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

will not be called upon to leave her own apartments; and very

few outside the castle, or, indeed, within it, need be aware of her

arrest. I think I will wait upon her myself, and explain the painful

necessity.”

 

“Yes, and be duped by her plausible tongue,” cried Reginald bitterly.”

She completely bewitched my poor uncle. Do you know that he picked her

up out of the gutter, and knew no more of her past life than he knew of

the inhabitants of the other planets? If you see her, she will fool you

as she fooled him.”

 

“I am not afraid of her witcheries,” answered the magistrate, with

dignity. “I shall do my duty, Sir Reginald, you may depend upon it.”

 

Reginald Eversleigh said no more. He left the library without uttering

a word to any of the gentlemen. The despair which had seized upon him

was too terrible for words. Alone, locked in his own room, he gnashed

his teeth in agony.

 

“Fools! dolts! idiots that we have been, with all our deeply-laid plots

and subtle scheming,” he cried, as he paced up and down the room in a

paroxysm of mad rage, “She triumphs in spite of us—she can laugh us to

scorn! And Victor Carrington, the man whose intellect was to conquer

impossibilities, what a shallow fool he has shown himself, after all! I

thought there was something superhuman in his success, so strangely did

fate seem to favour his scheming; and now, at the last—when the cup

was at my lips—it is snatched away, and dashed to the ground!”

 

*

 

CHAPTER XII.

 

A FRIEND IN NEED.

 

While the new baronet abandoned himself to the anguish of disappointed

avarice and ambition, Honoria sat quietly in her own apartments,

brooding very sadly over her husband’s death.

 

She had loved him honestly and truly. No younger lover had ever won

possession of her heart. Her life, before her meeting with Sir Oswald,

had been too miserable for the indulgence of the romantic dreams or

poetic fancies of girlhood. The youthful feelings of this woman, who

called herself Honoria, had been withered by the blasting influence of

crime. It was only when gratitude for Sir Oswald’s goodness melted the

ice of that proud nature—it was then only that Honoria’s womanly

tenderness awoke—it was then only that affection—a deep-felt and pure

affection—for the first time occupied her heart.

 

That affection was all the more intense in its nature because it was

the first love of a noble heart. Honoria had reverenced in her husband

all that she had ever known of manly virtue.

 

And he was lost to her! He had died believing her false.

 

“I could have borne anything but that,” she thought, in her desolation.

 

The magistrate came to her, and explained the painful necessity under

which he found himself placed. But he did not tell her of the

destruction of the will, nor yet that the medical men had pronounced

decisively as to Sir Oswald’s death. He only told her that there were

suspicious circumstances connected with that death; and that it was

considered necessary there should he a careful investigation of those

circumstances.

 

“The investigation cannot be too complete,” replied Honoria, eagerly.

“I know that there has been foul play, and that the best and noblest of

men has fallen a victim to the hand of an assassin. Oh, sir, if you are

able to distinguish truth from falsehood, I implore you to listen to

the story which my poor husband refused to believe—the story of the

basest treachery that was ever plotted against a helpless woman!”

 

Mr. Ashburne declared himself willing to hear any statement Lady

Eversleigh might wish to make; but he warned her that it was just

possible that statement might be used against her hereafter.

 

Honoria told him the circumstances which she had related to Sir Oswald;

the false alarm about her husband, the drive to Yarborough Tower, and

the night of agony spent within the ruins; but, to her horror, she

perceived that this man also disbelieved her. The story seemed wild and

improbable, and people had already condemned her. They were prepared to

hear a fabrication from her lips; and the truth which she had to tell

seemed the most clumsy and shallow of inventions.

 

Gilbert Ashburne did not tell her that he doubted her; but, polite as

his words were, she could read the indications of distrust in his face.

She could see that he thought worse of her after having heard the

statement which was her sole justification.

 

“And where is this Mr. Carrington now to be found?” he asked,

presently. “I do not know. Having accomplished his base plot, and

caused his friend’s restoration to the estates, I suppose he has taken

care to go far away from the scene of his infamy.”

 

The magistrate looked searchingly at her face. Was this acting, or was

she ignorant of the destruction of the will? Did she, indeed, believe

that the estates were lost to herself?

 

*

 

Before the hour at which the coroner’s inquest was to be held in the

great dining-room, Reginald Eversleigh and Victor Carrington met at the

appointed spot in the avenue of firs.

 

One glance at his friend’s face informed Victor that some fatal event

had occurred since the previous day. Reginald told him, in brief,

passionate words, of the destruction of the will.

 

“You are a clever schemer, no doubt, Mr. Carrington,” he added,

bitterly; “but clever as you are, you have been outwitted as completely

as the veriest fool that ever blundered into ruin. Do you understand,

Carrington—we are not richer by one halfpenny for all your scheming?”

 

Carrington was silent for awhile; but when, after a considerable pause,

he at length spoke, his voice betrayed a despair as intense in its

quiet depth as the louder passion of his companion.

