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

I left the boarding-school to go on the Continent, where

I was to fill a situation which had been procured for me. That

situation was in the household of Paulina Durski’s father. Paulina was

ten years of age, and I was appointed as her governess and companion.

From that day to this, I have never left her. As much as I am capable

of loving any one, I love her. But my mind has been embittered by the

miseries of my girlhood, and I do not pretend to be capable of much

womanly feeling.”

 

“I thank you for your candour,” said Victor. “It is of importance for

me to understand your position, for, by so doing, I shall be the better

able to assist you. I may believe, then, that there is only one person

in the world for whom you care, and that person is Paulina Durski?”

 

“You may believe that.”

 

“And I may also believe that you, who have drained to the dregs the

bitter cup of poverty, would do much, and risk much, in order to be

rich?”

 

“You may.”

 

“Then, Miss Brewer, let me speak to you openly, as one sincerely

interested in you, and desirous of serving you and your charming but

infatuated friend. May I hope that we shall be uninterrupted for some

time longer, for I am anxious to explain myself at once, and fully, now

that the opportunity has arisen?”

 

“No one is likely to enter this room, unless summoned by me,” said Miss

Brewer. “You may speak freely, and at any length you please, Mr.

Carrington; but I warn you, you are speaking to a person who has no

faith in any profession of disinterested regard.”

 

As she spoke, Miss Brewer leaned back in her chair, folded her hands

before her, and assumed an utterly impassible expression of

countenance. No less promising recipient of a confidential scheme could

have been seen: but Victor Carrington was not in the least discouraged.

He replied, in a cheerful, deferential, and yet business-like tone:

 

“I am quite aware of that, Miss Brewer; and for my part, I should not

feel the respect I do feel for you if I believed you so deficient in

sense and experience as to take any other view. I don’t offer myself to

you in the absurd disguise of a preux chevalier, anxious to espouse

the unprofitable cause of two unprotected women in an equivocal

position, and in circumstances rapidly tending to desperation.”

 

Here Victor Carrington glanced at his companion; he wanted to see if

the shot had told. But Miss Brewer cared no more for the almost open

insult, than she had cared for the implied interest conveyed in the

exordium of his discourse. She sat silent and motionless. He continued:

 

“I have an object to gain, which I am resolved to achieve. Two ways to

the attainment of this object are open to me; the one injurious, in

fact destructive, to you and Madame Durski, the other eminently

beneficial. I am interested in you. I particularly like Madame Durski,

though I am not one of the legion of her professed admirers.”

 

Miss Brewer shook her head sadly. That legion was much reduced in its

numbers of late.

 

“Therefore,” continued Carrington, without seeming to observe the

gesture, “I prefer to adopt the latter course, and further your

interests in securing my own. I suppose you can at least understand and

credit such very plain motives, so very plainly expressed, Miss

Brewer?”

 

“Yes,” she said, “that may be true; it does not seem unlikely; we shall

see.”

 

“You certainly shall. My explanation will not, I hope, be unduly

tedious, but it is indispensable that it should be full. You know, Miss

Brewer, that Sir Reginald Eversleigh and I are intimate friends?”

 

Miss Brewer smiled—a pale, prolonged, unpleasant smile, and then

replied, speaking very deliberately:

 

“I know nothing of the kind, Mr. Carrington. I know you are much

together, and have an air of familiar acquaintance, which is the true

interpretation of friendship, I take it, between men of the world—of

your world in particular.”

 

The hard and determined expression of her manner would have discouraged

and deterred most men. It did not discourage or deter Victor

Carrington.

 

“Put what interpretation you please upon my words,” he said, “but

recognize the facts. There is a strict alliance, if you prefer that

phrase, between me and Sir Reginald Eversleigh, and his present

intimacy, with his seeming devotion to Madame Durski, prevents him from

carrying out the terms of that alliance to my satisfaction. I am

therefore resolved to break off that intimacy. Do you comprehend me so

far?”

 

“Yes, I comprehend you so far,” answered Miss Brewer, “perfectly.”

 

“Considering Madame Durski’s feelings for Sir Reginald—feelings of

which, I assure you, I consider him, even according to my own

unpretending standard, entirely unworthy—this intimacy cannot be

broken off without pain to her, but it might be destroyed without any

profit, nay, with ruinous loss. Now, I cannot spare her the pain; that

is necessary, indispensable, both for her good, and—which I don’t

pretend not to regard more urgently—my own. But I can make the pain

eminently profitable to her, with your assistance—in fact, so

profitable as to secure the peace and prosperity of her whole future

life.”

 

He paused, and Miss Brewer looked steadily at him, but she did not

speak.

