Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [epub ebook reader .TXT] 📗

be influenced by any friend or

companion endowed with intellectual superiority; and he possessed such

a friend in the person of Victor Carrington, a young surgeon, a man

infinitely below Mr. Eversleigh in social status, but whose talents,

united to tact, had lifted him above his natural level.

 

The young surgeon was a slim, elegant-looking young man, with a pale,

sallow face, and flashing black eyes. His appearance was altogether

foreign, and although his own name was English, he was half a

Frenchman, his mother being a native of Bordeaux. This widowed mother

now lived with him, dependent on him, and loving him with a devoted

affection.

 

From a chance meeting in a public billiard-room, an intimacy arose

between Victor Carrington and Reginald Eversleigh, which speedily

ripened into friendship. The weaker nature was glad to find a stronger

on which to lean. Reginald Eversleigh invited his new friend to his

rooms—to champagne breakfasts, to suppers of broiled bones, eaten long

after midnight: to card-parties, at which large sums of money were lost

and won; but the losers were never Victor Carrington or Reginald

Eversleigh, and there were men who said that Eversleigh was a more

dangerous opponent at loo and whist since he had picked up that fellow

Carrington.

 

“I always feel afraid of Eversleigh, when that sallow-faced surgeon is

his partner at whist, or hangs about his chair at �cart�,” said one

of the officers in Reginald Eversleigh’s regiment. “It’s my opinion

that black-eyed Frenchman is Mephistopheles in person. I never saw a

countenance that so fully realized my idea of the devil.”

 

People laughed at the dragoon’s notion: but there were few of Mr.

Eversleigh’s guests who liked his new acquaintance, and there were some

who kept altogether aloof from the young cornet’s rooms, after two or

three evenings spent in the society of Mr. Carrington.

 

“The fellow is too clever,” said one of Eversleigh’s brother-officers;

“these very clever men are almost invariably scoundrels. I respect a

man who is great in one thing—a great surgeon, a great lawyer, a great

soldier—but your fellow who knows everything better than anybody else

is always a villain.”

 

Victor Carrington was the only person to whom Reginald Eversleigh told

the real story of his breach with his uncle. He trusted Victor: not

because he cared to confide in him—for the story was too humiliating

to be told without pain—but because he wanted counsel from a stronger

mind than his own.

 

“It’s rather a hard thing to drop from the chance of forty thousand a

year to a pension of a couple of hundred, isn’t it, Carrington?” said

Reginald, as the two young men dined together in the cornet’s quarters,

a fortnight after the scene in Arlington Street. “It’s rather hard,

isn’t it, Carrington?”

 

“Yes, it would be rather hard, if such a contingency were possible,”

replied the surgeon, coolly; “but we don’t mean to drop from forty

thousand to two hundred. The generous old uncle may choose to draw his

purse-strings, and cast us off to ‘beggarly divorcement,’ as Desdemona

remarks; but we don’t mean to let him have his own way. We must take

things quietly, and manage matters with a little tact. You want my

advice, I suppose, my dear Reginald?”

 

“I do.”

 

The surgeon almost always addressed his friends by their Christian

names, more especially when those friends were of higher standing than

himself. There was a depth of pride, which few understood, lurking

beneath his quiet and unobtrusive manner; and he had a way of his own

by which he let people know that he considered himself in every respect

their equal, and in some respects their superior.

 

“You want my advice. Very well, then, my advice is that you play the

penitent prodigal. It is not a difficult part to perform, if you take

care what you’re about. Sir Oswald has advised you to exchange into the

line. Instead of doing that, you will sell out altogether. It will look

like a stroke of prudence, and will leave you free to play your cards

cleverly, and keep your eye upon this dear uncle.”

 

“Sell out!” exclaimed Reginald. “Leave the army! I have sworn never to

do that.”

 

“But you will find yourself obliged to do it, nevertheless. Your

regiment is too expensive for a man who has only a pitiful two hundred

a year beyond his pay. Your mail-phaeton would cost the whole of your

income; your tailor’s bill can hardly be covered by another two

hundred; and then, where are you to get your gloves, your hot-house

flowers, your wines, your cigars? You can’t go on upon credit for ever;

tradesmen have such a tiresome habit of wanting money, if it’s only a

hundred or so now and then on account. The Jews are beginning to be

suspicious of your paper. The news of your quarrel with Sir Oswald is

pretty sure to get about somehow or other, and then where are you?

Cards and billiards are all very well in their way; but you can’t live

by them, without turning a regular blackleg, and as a blackleg you

would have no chance of the Raynham estates. No, my dear Reginald,

retrenchment is the word. You must sell out, keep yourself very quiet,

and watch your uncle.”

 

“What do you mean by watching him?” asked Mr. Eversleigh, peevishly.

 

His friend’s advice was by no means palatable to him. He sat in a moody

attitude, with his elbows on his knees, and his head bent forward,

staring at the fire. His wine stood untasted on the table by his side.

 

“I mean that you must keep your eye upon him, in order to see that he

don’t play you a trick,” answered the surgeon, at his own leisure.

 

“What trick should he play me?”