 

“I cannot believe it,” he exclaimed, in a hoarse whisper. “I tell you,

man, you must, have made some senseless mistake. The will cannot have

been destroyed.”

 

“I had the fragments in my hand,” answered Reginald. “I saw my name

written on the worthless scrap of burnt paper. All that was left

besides that wretched fragment were the ashes in the grate.”

 

“I saw the will executed—I saw it—within a few hours of Sir Oswald’s

death.”

 

“You saw it done?”

 

“Yes, I was outside the window of the library.”

 

“And you—! oh, it is too horrible,” cried Reginald.

 

“What is too horrible?”

 

“The deed that was done that night.”

 

“That deed is no business of ours,” answered Victor; “the person who

destroyed the will was your uncle’s assassin, if he died by the hand of

an assassin.”

 

“Do you really believe that, Carrington; or are you only fooling me?”

 

“What else should I believe?”

 

The two men parted. Reginald Eversleigh knew that his presence would be

required at the coroner’s inquest. The surgeon did not attempt to

detain him.

 

For the time, at least, this arch-plotter found himself suddenly

brought to a stand-still.

 

The inquest commenced almost immediately after Reginald’s return to the

castle.

 

The first witness examined was the valet, who had been the person to

discover the death; the next were the two medical men, whose evidence

was of a most important nature.

 

It was a closed court, and no one was admitted who was not required to

give evidence. Lady Eversleigh sat at the opposite end of the table to

that occupied by the coroner. She had declined to avail herself of the

services of any legal adviser. She had declared her determination to

trust in her own innocence, and in that alone. Proud, calm, and self-possessed, she confronted the solemn assembly, and did not shrink from

the scrutinizing looks that met her eyes in every direction.

 

Reginald Eversleigh contemplated her with a feeling of murderous

hatred, as he took his place at some little distance from her seat.

 

The evidence of Mr. Missenden was to the effect that Sir Oswald

Eversleigh had died from the effects of a subtle and little-known

poison. He had discovered traces of this poison in the empty glass

which had been found upon the table beside the dead man, and he had

discovered further traces of the same poison in the stomach of the

deceased.

 

After the medical witnesses had both been examined, Peterson, the

butler, was sworn. He related the facts connected with the execution of

the will, and further stated that it was he who had carried the carafe

of water, claret-jug, and the empty glass to Sir Oswald.

 

“Did you fetch the water yourself?” asked the coroner.

 

“Yes, your worship—Sir Oswald was very particular about the water

being iced—I took it from a filter in my own charge.”

 

“And the glass?”

 

“I took the glass from my own pantry.”

 

“Are you sure that there was nothing in the glass when you took the

salver to you master?”

 

“Quite sure, sir. I’m very particular about having all my glass bright

and clear—it’s the under butler’s duty to see to that, and it’s my

duty to keep him up to his work. I should have seen in a moment if the

glass had been dull and smudgy at the bottom.”

 

The water remaining in the carafe had been examined by the medical

witnesses, and had been declared by them to be perfectly pure. The

claret had been untouched. The poison could, therefore, have only been

introduced to the baronet’s room in the glass; and the butler protested

that no one but himself and his assistant had access to the place in

which the glass had been kept.

 

How, then, could the baronet have been poisoned, except by his own

hand?

 

Reginald Eversleigh was one of the last witnesses examined. He told of

the interview between himself and his uncle, on the day preceding Sir

Oswald’s death. He told of Lydia Graham’s revelations—he told

everything calculated to bring disgrace upon the woman who sat, pale

and silent, confronting her fate.

 

She seemed unmoved by these scandalous revelations. She had passed

through such bitter agony within the last few days and nights, that it

seemed to her as if nothing could have power to move her more.

 

She had endured the shame of her husband’s distrust. The man she loved

so dearly had cast her from him with disdain and aversion. What new

agony could await her equal to that through which she had passed.

 

Reginald Eversleigh’s hatred and rage betrayed him into passing the

limits of prudence. He told the story of the destroyed will, and boldly

accused Lady Eversleigh of having destroyed it.

 

“You forget yourself, Sir Reginald,” said the coroner; “you are here as

a witness, and not as an accuser.”

 

“But am I to keep silence, when I know that yonder woman is guilty of a

crime by which I am robbed of my heritage?” cried the young man,

passionately. “Who but she was interested in the destruction of that

will? Who had so strong a motive for wishing my uncle’s death? Why was

she hiding in the castle after her pretended departure, except for some

guilty purpose? She left her own apartments before dusk, after writing

a farewell letter to her husband. Where was she, and what was she

doing, after leaving those apartments?”

 

“Let me answer those questions, Sir Reginald Eversleigh,” said a voice

from the doorway.

 

The young baronet turned and recognized the speaker. It was his uncle’s

old friend, Captain Copplestone, who had made his way into the room

unheard while Reginald had been