicious and unlearned in the ways of the world as
Mrs. Jernam was, she had perceived that he belonged to the doubtful
classes. The truth was, that Mrs. Miller could have told them nothing
about her brother beyond the general fact of his being "a bad lot." She
had heard of him only at rare intervals since he had left his father's
honest home, in his scampish, incorrigible boyhood, and ran away to
sea. She had heard little good of him, and years had sometimes passed
over during which she knew nothing of his fate. But even in Black
Milsom--thief, murderer, villain, though he was--there was one little
trace of good left. He did care a little for his sister; he did "look
her up" at intervals in his career of crime; he did send her small sums
of money--whence derived she had, happily, no suspicion--when he was
"flush;" and he did hope "Old Polly" would never find out how bad a
fellow he had been. Mrs. Miller's nature was a very simple and
confiding one, and she never speculated much upon her brother's doings.
She was pleased to have the charge of the child, and she fulfilled it
to the best of her ability; but those signs and tokens of a higher
station, which Susan Jernam and Rosamond recognized, were quite beyond
her ken.