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

for me?” asked Paulina. “It has never

yet shaped itself in words. A woman’s own instinct generally tells her

when she is truly loved; but how came you, a bystander, a mere looker-on, to discover Douglas Dale’s secret?”

 

“Simply because I am a man of the world, and somewhat of an observer,

and I will pledge my reputation as both upon the issue of your

interview with Douglas Dale.”

 

“So be it,” said Paulina; “I will appeal to him. It is a new

degradation; but what has my whole life been except a series of

humiliations? And now, Mr. Carrington, this interview has been very

painful to me. Pardon me, if I ask you to leave me to myself.”

 

Victor complied immediately, and took leave of Madame Durski with many

apologies for his intrusion. Before leaving the house he encountered

Miss Brewer, who came out of a small sitting-room as he entered the

hall.

 

“You are going away, Mr. Carrington?” she asked.

 

“Yes,” he answered; “but I shall call again in a day or two. Meantime,

let me hear from you, if Dale presents himself here. I have had some

talk with your friend, and am surprised at the ease with which the work

we have to do may be done. She despises Reginald now; she won’t love

him long. Good night, Miss Brewer.”

 

CHAPTER XXVI.

 

MOVE THE FIRST.

 

After the lapse of a few days, during which Victor Carrington carefully

matured his plans, while apparently only pursuing his ordinary

business, and leading his ordinary life of dutiful attention to his

mother and quiet domestic routine, he received a letter in a

handwriting which was unfamiliar to him. It contained the following

words:

 

“_In accordance with your desire, and my promise, I write to inform you

that, D. D. has notified his return to London and his intention to

visit P. He did not know whether she was in town, and, therefore, wrote

before coming. She seemed much affected by his letter, and has replied

to it, appointing Wednesday afternoon for receiving him, and inviting

him to luncheon. No communication has been received from R. E., and she

takes the fact easily. If you have any advice, or I suppose I should

say instructions, to give me, you had better come here to-morrow

(Tuesday), when I can see you alone.—C. B._”

 

Victor Carrington read this note with a smile of satisfaction, which

faithfully interpreted the feelings it produced. There was a business-like tone in his correspondent’s letter which exactly suited his ideas

of what it was advisable his agent should be.

 

“She is really admirable,” he said, as he destroyed Miss Brewer’s note;

“just clever enough to be useful, just shrewd enough to understand the

precise force and weight of an argument, but not clever enough, or

shrewd enough, to find out that she is used for any purpose but the one

for which she has bargained.”

 

And then Victor Carrington wrote a few lines to Miss Brewer, in which

he thanked her for her note, and prepared her to receive a visit from

him on the following day. This written and posted, he walked up and

down his laboratory, in deep thought for some time, and then once more

seated himself at his desk. This time his communication was addressed

to Sir Reginald Eversleigh, and merely consisted of a request that that

gentleman should call upon him—Victor Carrington—on a certain day, at

a week’s distance from the present date.

 

“I shall have more trouble with this shallow fool than with all the

rest of them,” said Victor to himself, as he sealed his letter; and,

as he said it, he permitted his countenance to assume a very unusual

expression of vexation; “his vanity will make him kick against letting

Paulina turn him off; and he will run the risk of destroying the game

sooner than suffer that mortification. But I will take care he shall

suffer it, and not destroy the game.

 

“No, no, Sir Reginald Eversleigh, you shall not be my stumbling-block

in this instance. How horribly afraid he is of me,” thought Victor

Carrington, and a smile of cruel satisfaction, which might have become

a demon, lighted his pale face at the reflection; “he is dying to know

exactly how that business of Dale the elder was managed; he has the

haziest notions in connection with it, and, by Jove, he dare not ask

me. And yet, I am only his agent,—his to be paid agent,—and he

shakes in his shoes before me. Yes, and I will be paid too, richly

paid, Sir Reginald, not only in money, but in power. In power—the best

and most enjoyable thing that money has to buy.”

 

Victor Carrington sent his letter to the post, and joined his mother in

her sitting-room, where her life passed placidly away, among her birds

and her flowers. Mrs. Carrington had none of the vivacity about her

which is so general an attribute of French women. She liked her quiet

life, and had little sympathy with her son’s restless ambition and

devouring discontent. A cold, silent, self-contained woman, she shut

herself up in her own occupations, and cared for nothing beyond them.

She had the French national taste and talent for needlework, and

generally listened to her son, as he talked or read to her, with a

piece of elaborate embroidery in her hand. On the present occasion, she

was engaged as usual, and Victor looked at her work and praised it,

according to his custom.

 

“What is it for, mother?” he asked.

 

“An altar-cloth,” she replied. “I cannot give money, you know, Victor,

and so I am glad to give my work.”

