Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [classic literature books txt] 📗

you were a fool. That was plain-spoken enough, if you like. When I saw your wife, I told you that had changed my mind, and that I thought your folly an excusable one. If ever I saw purity and truth in a woman's face, I saw them in the face of Lady Eversleigh; and I will stake my life that she is as true as steel."

Sir Oswald clasped his friend's hand, too deeply moved for words. There was unspeakable consolation in such friendship as this. For the first tame since midnight a ray of hope dawned upon him. He had always trusted in his old comrade's judgment. Might he not trust in him still?

When Captain Copplestone left him, he went to his dressing-room, and made even a more than usually careful toilet, and went to face "the world."

In the great dining-room he found all his guests assembled, and he took his seat amongst them calmly, though the sight of Honoria's empty place cut him to the heart.

Never, perhaps, was a more miserable meal eaten than that breakfast. There were long intervals of silence; and what little conversation there was appeared forced and artificial.

Perhaps the most self-possessed person--the calmest to all appearance, of the whole party--was Sir Oswald Eversleigh, so heroic an effort had he made over himself, in order to face the world proudly. He had a few words to say to every one; and was particularly courteous to the guests near him. He opened his letters with an unshaking hand. But he abstained from all allusion to his wife, or the events of the previous evening.

He had finished breakfast, and was leaving the room, when his nephew approached him--

"Can I speak to you for a few moments alone?" asked Reginald.

"Certainly. I am going to the library to write my letters. You can go with me, if you like."

They went together to the library. As Sir Oswald closed the door, and turned to face his nephew, he perceived that Reginald was deadly pale.

"What is amiss?" he asked.

"You ask me that, my dear uncle, at a time when you ought to know that my sympathy for your sorrow--"

"Reserve your sympathy until it is needed," answered the baronet, abruptly. "I dare say you mean well, my dear Reginald; but there are some subjects which I will suffer no man to approach."

"I beg your pardon, sir. Then, in that case, I can tell you nothing. I fancied that it was my duty to bring you any information that reached me; but I defer to you entirely. The subject is a most unhappy one, and I am glad to be spared the pain involved in speaking of it."

"What do you mean?" said the baronet. "If you have anything to tell me--anything that can throw light upon the mystery of my wife's flight--speak out, and speak quickly. I am almost mad, Reginald. Forgive me, if I spoke harshly just now. You are my nephew, and the mask I wear before the world may be dropped in your presence."

"I know nothing personally of Lady Eversleigh's disappearance," said Reginald; "but I have good reason to believe that Miss Graham could tell you much, if she chose to speak out. She has hinted at being in the secret, and I think it only right you should question her."

"I will question her," answered sir Oswald, starting to his feet. "Send her to me, Reginald."

Mr. Eversleigh left his uncle, and Miss Graham very speedily appeared-- looking the very image of unconscious innocence--and quite unable to imagine what "dear Sir Oswald" could want with her.

The baronet came to the point very quickly, and before Lydia had time for consideration, she had been made to give a full account of the scene which she had witnessed on the previous evening between Victor Carrington and Honoria.

Of course, Miss Graham told Sir Oswald that she had witnessed this strange scene in the most accidental manner. She had happened to be in a walk that commanded a view of the fir-grove.

"And you saw my wife agitated, clinging to that man?"

"Lady Eversleigh was terribly agitated."

"And then you saw her take her place in the gig, of her own free will?"

"I did, Sir Oswald."

"Oh, what infamy!" murmured the baronet; "what hideous infamy!"

It was to himself that he spoke rather than to Miss Graham. His eyes were fixed on vacancy, and it seemed as if he were scarcely aware of the young lady's presence.

Lydia was almost terrified by that blank, awful look. She waited for a few moments, and then, finding that Sir Oswald questioned her no further, she crept quietly from the room, glad to escape from the sorrow-stricken husband. Malicious though she was, she believed that this time she had spoken the truth.

"He has reason to repent his romantic choice," she thought as she left the library. "Perhaps now he will think that he might have done better by choosing a wife from his own set."

The day wore on; Sir Oswald remained alone in the library, seated before a table, with his arms folded, his gaze fixed on empty space--a picture of despair.

The clock had struck many times; the hot afternoon sun blazed full upon the broad Tudor windows, when the door was opened gently, and some one came into the room. Sir Oswald looked up angrily, thinking it was one of the servants who had intruded on him.

It was his wife who stood before him, dressed in the white robes she had worn at the picnic; but wan and haggard, white as the dress she wore.

"Oswald," she cried, with outstretched hands, and the look of one who did not doubt she would be welcome.

