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

poured the

contents of a small phial into it with the other. He watched the one

liquid mingling with the other until no further traces of the operation

were visible; and then setting the carafon softly down where he had

found it, went smiling across the hall and joined the ladies.

 

CHAPTER XXX.

 

FOUND WANTING.

 

Reginald Eversleigh was in complete ignorance of Victor Carrington’s

proceedings, when he received the letter summoning him to an interview

with his friend at a stated time. Carrington’s estimate of Reginald’s

character was quite correct. All this time his vanity had been chafing

under Paulina’s silence and apparent oblivion of him.

 

He had not received any letter from Paulina, fond as she had been of

writing to him long, half-despairing letters, full of complaint against

destiny, and breathing in every line that hopeless love which the

beautiful Austrian woman had so long wasted on the egotist and coward,

whose baseness she had half suspected even while she still clung to

him.

 

Sir Reginald had been in the habit of receiving these letters as coolly

as if they had been but the fitting tribute to his transcendant merits.

 

“Poor Paulina!” he murmured sometimes, as he folded the perfumed pages,

after running his eyes carelessly over their contents; “poor Paulina!

how devotedly she loves me. And what a pity she hasn’t a penny she can

call her own. If she were a great heiress, now, what could be more

delightful than this devotion? But, under existing circumstances, it is

nothing but an embarrassment—a bore. Unfortunately, I cannot be brutal

enough to tell her this plainly: and so matters go on. And I fear, in

spite of all my hints, she may believe in the possibility of my

ultimately making a sacrifice of my prospects For her sake.”

 

This was how Reginald Eversleigh felt, while Paulina was scattering at

his feet the treasures of a disinterested affection.

 

He had been vain and selfish from boyhood, and his vices grew stronger

with increasing years. His nature was hardened, and not chastened, by

the trials and disappointments which had befallen him.

 

In the hour of his poverty and degradation it had been a triumph for

him to win the devotion of a woman whom many men—men better than

himself—had loved in vain.

 

It was a rich tribute to the graces of him who had once been the

irresistible Reginald Eversleigh, the favourite of fashionable drawing-rooms.

 

Thus it was that, when Paulina’s letters suddenly ceased, Sir Reginald

was at once mortified and indignant. He had made up his mind to obey

Victor’s suggestion, or rather, command, by abstaining from either

visiting or writing to Paulina; but he had not been prepared for a

similar line of proceeding on her part, and it hurt his vanity much.

She had ceased to write. Could she have ceased to care for him? Could

any one else, richer—more disinterested—have usurped his place in her

heart?

 

The baronet remembered what Victor Carrington had said about Douglas

Dale; but he could not for one moment believe that his cousin—a man

whom he considered infinitely beneath him—had the power to win Paulina

Durski’s affection.

 

“She may perhaps encourage him,” he said to himself, “especially now

that his income is doubled. She might even accept him as a husband—

women are so mercenary. But her heart will never cease to be mine.”

 

Sir Reginald waited a week, a fortnight, but there came no letter from

Paulina. He called on Carrington, according to appointment, but his

friend had changed his mind, or his tactics, and gave him no

explanation.

 

Victor had been a daily visitor at Hilton House during the week which

had intervened since the day he had dined there and been introduced to

Douglas Dale. His observation had enabled him to decide upon

accelerating the progress of his designs. The hold which Paulina had

obtained upon Douglas Dale’s affection was secure; he had proposed to

her much sooner than Victor had anticipated; the perfect understanding

and confidence subsisting between them rendered the cautious game which

he had intended to play unnecessary, and he did not now care how soon a

final rupture between Paulina and Reginald should take place. Indeed,

for two of his purposes—the establishment of an avowed quarrel between

Douglas Dale and his cousin, Sir Reginald, and the infliction of ever-growing injury on Paulina’s reputation,—the sooner such a rupture

could be brought about the better. Therefore Victor Carrington assumed

a tone of reserve and mystery, which did not fail to exasperate Sir

Reginald.

 

“Do not question me, Reginald,” he said. “You are afflicted with a lack

of moral courage, and your want of nerve would only enfeeble my hand.

Know nothing—expect nothing. Those who are at work for you know how to

do their work quietly. Oh, by the way, I want you to sign a little

document—very much the style of thing you gave me at Raynham Castle.”

 

Nothing could be more careless than the Frenchman’s tone and manner as

he said this; but the document in question was a deed of gift, by which

Reginald Eversleigh bestowed upon Victor Carrington the clear half of

whatever income should arise to him, from real or personal property,

from the date of the first day of June following.

 

“I am to give you half my income?”

 

“Yes, my dear Reginald, after the first of next June. You know that I

am working laboriously to bring about good fortune for you. You cannot

suppose that I am working for nothing. If you do not choose to sign

this document, neither do I choose to devote myself any longer to your

interest.”

 

“And what if you fail?”

 

“If I fail, the document in question is so much waste paper, since you

have no income at present, nor are likely to have any income between

this and next June, unless by my agency.”

 

The result was the same as usual. Reginald signed the deed, without

even taking the trouble to study its full bearing.

