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

safe game. I’ve sworn to have my revenge, and I’ll

have it,” he muttered, shaking his brawny fist, as if some phantom

figure were standing before him in the wintry moonlight. “I can afford

to wait; I wouldn’t mind waiting years to get it; but I’ll have it, if

I grow old and gray while I’m watching and plotting for it. I’ll be

patient as Time, but I’ll have it. She has refused me a few hundreds,

has she? I’ll see her there, on the ground at my feet, grovelling like

a beaten dog, offering me half her fortune—all her fortune—her very

life itself! I’ll humble her proud spirit! I’ll bring her grandeur down

to the the dust. She won’t own me for a father, won’t she! Why, if I

choose, she shall tramp barefoot through the mud after me, singing

street-ballads in every town in England, and going round with my

battered old hat to beg for halfpence afterwards. I’ll humble her! I’ll

do it—I’ll do it—as sure as there’s a moon in the sky!”

 

CHAPTER XXIX.

 

AT WATCH.

 

Sanguine as Victor Carrington had been, confidently as he had

calculated upon the fascination which Paulina had exerted over Douglas

Dale, he was not prepared for the news contained in Miss Brewer’s

promised letter, which reached him punctually, a few hours after

Paulina had become the affianced wife of Douglas Dale. This was indeed

success beyond his hopes. He had not expected this result for some

days, at the very earliest, and the surprise and pleasure with which he

learned it were almost equal. Carrington did not believe in good; he

absolutely distrusted and despised human nature, and he never dreamed

of imputing Madame Durski’s conduct to anything but coquetry and

fickleness. “She’s on with the new love, beyond a doubt,” said he to

himself, as he read Miss Brewer’s letter; “whether she’s off with the

old is quite another question, and rests with him rather than with her,

I fancy.”

 

Victor Carrington’s first move was to present himself before Madame

Durski on the following day, at the hour at which she habitually

received visitors. He took up the confidential conversation which they

had had on the last occasion of their meeting, as if it had not been

dropped in the interval, and came at once to the subject of Douglas

Dale. This plan answered admirably; Paulina was naturally full of the

subject, and the ice of formalism had been sufficiently broken between

her and Victor Carrington, to enable her to refer to the interview

which had taken place between herself and Douglas Dale without any

impropriety. When she had done so, Carrington began to play his part.

He assured Paulina of his warm interest in her, of the influence which

he possessed over Sir Reginald Eversleigh, and the fears which he

entertained of some treacherous proceeding on Reginald’s part which

might place her in a most unpleasant position.

 

“Reginald has no real love for you,” said Carrington; “he would not

hesitate to sacrifice you to the meanest of his interests, but his

vanity and his temper are such that it is impossible to calculate upon

what sort of folly he may be guilty.”

 

Paulina Durski was a thorough woman; and, therefore, having utterly

discarded Reginald from her heart, having learned to substitute utter

contempt for love, she was not averse to receiving any information, to

learning any opinion, which tended to justify her change of feeling.

 

“What harm can he do me with Douglas?” asked Paulina, in alarm.

 

“Who can tell that, Madame Durski?” replied Carrington. “But this is

not to the purpose. I don’t pretend to be wholly disinterested in this

matter. I tell you plainly I am not so; it is very important to me that

Sir Reginald should marry a woman of fortune, and should not marry

you.”

 

“He never had any intention of marrying me,” said Paulina, hastily and

bitterly.

 

“No, I don’t believe he had; but he would have liked very well to have

compromised you in the eyes of society, so that no other man would have

married you, to have bragged of relations existing between you which

never did exist, and to have effectually ruined your fortunes in any

other direction than the gaming-table. Now this I am determined he

shall not do, and as I have more power over him than any one else, it

lies with me to prevent it. What that power springs from, or how I have

hitherto exercised it, you need not inquire, Madame Durski; I only wish

you to believe that I exercise it in this instance for your good, for

your protection.”

 

Paulina murmured some vague words of acknowledgment. He continued—

 

“If Reginald Eversleigh knows I am here, constantly cognizant of the

state of affairs, and prepared to act for your advantage, he will not

dare to come here and compromise you by his violent and unreasonable

jealousy; he will be forced—it is needless to explain how—to keep his

envy and rage to himself, and to suppress the enmity with which he

regards Douglas Dale. Let me tell you, Madame Durski, Reginald’s enmity

is no trifling rock ahead in life, and your engaged lover has that rock

to dread.”

 

Paulina turned very pale.

 

“Save him from it, Mr. Carrington,” she said, appealingly. “Save him

from it, and let me have a little happiness in this weary world, if

such a thing there be.”

 

“I will, Madame Durski,” replied Victor. “You have already done as I

have counselled you, and you have no reason to regret the result.”

 

The soft, dreamy smile of happy love stole over Paulina’s face as she

listened to him.

