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

>“When do they meet next?”

 

“The day arter to-morrow—Boxing-day, sir. They’re to meet in the field

by Hallgrove Ferry, a mile and a quarter beyond the rectory, at ten

o’clock in the morning. It’s to be a reg’lar grand day’s sport, I’ve

heard say. Our rector is to ride a new horse, wot’s been given to him

by his brother.”

 

“Indeed!”

 

“Yes, sir; I war down at the rectory stables yesterday arternoon, and

see the animal—a splendid bay, rising sixteen hands.”

 

Carrington turned his horse’s head in the direction of Hallgrove

Rectory. He knew enough of the character of Lionel Dale to be aware

that no opposition would be made to his loitering about the premises.

He rode boldly up to the door, and asked for the rector. He was out,

the servant said, but would the gentleman walk in and wait, or would he

leave his name. Mr. Dale would be in soon; he had gone out with Captain

and Miss Graham. Victor Carrington smiled involuntarily as he heard

mention made of Lydia. “So you are here, too,” he thought; “it is just

as well you should not see me on this occasion, as I am not helping

your game now, as I did in the case of Sir Oswald, but spoiling it.”

 

No, the stranger gentleman thanked the man; he would not wait to see

Mr. Dale (he had carefully ascertained that he was out before riding up

to the house); but if the servant would show him the way, he would be

glad, to get out on the lower road; he understood the rectory grounds

opened upon it, at a little distance from the house. Certainly the man

could show him—nothing easier, if the gentleman would take the path to

the left, and the turn by the shrubbery, he would pass by the stables,

and the lower road lay straight before him. Victor Carrington complied

with these directions, but his after-conduct did not bear out the

impression of his being in a hurry, which his words and manner had

conveyed to the footman. It was at least an hour after he had held the

above-mentioned colloquy, when Victor Carrington, having made himself

thoroughly acquainted with the topography of the rector’s premises,

issued from a side-gate, and took the lower road, leading back to

Frimley.

 

Then he went straight to the stable-yard, saw Mr. Spavin’s groom, and

dismissed him.

 

“I shall take the ‘Buffalo’ down to my friend’s place this afternoon,”

he said to Hawkins. “Here’s your money, and you can get back to London

as soon as you like. I think my friend will be very well pleased with

his bargain.”

 

“Ay, ay,” said Mr. Hawkins, whose repeated potations of execrable

brandy had rendered him tolerably indifferent to all that passed around

him, and who was actuated by no other feeling than a lively desire to

obtain, the future favours of a liberal employer; “he’s got to take

care of hisself, and we’ve got to take care of ourselves, and that’s

all about it.”

 

And then Mr. Hawkins, with something additional to the stipulated

reward in his pocket, and a pint bottle of his favourite stimulant to

refresh him on the way, took himself off, and Carrington saw no more of

him. The people about the inn saw very little of Carrington, but it was

with some surprise that the ostler received his directions to saddle

the horse which stood in the stable, just when the last gleam of the

short winter’s daylight was dying out on Christmas-day. Carrington had

not stirred beyond the precincts of the inn all the morning and

afternoon. The strange visitor was all uninfluenced either by the

devotional or the festive aspects of the season. He was quite alone,

and as he sat in his cheerless little bedroom at the small country inn,

and brooded, now over a pocket volume, thickly noted in his small, neat

handwriting, now over the plans which were so near their

accomplishment, he exulted in that solitude—he gave loose to the

cynicism which was the chief characteristic of his mind. He cursed the

folly of the idiots for whom Christmas-time had any special meaning,

and secretly worshipped his own idols—money and power.

 

The horse was brought to him, and Carrington mounted him without any

difficulty, and rode away in the gathering gloom. “Wild Buffalo” gave

him no trouble, and he began to feel some misgivings as to the truth of

the exceedingly bad character he had received with the animal.

Supposing he should not be the unmanageable devil he was

represented,—supposing all his schemes came to grief, what then? Why,

then, there were other ways of getting rid of Lionel Dale, and he

should only be the poorer by the purchase of a horse. On the other

hand, “Wild Buffalo,” plodding along a heavy country road, almost in

the dark, and after the probably not too honestly dispensed feeding of

a village inn, which Carrington had not personally superintended, was

no doubt a very different animal to what he might be expected to prove

himself in the hunting-field. Pondering upon these probabilities,

Victor Carrington rode slowly on towards Hallgrove. He had taken

accurate observations; he had nicely calculated time and place. All the

servants, tenants, and villagers were gathered together under Lionel

Dale’s hospitable roof. To the feasting had succeeded games and

story-telling, and the absorbing gossip of such a reunion. That which

Victor Carrington had come to do, he did successfully; and when he

returned to his inn, and gave over his horse to the care of the ostler,

no one but he, not even the man who was there listening to every word

spoken among the servants at the rectory, and eagerly scanning every

face there, knew that “Niagara” was in the inn-stable, and “Wild

Buffalo” in the stall at Hallgrove.

 

*

 

CHAPTER XXII.