 

“Have you seen Paulina lately?” he asked, afterwards.

 

“Not very lately.”

 

“I don’t know what’s amiss with her,” exclaimed Reginald, peevishly;

“she has not written to me to ask explanation of my absence and

silence.”

 

“Perhaps she grew tired of writing to a person who valued her letters

so lightly.”

 

“I was glad enough to hear from her,” answered Reginald; “but I could

not be expected to find time to answer all her letters. Women have

nothing better to do than to scribble long epistles.”

 

“Perhaps Madame Durski has found some one who will take the trouble to

answer her letters,” said Victor.

 

After this, the two men parted, and Reginald Eversleigh called a cab,

in which he drove down to Hilton House.

 

He might have stayed away much longer, in self-interested obedience to

Carrington, had he been sure of Paulina’s unabated devotion; but he was

piqued by her silence, and he wanted to discover whether there was a

rival in the field.

 

He knew Madame Durski’s habits, and that it was not till late in the

afternoon that she was to be seen.

 

It was nearly six o’clock when he drove up to the door of Hilton House.

Carlo Toas admitted him, and favoured him with a searching and somewhat

severe scrutiny, as he led the way to the drawing-room in which Paulina

was wont to receive her guests.

 

Here Sir Reginald felt some little surprise, and a touch of

mortification, on beholding the aspect of things. He had expected to

find Paulina pensive, unhappy, perhaps ill. He had expected to see her

agitated at his coming. He had pondered much upon the cessation of her

letters; and he had told himself that she had ceased to write because

she was angry with him—with that anger which exists only where there

is love.

 

To his surprise, he found her brilliant, radiant, dressed in her most

charming style.

 

Never had he seen her looking more beautiful or more happy.

 

He pressed the widow’s hand tenderly, and contemplated her for some

moments in silence.

 

“My dear Paulina,” he said at last, “I never saw you looking more

lovely than to-night. And yet to-night I almost feared to find you

ill.”

 

“Indeed; and why so?” she asked. Her tone was the ordinary tone of

society, from which it was impossible to draw any inference.

 

“Because it is so long since I heard from you.”

 

“I have grown tired of writing letters that were rarely honoured by

your notice.”

 

“So, so,” thought the baronet; “I was right. She is offended.”

 

“To what do I owe this visit?” asked Madame Durski.

 

“She is desperately angry,” thought the baronet. “My dear Paulina,” he

said, aloud, “can you imagine that your letters were indifferent to me?

I have been busy, and, as you know, I have been away from London.”

 

“Yes,” she said; “you spent your Christmas very agreeably, I believe.”

 

“Not at all, I assure you. A bachelors’ party in a country parsonage is

one of the dullest things possible, to say nothing of the tragical

event which ended my visit,” added Reginald, his cheek paling as he

spoke.

 

“A bachelors’ party!” repeated Paulina; “there were no ladies, then, at

your cousin’s house?”

 

“None.”

 

“Indeed!”

 

Paulina Durski’s lip curled contemptuously, but she did not openly

convict Sir Reginald of the deliberate falsehood he had uttered.

 

“I am very glad you have come to me,” she said, presently, “because I

have urgent need of your help.”

 

“My dear Paulina, believe me—” began the baronet

 

“Do not make your protest till you have heard what I have to ask,” said

Madame Durski. “You know how troublesome my creditors had become before

Christmas. The time has arrived when they must be paid, or when I—”

 

She stopped, and looked searchingly at the face of her companion.

 

“When you—what?” he asked. “What is the alternative, Paulina?”

 

“I think you ought to know as well as I,” she answered. “I must either

pay those debts or fly from this place, and from this country,

disgraced. I appeal to you in this bitter hour of need. Can you not

help me—you, who have professed to love me?”

 

“Surely, Paulina, you cannot doubt my love,” replied Sir Reginald;

“unhappily, there is no magical process by which the truest and purest

love can transform itself into money. I have not a twenty-pound note in

the world.”

 

“Indeed; and the four hundred and fifty pounds you won from Lord

Caversham just before Christmas—is that money gone?”

 

“Every shilling of it,” answered Reginald, coolly.

 

He had notes to the amount of nearly two hundred pounds in his desk;

but he was the last man in Christendom to sacrifice money which he

himself required, and his luxurious habits kept him always deeply in

debt.

 

“You must have disposed of it very speedily. Surely, it is not all

gone, Reginald. I think a hundred would satisfy my creditors, for a

time at least.”

 

“I tell you it is gone, Paulina. I gave you a considerable sum at the

time I won the money—you should remember.”

 

“Yes, I remember perfectly. You gave me fifty pounds—fifty pounds for

the support of the house which enabled you to entrap your dupes, while

I was the bait to lure them to their ruin. Oh, you have been very

generous, very noble; and now that your dupes are tired of being

cheated—now that your cat’s paw has become useless to you—I am to

leave the country, because you will not sacrifice one selfish desire to

save me from disgrace.”

 

“This is absurd, Paulina,” exclaimed the