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

and tranquil; but the tranquil

loveliness of the scene had no soothing influence on Sir Oswald. His

brain was on fire. An intense affection can scarcely exist without a

lurking tendency to jealousy. Until to-night every jealous feeling had

been lulled to rest by the confiding trust of the happy husband; but

to-night a few words—spoken in apparent carelessness—spoken by one

who could have, as Sir Oswald thought, no motive for malice—had

aroused the sleeping passion, and peace had fled from his heart.

 

As Sir Oswald passed the window by which he had left Lydia Graham, he

heard that young lady talking to some one.

 

“It is positively disgraceful,” she said; “her flirtation with that Mr.

Carrington is really too obvious, though Sir Oswald is so blind as not

to perceive it. I thought they were cousins until to-night. Imagine my

surprise when I found that they were not even distantly related; that

they have actually only known each other for a fortnight. The woman

must be a shameless flirt, and the man is evidently an adventurer.”

 

The poisoned arrow shot to its mark. Sir Oswald believed that these

words had never been intended to reach his ears. He did not for a

moment suspect that Lydia Graham had recognized his approaching figure

on the moonlit terrace, and had uttered these words to her friend on

purpose that they should reach his ears.

 

How should a true-hearted man suspect a woman’s malice? How should he

fathom the black depths of wickedness to which a really false and

heartless woman can descend?

 

He did not know that Lydia Graham had ever hoped to be mistress of his

home. He did not know that she was inspired by fury against himself—by

passionate envy of his wife. To him her words seemed only the careless

slander of society, and experience had shown him that in such slanders

there lurked generally some leaven of truth.

 

“I will not doubt her,” he thought, as he walked onward in the

moonlight, too proud and too honourable to linger in order to hear

anything more that Miss Graham might have to say. “I will not doubt the

wife I love so fondly, because idle tongues are already busy with her

fair fame. Already! We have not been married two months, and already

evil tongues drop the poison of doubt into my ear. It seems too cruel!

But I will watch her with this man. Her ignorance of the world may have

caused her to be more familiar with him than the rigid usages of

society would permit. And yet she is generally so dignified, so

reserved—apt to err on the side of coldness rather than of warmth. I

must watch!—I must watch!”

 

Never before had Sir Oswald known the anguish of distrust. But his was

an impulsive nature, easily swayed by the force of any absorbing

passion. Blindly, unquestionably, as he had abandoned himself to his

love for Honoria Milford, so now he abandoned himself to the jealous

doubts inspired by a malicious woman’s lying tongue.

 

That night his slumbers were broken and feverish. The next day he set

himself to watch his wife and Victor Carrington.

 

The mind, imbued with suspicion, contemplates everything in a distorted

light. Victor Carrington was especially attentive to the mistress of

the castle. It was not that he talked to her, or usurped more of her

society than his position warranted; but he devoted himself to her

service with a slavish watchfulness which was foreign to the manner of

an ordinary guest.

 

Wherever Lady Eversleigh went, Carrington’s eyes followed her; every

wish of hers seemed to be divined by him. If she lingered for a few

moments by an open window, Mr. Carrington was at hand with her shawl.

If she was reading, and the leaves of her book required to be cut open,

the surgeon had procured her a paper-knife before she could suffer

inconvenience or delay. If she went to the piano, he was at the

instrument before her, ready to adjust her chair, to arrange her music.

In another man these attentions might have appeared very common-place,

but so quiet of foot, so subdued of voice, was Victor Carrington, that

there seemed something stealthy, something secret in his devotion;

something which had no right to exist. One long day of patient

watchfulness revealed all this to Sir Oswald Eversleigh; and with the

revelation came a new and terrible agony.

 

How far was his wife to blame for all that was exceptional in the

surgeon’s manner? Was she aware of his devotion? Did she encourage this

silent and stealthy worship? She did not, at any rate, discourage it,

since she permitted it.

 

The baronet wondered whether Victor Carrington’s manner impressed

others as it impressed himself. One person had, he knew, been

scandalized by the surgeon’s devotion to Lady Eversleigh; and had

spoken of it in the plainest terms. But did other eyes see as Lydia

Graham and he himself had seen?

 

He determined on questioning his nephew as to the character of the

gentlemanly and accomplished surgeon, whom an impulse of kindness had

prompted him to welcome under his roof—an impulse which he now

bitterly regretted.

 

“Your friend, Mr. Carrington, is very attentive to Lady Eversleigh,”

said Sir Oswald to Reginald, with a pitiable attempt at indifference of

manner; “is he generally so devoted in his attention to ladies?”

 

“On the contrary, my dear uncle,” answered Reginald, with an appearance

of carelessness which was as well assumed as that of his kinsman was

awkward and constrained; “Victor Carrington generally entertains the

most profound contempt for the fair sex. He is devoted to the science

of chemistry, you know, and in London passes the best part of his life

in his laboratory. But then Lady Eversleigh is such a superior person—

it is no wonder he admires her.”