 

“Reginald Eversleigh owes me money, Miss Brewer, and I cannot afford to

allow him to remain in my debt. I don’t mean that he has borrowed money

from me, for I never had any to lend, and, having any, should never

have lent it.” He saw how the tone he was taking suited the woman’s

perverted mind, and pursued it. “But I have done him certain services

for which he undertook to pay me money, and I want money. He has none,

and the only means by which he can procure it is a rich marriage. Such

a marriage is within his reach; one of the richest heiresses in London

would have him for the asking—she is an ironmonger’s daughter, and

pines to be My Lady—but he hesitates, and loses his time in visits to

Madame Durski, which are only doing them both harm. Doing her harm,

because they are deceiving her, encouraging a delusion; and doing him

harm, because they are wasting his time, and incurring the risk of his

being ‘blown upon’ to the ironmonger. Vulgar people of the kind, you

know, my dear Miss Brewer, give ugly names, and attach undue importance

to intimacies of this kind, and—and—in short, it is on the cards that

Madame Durski may spoil Sir Reginald’s game. Well, as that game is also

mine, you will find no difficulty in understanding that I do not intend

Madame Durski shall spoil it.”

 

“Yes, I understand that,” said Miss Brewer, as plainly as before; “but

I don’t understand how Paulina is to be served in the affair, and I

don’t understand what my part is to be in it.”

 

“I am coming to that,” he said. “You cannot be unaware of the

impression which Madame Durski has made upon Sir Reginald’s cousin,

Douglas Dale.”

 

“I know he did admire her,” said Miss Brewer, “but he has not been here

since his brother’s death. He is a rich man now.”

 

“Yes, he is—but that will make no change in him in certain respects.

Douglas Dale is a fool, and will always remain so. Madame Durski has

completely captivated him, and I am perfectly certain he would marry

her to-morrow, if she could be brought to consent.”

 

“A striking proof that Mr. Douglas Dale deserves the character you have

given him, you would say, Mr. Carrington?”

 

“Madam, I am at the mercy of your perspicuity,” said Victor, with a

mock bow; “however, a truce to badinage—Douglas Dale is a rich man,

and very much in love with Madame Durski; but he is the last man in the

world to interfere with his cousin, by trying to win her affections, if

he believes her attached to Sir Reginald. He is a fool in some things,

as I have said before, and he is much more likely, if he thinks it a

case of mutual desperation, to contribute a thousand a year or so to

set the couple up in a modest competence, like a princely proprietor in

a play, than to advance his own claims. Now, this modest competence

business would not suit Sir Reginald, or Madame Durski, or me, but the

other arrangement would be a capital thing for us all.”

 

“H—m, you see she really loves your friend, Sir Reginald,” said Miss

Brewer.

 

“Tush,” ejaculated Victor Carrington, contemptuously; “of course I know

she does, but what does it matter? She would be the most wretched of

women if Reginald married her, and he won’t,—after all, that’s the

great point, he won’t. Now Dale will, and will give her unlimited

control of his money—a very nice position, not so elevated as to

ensure an undesirable raking-up of her antecedents, and the means of

proving her gratitude to you, by providing for you comfortably for

life.”

 

“That is all possible,” replied Miss Brewer, as calmly as before; “but

what am I to do towards bringing about so desirable a state of

affairs.”

 

“You have to use the influence which your position aupr�s de Madame

Durski gives you. You can keep her situation constantly before her, you

can perpetually harp upon its exigencies—they are pressing, are they

not? Yes—then make them more pressing. Expose her to the constant

worry and annoyance of poverty, make no effort to hide the

inconvenience of ruin. She is a bad manager, of course—all women of

her sort are bad managers. Don’t help her—make the very worst of

everything. Then, you can take every opportunity of pointing out

Reginald’s neglect, all his defalcations, the cruelty of his conduct to

her, the evidence of his never intending to marry her, the selfishness

which makes him indifferent to her troubles, and unwilling to help her.

Work on pride, on pique, on jealousy, on the love of comfort and

luxury, and the horror of poverty and privation, which are always

powerful in the minds of women like Madame Durski. Don’t talk much to

her at first about Douglas Dale, especially until he has come to town

and has resumed his visiting here; but take care that her difficulties

press heavily upon her, and that she is kept in mind that help or hope

from Reginald there is none. I have no doubt whatever that Dale will

propose to her, if he does not see her infatuation for Reginald.”

 

“But suppose Mr. Dale does not come here at all?” asked Miss Brewer;

“he has broken through the habit now, and he may have thought it over,

and determined to keep away.”

 

“Suppose a moth flies away from a candle, Miss Brewer,” returned

Carrington, “and makes a refreshing excursion out of window into the

cool evening air! May we not calculate with tolerable certainty on his

return, and his incremation? The last thing in all this matter I should

think of doubting would be the readiness of Douglas Dale to tumble

head-foremost into any net we please to spread for him.”

 

A short pause ensued—interrupted by Miss Brewer, who said, “I suppose

this must all be done quickly—on account of that wealthy Philistine,

the ironmonger?”

 

“On account of my happening to want money very badly, Miss Brewer, and

Madame Durski finding herself in the same position. The more quickly

the better for all parties. And now, I have spoken very plainly to you

so far, let me speak still more plainly. It is manifestly for your

advantage that Madame