 

The young man’s dark eyes flashed, as he replied;—

 

“True, mother, but the time will come—it is not far off now—when you

and I shall both be set free from poverty, when we shall once more take

our place in our own rank—when we shall be what the Champfontaines

were, and do as the Champfontaines did—when this hateful English name

shall be thrown aside, and this squalid English home abandoned, and the

past restored to us, we to the past.” He rose as he spoke, and walked

about the room. A faint flush brightened his sallow face, an unwonted

light glittered in his deep-set eyes. His mother continued to ply her

needle, with downcast eyes, and a face which showed no sign of sympathy

with her son’s enthusiasm.

 

“Industry and talent are good, my Victor,” she said, “and they bring

comfort, they bring le bien�tre in their train; but I do not think

all the industry and talent you can display as a surgeon in London will

ever enable you to restore the dignity and emulate the wealth of the

old Champfontaines.”

 

Victor Carrington glanced at his mother almost angrily, and for an

instant felt the impulse rise within him which prompted him to tell her

that it was not only by the employment of means so tame and common-place that he designed to realize the cherished vision of his ambition.

But he checked it instantly, and only said, with the reverential

inflection which his voice never failed to take when he addressed his

mother, “What, then, would you advise me to try, in addition?”

 

“Marry a rich woman, my Victor; marry one of these moneyed English

girls, who are, for the most part, permitted to follow their

inclinations—inclinations which would surely, if encouraged, lead many

of them your way.” Mrs. Carrington spoke in the calmest tone possible.

 

“Marry—I marry?” said Victor, in a tone of surprise, in which a quick

ear would have noticed something also of disappointment. “I thought you

would never like that, mother. It would part us, you know, and then

what would you do?”

 

“There is always the convent for me, Victor,” said his mother, “if you

no longer needed me.” And she composedly threaded her needle, and began

a very minute leaf in the pattern of her embroidery.

 

Victor Carrington looked at his mother with surprise, and some vague

sense of pain. She could make up her mind to part with him—she had

thought of the possibility, and with complacence. He muttered something

about having something to do, and left her, strangely moved, while she

calmly worked in at her embroidery.

 

CHAPTER XXVII.

 

“WEAVE THE WARP, AND WEAVE THE WOOF.”

 

On the following day Victor Carrington presented himself at Hilton

House, and was received by Miss Brewer alone. She was pale, chilly, and

ungracious, as usual, and the understanding which had been arrived at

between Carrington and herself did not move her to the manifestation of

the smallest additional cordiality in her reception of him.

 

“I have to thank you for your prompt compliance with my request, Miss

Brewer,” said Victor.

 

She made no sound nor sign of encouragement, and he continued. “Since I

saw you, another complication has arisen in this matter, which makes

our game doubly safe and secure. In order to explain this complication

thoroughly, I must ask you to let me put you through a kind of

catechism. Have I your permission, Miss Brewer?”

 

“You may ask me any questions you please,” returned Miss Brewer, in a

hard, cold, even voice; “and I will answer them as truthfully as I

can.”

 

“Do you know anything of Douglas Dale’s family connections and

antecedents?”

 

“I know that his mother was Sir Oswald Eversleigh’s sister, and that he

and Lionel Dale, who was drowned on St. Stephen’s day, were left large

incomes by their uncle, in addition to some inconsiderable family

property which they inherited from their father, Mr. Melville Dale, who

was a lawyer, and, I believe, a not very successful one.”

 

“Did you ever hear anything of the family history of this Mr. Melville

Dale, the father of Lionel and Douglas?”

 

“I never heard more than his name, and the circumstance I have already

mentioned.”

 

“Listen, then. Melville Dale had a sister, towards whom their father

conceived undue and unjust partiality (according to the popular

version) from their earliest childhood. This sister, Henrietta Dale,

married, when very young, a country baronet of good fortune, one Sir

George Verner, and thereby still further pleased her father, and

secured his favour. Melville Dale, on the contrary, opposed the old

gentleman in everything, and ultimately crowned the edifice of his

offences by publishing a deistical treatise, which made a considerable

sensation at the time of its appearance, and caused the author’s

expulsion from Balliol, where he had already attained a bad eminence by

numerous escapades of the Shelley order. This proceeding so incensed

his father that he made a will, in the heat of his anger, by which he

disinherited Melville Dale, and left the whole of his fortune to his

daughter, Lady Verner. If he repented this summary and vindictive

proceeding, neither I nor any one else can tell. The disinherited son

reformed his life very soon after the breach between himself and his

father, and was lucky enough to win the affections of Sir Oswald

Eversleigh’s sister. But he was too proud to ask for his father’s

forgiveness, and the father died a year after Douglas Dale’s birth—

never having seen Mrs. Dale or his grandchildren. At the time of her

father’s death, Lady Verner had no children, and she was, I believe,

disposed to treat her brother very generously; but he was an obstinate,

headstrong man, and persisted in believing that she had purposely done

him injury with his father. He would not see her. He refused to accept

any favour at her hands, and a complete estrangement took place. The

brother and sister never met again; and it was only through the medium

of the newspapers that Lionel and Douglas