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

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 _auprès 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 Durski should be rich and respectable, rather than that she should be poor and--under a cloud. It is no less manifestly, though not so largely, for your advantage, that I should get my money from Reginald Eversleigh, because, when I do, get it, I will hand you five hundred pounds by way of bonus."

"If there were any means by which you could be legally bound to the fulfilment of that promise, Mr. Carrington," said Miss Brewer, "I should request you to put it in writing. But I am quite aware that no such means exist. I accept it, therefore, with moderate confidence, and will adopt the course you have sketched, not because I look for the punctual payment of the money, but because Paulina's good fortune, if secured, will secure mine. But I must add," and here Miss Brewer sat upright in her chair, and a faint colour came into her sallow cheek, "I should not have anything to do with your plots and plans, if I did not believe, and see, that this one is for Paulina's real good."

Victor Carrington smiled, as he thought, "Here is a rare sample of human nature. Here is this woman, quite pleased with herself, and positively looking almost dignified, because she has succeeded in persuading herself that she is actuated by a good motive."

The conversation between Miss Brewer and Victor Carrington lasted for some time longer, and then he was left alone, while Miss Brewer went to attend the _levée_ of Madame Durski. As he paced the room, Carrington smiled again, and muttered, "If Dale were only here, and she could be persuaded to borrow money of him, all would be right. So far, all is going well, and I have taken the right course. My motto is the motto of Danton--'_De l'audace, de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace_.'"

* * * * *


Victor Carrington dined with Madame Durski and her companion. The meal was served with elegance, but the stamp of poverty was too plainly impressed upon all things at Hilton House. The dinner served with such ceremony was but a scanty banquet--the wines were poor--and Victor perceived that, in place of the old silver which he had seen on a previous occasion, Madame Durski's table was furnished with the most worthless plated ware.

Paulina herself looked pale and haggard. She had the weary air of a woman who finds life a burden almost too heavy for endurance.

"I have consented to see you this evening, Mr. Carrington, in accordance with your very pressing message," she said, when she found herself alone in the drawing-room with Victor Carrington after dinner, Miss Brewer having discreetly retired; "but I cannot imagine what business you can have with me."

"Do not question my motives too closely, Madame Durski," said Victor; "there are some secrets lying deep at the root of every man's existence. Believe me, when I assure you that I take a real interest in your welfare, and that I came here to-night in the hope of serving