 

ARCH-TRAITOR WITHIN, ARCH-PLOTTER WITHOUT.

 

The guests at Hallgrove Rectory this Christmas-time were Douglas Dale,

Sir Reginald Eversleigh, a lady and gentleman called Mordaunt, and

their two pretty, fair-faced daughters, and two other old friends of

the rector’s, one of whom is very familiar to us.

 

Those two were Gordon Graham and his sister Lydia—the woman whose

envious hatred had aided in that vile scheme by which Sir Oswald

Eversleigh’s happiness had been suddenly blighted. The Dales and Gordon

Graham had been intimate from boyhood, when they had been school-fellows at Eton. Since Sir Oswald’s death had enriched the two

brothers, Gordon Graham had taken care that his acquaintance with them

should not be allowed to lapse, but should rather be strengthened. It

was by means of his manoeuvring that the invitation for Christmas had

been given, and that he and his sister were comfortable domiciled for

the winter season beneath the rector’s hospitably roof.

 

Gordon Graham had been very anxious to secure this invitation. Every

day that passed made him more and more anxious that his sister should

make a good marriage. Her thirtieth birthday was alarmingly near at

hand. Careful as she was of her good looks, the day must soon come when

her beauty would fade, and she would find herself among the ranks of

confirmed old maids.

 

If Gordon Graham found her a burden now, how much greater burden would

she be to him then! As the cruel years stole by, and brought her no

triumph, no success, her temper grew more imperious, while the quarrels

which marred the harmony of the brother and sister’s affection became

more frequent and more violent.

 

Beyond this one all-sufficient reason, Gordon Graham had his own

selfish motives for seeking to secure his sister a rich husband. The

purse of a wealthy brother-in-law must, of course, be always more or

less open to himself; and he was not the man to refrain from obtaining

all he could from such a source.

 

In Lionel Dale he saw a man who would be the easy victim of a woman’s

fascinations, the generous dupe of an adventurer. Lionel Dale was,

therefore, the prize which Lydia should try to win.

 

The brother and sister were in the habit of talking to each other very

plainly.

 

“Now, Lydia,” said the captain, after he had read Lionel Dale’s letter

for the young lady’s benefit, “it will be your fault if you do not come

back from Hallgrove the affianced wife of this man. There was a time

when you might have tried for heavier stakes; but at thirty, a husband

with five thousand a year is not to be sneezed at.”

 

“You need not be so fond of reminding me of my age,” Lydia returned

with a look of anger. “You seem to forget that you are five years my

senior.”

 

“I forget nothing, my dear girl. But there is no parallel between your

case and mine. For a man, age is nothing—for a woman, everything; and

I regret to be obliged to remember that you are approaching your

thirtieth birthday. Fortunately, you don’t look more than seven-and-twenty; and I really think, if you play your cards well, you may secure

this country rector. A country rector is not much for a woman who has

set her cap at a duke, but he is better than nothing; and as the case

is really growing rather desperate, you must play your cards with

unusual discrimination this time, Lydia. You must, upon my word.”

 

“I am tired of playing my cards,” answered Miss Graham, contemptuously.

“It seems as if life was always to be a losing game for me, let me play

my cards how I will. I begin to think there is a curse upon me, and

that no act of mine will ever prosper. Who was that man, in your Greek

play, who guessed some inane conundrum, and was always getting into

trouble afterwards? I begin to think there really is a fatality in

these things.”

 

She turned away from her brother impatiently, and seated herself at her

piano. She played a few bars of a waltz with a listless air, while the

captain lighted a cigar, and stepped out upon the little balcony,

overhanging the dull, foggy street.

 

The brother and sister occupied lodgings in one of the narrow streets

of Mayfair. The apartments were small, shabbily furnished,

inconvenient, and expensive; but the situation was irreproachable, and

the haughty Lydia could only exist in an irreproachable situation.

 

Captain Graham finished his cigar, and went out to his club, leaving

his sister alone, discontented, gloomy, sullen, to get through the day

as best she might.

 

The time had been when the prospect of a visit to Hallgrove Rectory

would have seemed very pleasant to her. But that time was gone. The

haughty spirit was soured by disappointment, the selfish nature

embittered by defeat.

 

There was a glass over the mantel-piece. Lydia leaned her arms upon the

marble slab, and contemplated the dark face in the mirror.

 

It was a handsome face: but a cloud of sullen pride obscured its

beauty.

 

“I shall never prosper,” she said, as she looked at herself. “There is

some mysterious ban upon me, and on my beauty. All my life I have been

passed by for the sake of women in every attribute my inferiors. If I

was unloved in the freshness of my youth and beauty, how can I expect

to be loved now, when youth is past and beauty is on the wane? And yet

my brother expects me to go through the old stage-play, in the futile

hope of winning a rich husband!”

 

She shrugged her shoulders with a contemptuous gesture, and turned away

from the glass. But, although she affected to despise her brother’s

schemes, she was not slow to lend herself to them. She went out that

morning, and walked