The baronet sprang to his feet, and looked at that pale face with a gaze of unspeakable indignation.

"And you dare to come back?" he exclaimed. "False-hearted adventuress-- actress--hypocrite--you dare to come to me with that lying smile upon your face--after your infamy of last night!"

"I am neither adventuress, nor hypocrite, Oswald. Oh, where have your love and confidence vanished that you can condemn me unheard? I have done no wrong--not by so much as one thought that is not full of love for you! I am the helpless victim of the vilest plot that was ever concocted for the destruction of a woman's happiness."

A mocking laugh burst from the lips of Sir Oswald.

"Oh," he cried, "so that is your story. You are the victim of a plot, are you? You were carried away by ruffians, I suppose? You did not go willingly with your paramour? Woman, you stand convicted of your treachery by the fullest evidence. You were seen to leave the Wizard's Cave! You were seen clinging to Victor Carrington--were seen to go with him, _willingly_. And then you come and tell me you are the victim of a plot! Oh, Lady Eversleigh, this is too poor a story. I should have given you credit for greater powers of invention."

"If I am guilty, why am I here?" asked Honoria.

"Shall I tell you why you are here?" cried Sir Oswald, passionately, "Look yonder, madam! look at those wide woodlands, the deer-park, the lakes and gardens; this is only one side of Raynham Castle. It was for those you returned, Lady Eversleigh, for the love of those--and those alone. Influenced by a mad and wicked passion, you fled with your lover last night; but no sooner did you remember the wealth you had lost, the position you had sacrificed, than you repented your folly. You determined to come back. Your doting husband would doubtless open his arms to receive you. A few imploring words, a tear or so, and the poor, weak dupe would be melted. This is how you argued; but you were wrong. I have been foolish. I have abandoned myself to the dream of a dotard; but the dream is past. The awakening has been rude, but it has been efficacious. I shall never dream again."

"Oswald, will you not listen to my story?"

"No, madam, I will not give you the opportunity of making me a second time your dupe. Go--go back to your lover, Victor Carrington. Your repentance comes too late. The Raynham heritage will never be yours. Go back to your lover; or, if he will not receive you, go back to the gutter from which I took you."

"Oswald!"

The cry of reproach went like a dagger to the heart of the baronet. But he steeled himself against those imploring tones. He believed that he had been wronged--that this woman was as false as she was beautiful.

"Oswald," cried Honoria, "you must and shall hear my story. I demand a hearing as a right--a right which you could not withhold from the vilest criminal, and which you shall not withhold from me, your lawfully wedded and faithful wife. You may disbelieve my story, if you please--heaven knows it seems wild and improbable!--but you shall hear it. Yes, Oswald, _you shall_!"

She stood before him, drawn to her fullest height, confronting him proudly. If this was guilt, it was, indeed, shameless guilt. Unhappily, the baronet believed in the evidence of Lydia Graham, rather than in the witness of his wife's truth. Why should Lydia have deceived him? he asked himself. What possible motive could she have for seeking to blight his wife's fair name?

Honoria told her story from first to last; she told the history of her night of anguish. She spoke with her eyes fixed on her husband's face, in which she could read the indications of his every feeling. As her story drew to a close, her own countenance grew rigid with despair, for she saw that her words had made no impression on the obdurate heart to which she appealed.

"I do not ask you if you believe me," she said, when her story was finished. "I can see that you do not. All is over between us, Sir Oswald," she added, in a tone of intense sadness--"all is over. You are right in what you said just now, cruel though your words were. You did take me from the gutter; you accepted me in ignorance of my past history; you gave your love and your name to a friendless, nameless creature; and now that circumstances conspire to condemn me, can I wonder if you, too, condemn--if you refuse to believe my declaration of my innocence? I do not wonder. I am only grieved that it should be so. I should have been so proud of your love if it could have survived this fiery ordeal--so proud! But let that pass. I would not remain an hour beneath this roof on sufferance. I am quite ready to go from this house to-day, at an hour's warning, never to re-enter it. Raynham Castle is no more to me than that desolate tower in which I spent last night-- without your love. I will leave you without one word of reproach, and you shall never hear my name, or see my face again."

She moved towards the door as she spoke. There was a quiet earnestness in her manner which might have gone far to convince Oswald Eversleigh of her truth; but his mind was too deeply imbued with a belief in her falsehood. This dignified calm, this subdued resignation, seemed to him only the consummate art of a finished actress.

"She is steeped in falsehood to the very lips," he thought. "Doubtless, the little she told me of the history of her childhood was as false as all