 

“Well, you see, when a man quarrels with his heir, he is apt to turn

desperate. Sir Oswald might marry.”

 

“Marry! at fifty years of age?”

 

“Yes. Men of fifty have been known to fall as desperately in love as

any of your heroes of two or three and twenty. Sir Oswald would be a

splendid match, and depend upon it, there are plenty of beautiful and

high-born women who would be glad to call themselves Lady Eversleigh.

Take my advice, Reginald, dear boy, and keep your eye on the baronet.”

 

“But he has turned me out of his house. He has severed every link

between us.”

 

“Then it must be our business to establish a secret chain of

communication with his household,” answered Victor. “He has some

confidential servant, I suppose?”

 

“Yes; he has a valet, called Millard, whom he trusts as far as he

trusts any dependent; but he is not a man who talks to his servants.”

 

“Perhaps not; but servants have a way of their own of getting at

information, and depend upon it, Mr. Millard knows more of your uncle’s

business than Sir Oswald would wish him to know. We must get hold of

this faithful Millard.”

 

“But he is a very faithful fellow—honesty itself—the pink of

fidelity.”

 

“Humph!” muttered the young surgeon; “did you ever try the effect of a

bribe on this pink of fidelity?”

 

“Never.”

 

“Then you know nothing about him. Remember what Sir Robert Walpole

said, ‘Every man has his price.’ We must find out the price of Mr.

Millard.”

 

“You are a wonderful fellow, Carrington.”

 

“You think so? Bah, I keep my eyes open, that’s all; other men go

through the world with their eyes half-shut. I graduated in a good

school, and I may, perhaps, have been a tolerably apt pupil?”

 

“What school?”

 

“The school of poverty. That’s the sort of education that sharpens a

man’s intellect. My father was a reprobate and a gamester, and I knew

at an early age that I had nothing to hope for from him. I have had my

own way to carve in life, and if I have as yet made small progress, I

have fought against terrible odds.”

 

“I wonder you don’t set up in a professional career,” said Mr.

Eversleigh; “you have finished your education; obtained your degree.

What are you waiting for?”

 

“I am waiting for my chances,” answered Victor; “I don’t care to begin

the jog-trot career in which other men toil for twenty years or so,

before they attain anything like prosperity. I have studied as few men

of five-and-twenty have studied,—chemistry as well as surgery. I can

afford to wait my chances. I pick up a few pounds a week by writing for

the medical journals, and with that resource and occasional luck with

cards, I can very easily support the simple home in which my mother and

I live. In the meantime, I am free, and believe me, my dear Reginald,

there is nothing so precious as freedom.”

 

“And you will not desert me now that I am down in the world, eh, old

fellow?”

 

“No, Reginald, I will never desert you while you have the chance of

succeeding to forty thousand a year,” answered the surgeon, with a

laugh.

 

His small black eyes flashed and sparkled as he laughed. Reginald

looked at him with a sensation that was almost fear.

 

“What a fellow you are, Carrington!” he exclaimed; “you don’t pretend

even to have a heart.”

 

“A heart is a luxury which a poor man must dispense with,” answered

Victor, with perfect sang froid. “I should as soon think of setting

up a mail-phaeton and pair as of pretending to benevolent feelings or

high-flown sentiments. I have my way to make in the world, Mr.

Eversleigh, and must consider my own interests as well as those of my

friends. You see, I am no hypocrite. You needn’t be alarmed, dear boy.

I’ll help you, and you shall help me; and it shall go hard if you are

not restored to your uncle’s favour before the year is out. But you

must be patient. Our work will be slow, for we shall have to work

underground. If Sir Oswald is still in Arlington Street, I shall make

it my business to see Mr. Millard to-morrow.”

 

*

 

Sir Oswald Eversleigh had not left Arlington Street, and at dusk on the

following evening Mr. Carrington presented himself at the door of the

baronet’s mansion, and asked to see Mr. Millard, the valet.

 

Victor Carrington had never seen his friend’s kinsman; he was,

therefore, secure against all chances of recognition. He had chosen the

baronet’s dinner-hour as the time for his call, knowing that during

that hour the valet must be disengaged. He sent his card to Mr.

Millard, with a line written in pencil to request an interview on

urgent business.

 

Millard came to the hall at once to see his visitor, and ushered Mr.

Carrington into a small room that was used occasionally by the upper

servants.

 

The surgeon was skilled in every science by which a man may purchase

the hearts and minds of his fellow-men. He could read Sir Oswald

Eversleigh’s valet as he could have read an open book He saw that the

man was weak, irresolute, tolerably honest, but open to temptation. He

was a middle-aged man, with sandy hair, a pale face, and light,

greenish-gray eyes.

 

“Weak,” thought the surgeon, as he examined this man’s countenance,

“greedy, and avaricious. So, so; we can do what we like with Mr.

Millard.”

 

Victor Carrington told the valet that he was the most intimate friend

of Reginald Eversleigh, and that he made this visit entirely without

that gentleman’s knowledge. He dwelt much upon Mr. Eversleigh’s grief—

his despair.

 

“But he is very proud,” he added; “too proud to approach this