Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  “You are a fool, Reginald Eversleigh,” cried Victor contemptuously; “you ought to know me better than to fear my discretion. Douglas Dale loves Paulina Durski, and is the very man to sacrifice all worldly interests for her sake; the man to marry her, even were she more unworthy of his love than she is. But he never will marry her, notwithstanding.”

  “How will you prevent such a marriage?”

  “That is my secret. Depend upon it I will prevent it. You remember our compact the night we met at Frimley.”

  “I do,” answered Reginald, in a voice that was scarcely above a whisper.

  “Very well; I will be true to my part of that compact, depend upon it.

  Before this new-born year is out you shall be a rich man.”

  “I have need of wealth, Victor,” replied the baronet, eagerly; “I have bitter need of it. There are men who can endure poverty; but I am not one of them. If my position does not change speedily I may find myself branded with the stigma of dishonour — an outlaw from society. I must be rich at any cost — at any cost, Victor.”

  “You have told me that before,” answered the Frenchman, coolly, “and I have promised that you shall be rich. But if I am to keep my promise, you must submit yourself with unquestioning faith to my guidance. If the path we must tread together is a dark one, tread it blindly. The end will be success. And now tell me when you expect to see Douglas Dale in London.”

  Sir Reginald explained his cousin’s plans, and after a brief conversation left the cottage. He heard Mrs. Carrington’s birds twittering in the cold January sunshine, and a passing glimpse through the open doorway of the drawing-room revealed to him the exquisite neatness and purity of the apartment, which even at this season was adorned with a few flowers.

  “Strange!” he thought to himself, as he left the house; “any stranger entering that abode would imagine it the very shrine of domestic peace and simple happiness, and yet it is inhabited by a fiend.”

  He went back to town. He dined alone in his dingy lodging, scarcely daring to show himself at his club — Lord Caversham had spoken so plainly; and had, no doubt, spoken to others still more plainly. Reginald Eversleigh’s face grew hot with shame as he remembered the insults he had been obliged to endure with pretended unconsciousness.

  He feared to encounter other men who also had been losers at Hilton House, and who might speak as significantly as the viscount had spoken. This man, who violated the laws of heaven and earth with little terror of the Divine vengeance, feared above all to be cut by the men of his set.

  This is the slavery which the man of fashion creates for himself — these are the fetters which such men as Reginald Eversleigh forge for their own souls.

  But before we trace the progress of Sir Reginald from step to step in this terrible career, we must once more revert to the strange visitors at Frimley.

  Jane Payland by no means approved of passing Christmas-day in the uninteresting seclusion of a country inn, with nothing more festive to look forward to than a specially ordered, but lonely dinner, and nothing to divert her thoughts but the rural spectacle afforded by the inn-yard. As to going out for a walk in such weather, she would not have thought of such a thing, even if she had any one to walk out with; and to go alone — no — Jane Payland had no fancy for amusement of that order. The day had been particularly dreary to the lady’s maid, because the lady had been busily engaged in affairs of which she had no cognizance, and this ignorance, not a little exasperating even in town, became well-nigh intolerable to her in the weariness, the idleness, and the dullness of Frimley. When Lady Eversleigh went out in the dark evening, accompanied by the mysterious personage in whom Jane Payland had recognized their fellow-lodger, the amazement which she experienced produced an agreeable variety in her sensations, and the fact that the man with the vulture-like beak carried a carpet-bag intensified her surprise.

  “Now I’m almost sure she is something to him; and she has come down here with him to see her people,” said Jane Payland to herself, as she sat desolately by the fire in her mistress’s room, a well-thumbed novel lying neglected on her knee; “and she’s mean enough to be ashamed of them. Well, I don’t think I should be that of my own flesh and blood, if I was ever so great and so grand. I suppose the bag is full of presents — I’m sure she might have told me if it was clothes she was going to give away; I shouldn’t have grudged ’em to the poor things.”

