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

spite of your cleverness. What should you say if I were to tell you that Mr. Dale has this evening almost made me an offer of his hand?"

"You don't mean to say so?"

"I do mean to say so," answered Lydia, triumphantly. "He is one of that eccentric kind of people who have their own manner of doing things, and do not care to tread the beaten track; or it may be that it is only his reserved nature which renders him strange and awkward in his manner of avowing himself."

"Never mind how awkwardly the offer has been made, provided it is genuine," returned the practical Captain Graham. "But I don't like 'almosts.' Besides, you really must mind what you are about, Lydia; for I assure you there is no doubt at all about the fact of his engagement. He stated it himself."

"Well, and suppose he did," said Lydia, "and suppose some good-for- nothing woman, in an equivocal position, _has_ trapped him into an offer. Is he the first man who has got into a dilemma of that kind, and got out of it? He thought I cared for Lionel, and that so there was no hope for him. I can quite understand his getting himself into an entanglement of the kind, under such circumstances."

Gordon Graham smiled, a certain satirical smile, intensely irritating to his sister's temper (which she called her nerves), and which it was rather fortunate she did not see. He was perfectly alive to the omnivorous quality of his sister's vanity, and perfectly aware that it had on many occasions led her into a fool's paradise, whence she had been ejected into the waste regions of disappointment and bitterness of spirit. He had been quite willing that she should try the experiment upon Douglas Dale, to which that gentleman had just been subjected; but he had not been sanguine as to its results, and he did not implicitly confide in the very exhilarating statement now made to him by Lydia. If Douglas Dale's "almost" proposal meant nothing more than that he would be glad, or implied that he would be glad to be off with Paulina and on with Lydia, he did not think very highly of the chances of the latter. A man of the world, in the worst sense of that widely significant word, Gordon Graham was inclined to think that Douglas Dale was merely trifling with his sister, indulging in a "safe" flirtation, under the aegis of an avowed engagement. Graham felt very anxious to know the particulars of the conversation between Dale and his sister, in order to discover how far they bore out his theory; but he knew Lydia too well to place implicit reliance on any statement of them he might elicit from her.

"Well, but," said he, "supposing you are right in all this, the 'entanglement,' as you call it, exists. How did he explain, or excuse it?"

Lydia smiled, a self-satisfied, contemptuous smile. She was not jealous of Madame Durski; she despised her. "He did not excuse it; he did not explain; he knows he has no severity to fear from me. All he needs is to induce me to acknowledge my affection for him, and then he will soon rid himself of all obstacles. Don't be afraid, Gordon; this is a great falling off from the ambitions I once cherished, the hopes I once formed; this is a very different kind of thing from Sir Oswald Eversleigh and Raynham Castle, but I have made up my mind to be content with it."

Lydia spoke with a kind of virtuous resignation and resolution, infinitely assuring to her brother. But he was getting tired of the discussion, and desirous to end it. Anxious as he was to be rid of his sister, and to effect the riddance on the best possible terms, he did not mean to be bored by her just then. So he spoke to the point at once.

"That's rather a queer mode of proceeding," he said. "You are to avow your affection for this fine gentleman, and then he is to throw over another lady in order to reward your devotion. There was a day when Miss Graham's pride would have been outraged by a proposition which certainly seems rather humiliating."

Lydia flushed crimson, and looked at her brother with angry eyes. She felt the sting of his malicious speech, and knew that it was intended to wound her.

"Pride and I have long parted company," she answered, bitterly. "I have learnt to endure degradation as placidly as you do when you condescend to become the toady and flatterer of richer men than yourself."

Captain Graham did not take the trouble to resent this remark. He smiled at his sister's anger, with the air of a man who is quite indifferent to the opinion of others.

"Well, my dear Lydia," he said, good-humouredly, "all I can say is, that if you have caught the brother of your late admirer, you are very lucky. The merest schoolboy knows enough arithmetic to be aware that ten thousand a year is twice as good as five. And it certainly is not every woman's fortune to be able to recover a chance which seemed so nearly lost as yours when we left Hallgrove. By all means nail him to his proposition, and let him throw over the lovely Paulina. What a fool the man must be not to know his mind a little better!"

"Madame Durski entrapped him into the engagement," said Lydia, scornfully.

"Ah, to be sure, women have a way of laying snares of the matrimonial kind, as you and I know, my dear Lydia. And now, good night. Go and think about your trousseau in the silence of your own apartment."