 

“Let me be here with you as much as possible, and you will have no

reason to fear Reginald. He is capable of anything, but he is afraid of

me, and if he knows that I am determined to advance the marriage of

yourself and Douglas Dale, he will not venture to oppose it openly. But

there is one condition which I must append to my frequent presence

here”—he spoke as though he were conferring the greatest favour on

her—“Mr. Dale must not know me as Victor Carrington.”

 

With an expression in which there was something of the suspicious

quickness which Miss Brewer had manifested when Carrington made a

similar statement to her, Paulina asked him why.

 

Then Victor told her his version of the story of Honoria Eversleigh,

the “unfortunate woman,” whom Douglas Dale’s unhappy and misguided

uncle had raised to such undoubted rank and fortune, and the wild and

absurd accusations the wretched woman had made against him.

 

“Mr. Dale never saw me,” said Victor, “and I know not whether he was

thoroughly aware of the absurdity, the insanity of this woman’s

accusations. At all events, I don’t wish to recall any unpleasantness

to his mind, and therefore I venture to propose that I should visit

here, and be introduced to him as Mr. Carton. The fraud is a very

harmless one; what do you say, Madame Durski?”

 

Paulina had her full share of the feminine love of mystery and

intrigue, and she consented at once. “What can the name matter,” she

thought, “if it is really necessary for this man to be here?”

 

“And there is another consideration which we must take into account,”

said Victor; “it is this. Mr. Dale may not like to find any man

established here, in the degree of intimacy to which (in your

interests) I aspire; and therefore I propose, with your leave, to pass

as a relation of Miss Brewer’s—say, her cousin. This will thoroughly

account for my intimacy here. What do you say, Madame Durski?”

 

“As you please,” said Paulina, carelessly. “I am sure you are right,

Mr. Carrington—Carton, I mean, and I am sure you mean kindly and well

by me. But how odd it will seem to Charlotte and me, lonely creatures,

waifs and derelicts as we have been so long, to have any one with whom

we can claim even a pretended kinship!”

 

She spoke with a mingled bitterness and levity which have been painful

to any man of right feelings, but which was pleasant to Victor

Carrington, because it showed him how helpless and ignorant she was,

how her mind had been warped, how ready a tool he had found in her.

When the interview between them came to an end, it had been arranged

that Mr. Dale was to be introduced on the following day at Hilton House

to Miss Brewer’s cousin, Mr. Carton.

 

The introduction took place. A very short time, well employed in close

observation, sufficed to assure Victor that Douglas Dale was as much in

love as any man need be to be certain of committing any number of

follies, and that Paulina was a changed woman under the influence of

the same soul-subduing sentiment which, though not so strong in her

case, was assuming strength and intensity as each day taught her more

and more of her lover’s moral and intellectual excellence. Douglas Dale

was much pleased with Mr. Carton; and that gentleman did all in his

power to render himself agreeable, and so far succeeded that, before

the close of the evening, he had made a considerable advance towards

establishing a very pleasant intimacy with Sir Reginald Eversleigh’s

cousin.

 

Victor Carrington, always an observant man, had peculiarly the air of

being on the watch that day during dinner. He noticed everything that

Paulina ate and drank, and he took equal note of Miss Brewer’s and

Douglas Dale’s choice of meats and wines. Miss Brewer drank no wine,

Paulina very little, and Douglas Dale exclusively claret. When the

dinner had reached its conclusion, a stand of liqueurs was placed upon

the table, one of the few art-treasures left to the impoverished

adventuress, rare and fragile Venetian flacons, and tiny goblets of

opal and ruby glass. These glasses were the especial admiration of

Douglas Dale, and Paulina filled the ruby goblet with cura�oa. She

touched the edge of the glass playfully with her lips as she handed it

to her lover; but Victor observed that she did not taste the liqueur.

 

“You do not affect cura�oa, madame?” he asked, carelessly.

 

“No; I never take that, or indeed, any other liqueur.”

 

“And yet you drink scarcely any wine?”

 

“No,” replied Paulina, indifferently; “I take very little wine.”

 

“Indeed!”

 

There was the faintest possible significance in Carrington’s tone as he

said this. He had watched Madame Durski closely during dinner, and he

had noted an excitement in her manner, a nervous vivacity, such as are

generally inspired by something stronger than water. And yet this woman

had taken little else than water during the dinner. And it was to be

observed that the almost febrile gaiety which distinguished her manner

this evening had been as apparent when she first entered the drawing-room as it was now. This was a physiological or psychological enigma,

extremely interesting to Mr. Carrington. He was not slow to find a

solution that was, in his opinion, sufficiently satisfactory. “That

woman takes opium in some form or other,” he said to himself.

 

Miss Brewer did not touch the liqueur in question, and her cousin took

Maraschino. After a very short interval, Douglas Dale and his new

friend rose to join the ladies. They crossed the hall together, but as

they reached the drawing-room door, Mr. Carrington discovered that he

had dropped a letter in the dining-room, and returned to find it, first

opening the drawing-room door that Dale might pass through it.

 

All was undisturbed in the dining-room; the table was just as they had

left it. Victor approached the table, took up the carafon containing

cura�oa, and, holding it up to the light with one hand,