  Grumbling a good deal, wondering more, and feasting a little, Jane Payland got through the time until her mistress returned. But for all her grumbling, and all her suspicion, the girl was daily growing more and more attached to her mistress, and her respect was increasing with her liking. Lady Eversleigh returned to the inn alone late on that dismal Christmas-night, and she looked worn, troubled, and weary. After a few kind words to Jane Payland, she dismissed the girl, and went to bed, very tired and heart-sick. “How am I to prove it?” she asked herself, as she lay wearily awake. “How am I to prove it? in my borrowed character I am suspected; in my own, I should not be believed, or even listened to for a moment. He is a good man, that Lionel Dale, and he is doomed, I fear.”

  On the morning of the twenty-sixth Mr. Andrew Larkspur had another long private conference with Lady Eversleigh, the immediate result of which was his setting out, mounted on the stout pony which we have seen in difficulties in a previous chapter, and vainly endeavouring to come up with Lionel Dale at the hunt. When Mr. Andrew Larkspur arrived at the melancholy conviction that his errand was a useless one, and that he must only return to Frimley, and concert with Lady Eversleigh a new plan of action, he also became aware that he was more hurt and shaken by his fall than he had at first supposed. When he reached Frimley he felt exceedingly sick and weak, (“queer,” he expressed it), and was constrained to tell his anxious and unhappy client that he must go away and rest if he hoped to be fit for anything in the evening, or on the next day. “I will see Mr. Dale to-night, if he and I are both alive,” said Mr. Larkspur; “but if he was there before me I could not say a word to him now. I don’t mean to say I have not had a hurt or two in the course of my life before now, but I never was so regularly dead-beat; and that’s the truth.”

  Thus it happened that the acute Mr. Larkspur was hors de combat just at the time when his acuteness would have found most employment, and thus Lady Eversleigh’s project of vengeance received, unconsciously, the first check. The game of reprisals was, indeed, destined to be played, but not by her; Providence would do that, in time, in the long run. Meanwhile, she strove, after her own fashion, to become the executor of its decrees.

  The news of Lionel Dale’s sudden disappearance, and the alarm to which it gave rise, reached the little town of Frimley in due course; but it was slow to reach the lonely lady at the inn. Lady Eversleigh had taken counsel with herself after Mr. Larkspur had left her, and had come to the determination that she would tell Lionel Dale the whole truth. She resolved to lay before him a full statement of all the circumstances of her life, to reveal all she knew, and all she suspected concerning Sir Reginald Eversleigh, and to tell him of Carrington’s presence in her neighbourhood, as well as the designs which she believed him to cherish. She told herself that her dead husband’s kinsman could scarcely refuse to believe her statement, when she reminded him that she had no object to serve in this revelation but the object of truth and respect for her husband’s memory. When he, Lionel Dale, could have rehabilitated her in public opinion by taking his place beside her, he had not done so; it was too late now, no advance on his part could undo that which had been done, and he could not therefore think that in taking this step she was trying to curry favour with him in order to further her own interest. After debating the question for some time, she resolved to write a letter, which Larkspur could carry to the rectory.

  A great deal of time was consumed by Lady Eversleigh in writing this letter, and the darkness had fallen long before it was finished. When she rang for lights, she took no notice of the person who brought them, and she dir
ected that her dinner should not be served until she rang for it. Thus no interruption of her task occurred, until Mr. Larkspur, looking very little the better for his rest and refreshment, presented himself before her. Lady Eversleigh was just beginning to tell him what she had done, when he interrupted her, by saying, in a tone which would have astonished any of his intimates, for there was a touch of real feeling in it, apart from considerations of business —

  “I’m afraid we’re too late. I’m very much afraid Carrington has been one too many for us, and has done the trick.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Lady Eversleigh, rising, in extreme agitation, and turning deadly pale. “Has any harm come to Lionel Dale?”