Lydia Graham fell asleep that night, secure in the certainty that the end and aim of her selfish life had been at last attained, and disposed to regard the interval as very brief that must elapse before Douglas Dale would come to throw himself at her feet.

For a day or two unwonted peace and serenity were observable in Lydia Graham's demeanour and countenance. She took even more than the ordinary pains with her dress; she arranged her little drawing-room more than ever effectively and with sedulous care, and she remained at home every afternoon, in spite of fine weather and an unusual number of invitations. But Douglas Dale made no sign, he did not come, he did not write, and all his enthusiastic declarations seemed to have ended in nothing. The truth was that Paulina Durski was ill, and in his anxiety and uneasiness, Douglas forgot even the existence of Lydia Graham.

A vague alarm began to fill Lydia's mind, and she felt as if the good establishment, the liberal allowance of pin-money, the equipages, the clever French maid, the diamonds, and all the other delightful things which she had looked upon almost as already her own, were suddenly vanishing away like a dream.

Miss Graham was in no very amiable humour when, after a week's watching and suspense, she descended to the dining-room, a small and shabbily furnished apartment, which bore upon it the stamp peculiar to London lodging-houses--an aspect which is just the reverse of everything we look for in a home.

Gordon Graham was already seated at the breakfast-table.

A letter for Miss Graham lay by the side of her breakfast-cup--a bulky document, with four stamps upon the envelope.

Lydia knew the hand too well. It was that of her French milliner, Mademoiselle Susanne, to whom she owed a sum which she knew never could be paid out of her own finances. The thought of this debt had been a perpetual nightmare to her. There was no such thing as bankruptcy for a lady of fashion in those days; and it was in the power of Mademoiselle Susanna to put her high-bred creditor into a common prison, and detain her there until she had passed the ordeal of the Insolvent Debtors' Court.

Lydia opened the packet with a sinking heart. There it was, the awful bill, with its records of elegant dresses--every one of which had been worn with the hope of conquest, and all of which had, so far, failed to attain the hoped-for victory. And at the end of that long list came the fearful total--close upon three hundred pounds!

"I can never pay it!" murmured Lydia; "never! never!"

Her involuntary exclamation sounded almost like a cry of despair.

Gordon Graham looked up from the newspaper in which he had been absorbed until this moment, and stared at his sister.

"What's the matter?" he exclaimed. "Oh, I see! it's a bill--Susanne's, I suppose? Well, well, you women will make yourselves handsome at any cost, and you must pay for it sooner or later. If you can secure Douglas Dale, a cheque from him will soon settle Mademoiselle Susanne, and make her your humble slave for the future. But what has gone wrong with you, my Lydia? Your brow wears a gloomy shade this morning. Have you received no tidings of your lover?"

"Gordon," said Lydia, passionately, "do not taunt me. I don't know what to think. But I have played a desperate game--I have risked all upon the hazard of this die--and if I have failed I must submit to my fate. I can struggle no longer; I am utterly weary of a life that has brought me nothing but disappointment and defeat."

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXII.


A MEETING AND AN EXPLANATION.

For George Jernam's young wife, the days passed sadly enough in the pleasant village of Allanbay. Fair as the scene of her life was, to poor Rosamond it seemed as if the earth were overshadowed by dark clouds, through which no ray of sunlight could penetrate. The affection which had sprung up between her and Susan Jernam was deep and strong, and the only gleam of happiness which Rosamond experienced in her melancholy existence came from the affection of her husband's aunt.

If Rosamond's existence was not happy, it was, at least in all outward seeming, peaceful. But the heart of the deserted wife knew not peace. She was perpetually brooding over the strange circumstances of George's departure--perpetually asking herself why it was he had left her.

She could shape no answer to that constantly repeated question.

Had he ceased to love her? No! surely that could not be, for the change which arises in the most inconstant heart is, at least, gradual. George Jernam had changed in a day--in an hour.

Reason upon the subject as she might, the conviction at which Rosamond arrived at last was always the same. She believed that the mysterious change that had arisen in the husband she so fondly loved was a change in the mind itself--a sudden monomania, beyond the influence of the outer world--a wild hallucination of the brain, not to be cured by any ordinary physician.

Believing this, the wife's heart was tortured as she thought of the perils that surrounded her husband's life--perils that were doubly terrible for one whose mind had lost its even balance.

She watched every alteration in the atmosphere, every cloud in the sky, with unspeakable anxiety. As the autumn gave place to winter, as the winds blew loud above the broad expanse of ocean, as the foam-crests of the dark waves rose high, and gleamed white and silvery