 

“He admires her very much, then?”

 

“Amazingly—if I can judge by what he said when first he became

acquainted with her. He has grown more reserved lately.”

 

“Oh, indeed. He has grown more reserved lately, has he?” asked the

baronet, whose suspicions were fed by every word his nephew uttered.

 

“Yes. I suppose he thinks I might take objection to his enthusiastic

admiration of Lady Eversleigh. Very absurd of him, is it not? For, of

course, my dear uncle, you cannot feel otherwise than proud when you

see your beautiful young wife surrounded by worshippers; and one

devotee more or less at the shrine can make little difference.”

 

These words, carelessly spoken, galled Sir Oswald to the quick; but he

tried to conceal his pain, and parted from his nephew with affected

gaiety of spirit.

 

Alone in his own study, he pondered long and moodily over the events of

the day. He shrank from the society of his wife. Her tender words

irritated him; he began to think those soft and loving accents were

false. More than once he answered Honoria’s anxious questions as to the

cause of his gloom with a harshness that terrified her. She saw that

her husband was changed, and knew not whence the change arose. And this

vagrant’s nature was a proud one. Her own manner changed to the man who

had elevated her from the very mire to a position of splendour and

honour. She, too, became reserved, and a cruel breach yawned between

the husband and wife who, a few short days before, had been so happily

united.

 

Truly, Victor Carrington’s schemes prospered. Reginald Eversleigh

looked on in silent wonder—too base to oppose himself to the foul plot

which was being concocted under his eyes. Whatever the schemer bade him

do, he did without shame or scruple. Before him glittered the dazzling

vision of future fortune.

 

A week elapsed—a weary week for Sir Oswald Eversleigh, for every day

and every hour seemed to widen the gulf between himself and his wife.

Conscious of her innocence of the smallest offence against the man she

truly and honestly loved, Honoria was too proud to sue for an

explanation of that mysterious change which had banished all happiness

and peace from her breast. More than once she had asked the cause of

her husband’s gloom of manner; more than once she had been coldly,

almost rudely, repulsed. She sought, therefore, to question him no

further; but held herself aloof from him with proud reserve. The cruel

estrangement cost her dear; but she waited for Sir Oswald to break the

ice—she waited for him to explain the meaning of his altered conduct.

 

In the meantime, she performed all her duties as mistress of the

mansion with the same calm grace which had distinguished her from the

first hour of her elevation to her new position. But the struggle was a

painful one, and left its traces on her beautiful face. Sir Oswald

perceived the change in that lovely countenance, and his jealousy

distorted this change into a damning evidence against her.

 

“This man’s devotion has touched her heart,” he thought. “It is of him

she is thinking when she is silent and pensive. She loves me no longer.

Fool that I am, she never loved me! She saw in me a dupe ready to lift

her from obscurity into the place she longed to occupy; and now that

place is hers, she need no longer care to blindfold the eyes of her

dupe; she may please herself, and enjoy the attentions of more

agreeable adorers.”

 

Then, in the next moment, remorse took possession of the baronet’s

heart, and for awhile he fancied that he had wronged his wife.

 

“Is she to blame because this man loves her?” he asked himself. “She

may not even be aware of his love, though my watchful eyes have

penetrated the secret. Oh, if I could only take her away from Raynham

without delay—this very moment—or if I could clear the castle of all

this frivolous, selfish, heartless gang—what happiness it would be!

But I can do neither. I have invited these people, and I must play my

part to the end. Even this Victor Carrington I dare not send out of my

house; for, in so doing, I should confirm the suspicions of Lydia

Graham, and all who think like her.”

 

Thus mused Sir Oswald as he paced the broad terrace-walk alone, while

his guests were enjoying themselves in different parts of the castle

and grounds; and while Lady Eversleigh spent the summer afternoon in

her own apartments, brooding sadly on her husband’s unkindness.

 

There was one person to whom, in any ordinary trouble of mind, Sir

Oswald Eversleigh would have most certainly turned for consolation; and

that person was his old and tried friend, Captain Copplestone. But the

jealous doubts which racked his brain were not to be revealed, even to

this faithful friend. There was bitter humiliation in the thought of

opening those bleeding wounds which had so newly lacerated his heart.

 

If Captain Copplestone had been near his friend in the hour of his

trouble, he might, perhaps, have wrung the baronet’s secret from him in

some unguarded moment; but within the last week the Captain had been

confined to his own apartments by a violent attack of gout; and except

a brief daily visit of inquiry, Sir Oswald had seen nothing of him.

 

He was very carefully tended, however, in his hours of suffering. Even

her own anxiety of mind did not render Lady Eversleigh forgetful of her

husband’s invalid friend. Every day, and many times a day, the Captain

received some new evidence of her thoughtful care. It pleased her to do

this—apart from her natural inclination to be kind to the suffering

and friendless; for the soldier was her husband’s valued friend, and in

testifying her respect for him, it seemed to her as if she