  Then Mr. Andrew Larkspur told Lady Eversleigh the report which had reached the town, and of whose truth a secret instinct assured them both, only too completely. They were, indeed, powerless now; the enemy had been too strong, too subtle, and too quick for them. Mr. Larkspur did not remain long with Lady Eversleigh; but having counselled her to keep silence on the subject, to ask no questions of any one, and to preserve the letter she had written, which Mr. Larkspur, for reasons of his own, was anxious to see, he left her, and set off for the rectory. He reached his destination before the return of the party who had gone to search for the missing man. He mingled freely, almost unnoticed, with the servants and the villagers who had crowded about the house and lodges, and all he heard confirmed him in his belief that the worst had happened, that Lionel Dale had, indeed, come by his death, either through the successful contrivance of Carrington, or by an extraordinary accident, coincident with his enemy’s fell designs. Mr. Larkspur asked a great many questions of several persons that night, and as talking to a stranger helped the watchers and loiterers over some of the time they had to drag through until the genuine apprehension of some, and the curiosity of others, should be realized or satisfied, he met with no rebuffs. But, on the other hand, neither did he obtain any information of value. No stranger had been seen to join the hunt that day, or noticed lurking about Hallgrove that morning, and Mr. Larkspur’s own reliable eyes had assured him that Carrington was not among the recipients of the rector’s hospitality on Christmas-day. The footman, who had directed the unknown visitor by the way past the stables to the lower road, did not remember that circumstance and so it did not come to Mr. Larkspur’s knowledge. When the party who had led the search for Lionel Dale returned to the rectory, and the worst was known, Mr. Larkspur went away, after having arranged with a small boy, who did odd jobs for the gardener at Hallgrove, that if the body was brought home in the morning, he should go over to Frimley, on consideration of half-a-crown, and inquire at the inn for Mr. Bennett.

  “It’s no good thinking about what’s to be done, till the body’s found, and the inquest settled,” thought Mr. Larkspur. “I don’t think anything can be done then, but it’s clear there’s no use in thinking about it to-night. So I shall just tell my lady so, and get to bed. Confound that pony!”

  At a reasonably early hour on the following morning, the juvenile messenger arrived from Hallgrove, and, on inquiring for Mr. Bennett, was ushered into the presence of Mr. Larkspur. The intelligence he brought was brief, but important. The rector’s body had been found, much disfigured; he had struck against a tree, the doctors said, in falling into the river, and been killed by the blow, “as well as drownded,” added the boy, with some appreciation of the additional piquancy of the circumstance. He was laid out in the library. The fine folks were gone, or going, except Squire Mordaunt and Sir Reginald, the rector’s cousin. Mr. Douglas took on about it dreadfully; the bay horse had come home, with his saddle wet, but he was not hurt or cut about, as the boy knew of. This was all the boy had to tell.

  Mr. Larkspur dismissed the messenger, having faithfully paid him the stipulated half-crown, and immediately sought the presence of Lady Eversleigh. The realization of all her fears shocked her deeply, and in the solemnity of the dread event which had occurred she almost lost sight of her own purpose, it seemed swallowed up in a calamity so appalling. But Mr. Larkspur was of a tougher and more practical temperament. He lost no time in setting before his client the state of the case as regarded herself, and the purpose with which she had gone to Frimley, now rendered futile. Mr. Larkspur entertained no doubt that Carrington had been in some way accessory to the death of Lionel Dale, but circumstances had so favoured the criminal that it would be impossible to prove his crime.

  “If I told you all I know about the horse and about the man,” said Mr. Larkspur, “what good would it do? The man bought a horse very like Mr. Dale’s, and he rode away from here mounted on that horse, on the same day that Mr. Dale was drowned. I believe he changed the horses in Mr. Dale’s stable; but there’s not a tittle of proof of it, and how he contrived the thing I cannot undertake to say, for no mortal saw him at the rectory or at the meet; and the horse that every one would be prepared to swear was the horse that Mr. Dale rode, is safe at home at the rectory now, having evidently been in the river. Seeing we can’t prove the matter, it’s my opinion we’d better not meddle with it, more particularly as nothing that we can prove will do Sir Reginald Eversleigh any harm, and, if either of this precious pair of rascals is to escape, you don’t want it to be him.”

  “Oh, no, no!” said Lady Eversleigh, “he is so much worse than the other as his added cowardice makes him.”

  “Just so. Well, then, if you want to punish him and his agent, this is certainly not the opportunity. Next to winning, there’s nothing like thoroughly understanding and acknowledging what you’ve lost, and we have lost this game, beyond all question. Let us see, now, if we cannot win the next. If I understand the business right, Mr. Douglas Dale is his brother’s heir?”

  “Yes,” said Lady Eversleigh; “his life only now stands between Sir

  Reginald and fortune.”

  “Then he will take that life by Carrington’s agency, as I believe he has taken Lionel Dale’s,” said Mr. Larkspur; “and my idea is that the proper way to prevent him is to go away from this place, where no good is to be done, and where any movement will only defeat our purpose, by putting him on his guard — letting him know he is watched (forewarned, forearmed, you know) — and set ourselves to watch Carrington in London.”

  “Why in London? How do you know he’s there?”

  Mr. Larkspur smiled.

  “Lord bless your innocence!” he replied. “How do I know it? Why, ain’t London the natural place for him to be in? Ain’t London the place where every one that has done a successful trick goes to enjoy it, and every one that has missed his tip goes to hide himself? I’ll take my davy, though it’s a thing I don’t like doing in general, that Carrington’s back in town, living with his mother, as right as a trivet.”

  So Lady Eversleigh and Jane Payland travelled up to town again, and took up their old quarters. And Mr. Larkspur returned, and resumed his room and his accustomed habits. But before he had been many hours in London, he had ascertained, by the evidence of his own eyes, that Victor Carrington was, as he had predicted, in town, living with his mother, and “as right as a trivet.”

  CHAPTER XXV.

  A DANGEROUS ALLIANCE.

  In the afternoon of the day following that on which Sir Reginald paid a visit to Victor Carrington, the latter gentleman presented himself at the door of Hilton House. The frost had again set in, and this time with more than usual severity. There had been a heavy fall of snow, and the park-like grounds surrounding Madame Durski’s abode had an almost fairy-like appearance, the tracery of the leafless trees defined by the snow that had lodged on every branch, the undulating lawn one bed of pure white.

  He knocked at the door and waited. The woman at the lodge had told him that it was very unlikely he would be able to see Madame Durski at this hour of the day, but he had walked on to the house notwithstanding.

  It was already nearly four o’clock in the afternoon; but at that hour

  Paulina had rarely left her own apartments.

  Vict
or Carrington knew this quite as well as the woman at the lodge, but he had business to do with another person as well as Paulina Durski. That other person was the widow’s humble companion.

  The door was opened by Carlo Toas, Paulina’s confidential courier and butler. This man looked very suspiciously at the visitor.

  “My mistress receives no one at this hour,” he said.

  “I am aware that she does not usually see visitors so early,” replied Carrington; “but as I come on particular business, and as I come a long way to see her, she will perhaps make an exception in my favour.”

  He produced his card-case as he spoke, and handed the man a card, on which he had written the following words in pencil:

  “Pray see me, dear madame. I come on really important business, which will bear no delay. If you cannot see me till your dinner-hour, I will wait.”

  The Spaniard ushered Victor into one of the reception-rooms, which looked cold and chill in the winter daylight. Except the grand piano, there was no trace of feminine occupation in the room. It looked like an apartment kept only for the reception of visitors — an apartment which lacked all the warmth and comfort of home.

  Victor waited for some time, and began to think his message had not been taken to the mistress of the house, when the door was opened, and Miss Brewer appeared.

  She looked at the visitor with an inquisitive glance as she entered the room, and approached him softly, with her light, greenish-grey eyes fixed upon his face.

  “Madame Durski has been suffering from nervous headache all day,” she said, “and has not yet risen. Her dinner-hour is half-past six. If your business is really of importance, and if you care to wait, she will be happy to see you then.”

  “My business is of real importance; and I shall be very glad to wait,” answered Victor. “Since Madame Durski is, unhappily, unable to receive me for some time, I shall gladly avail myself of the opportunity, in order to enjoy a little conversation with you, Miss Brewer,” he said, courteously, “always supposing that you are not otherwise engaged.”