Run to Earth - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (ebook reader .txt) 📗

fiercely, searchingly, at

the pale, resolute face that was turned to him in the moonlight.

 

“The name of my solicitor is Dunford,” said Honoria, presently; “Mr.

Joseph Dunford, of Gray’s Inn. If you apply to him on your arrival in

London, he will give you the first installment of your pension.”

 

“Five and twenty pounds!” grumbled Milsom; “a very handsome amount,

upon my word! And you have fifteen thousand a year!”

 

“I have.”

 

“May the curse of a black and bitter heart cling to you!” cried the

man.

 

Lady Eversleigh turned from her companion with a gesture of loathing.

But there was no fear in her heart. She walked slowly back to the gate

leading into the meadow, followed by Milsom, who heaped abusive

epithets upon her at every step. As she entered the meadow, the figure

of the spy drew suddenly back into the shadow of the hedge; from which

it did not emerge till Honoria had disappeared through the little gate

on the opposite side of the field, and the heavy tramp of Milsom’s

footsteps had died away in the distance.

 

Then the figure came forth into the broad moonlight; and that subdued,

but clear radiance, revealed the pale, thin face of Jane Payland.

 

*

 

When Jane Payland was brushing her mistress’s hair that night, she

ventured to sound her as to her future movements, by a few cautions and

respectful questions, to which Lady Eversleigh replied with less than

her usual reticence. From her lady’s answers, the waiting-maid

ascertained that she had no idea of seeking any relaxation in change of

scene, but purposed to reside at Raynham for at least one year.

 

Jane Payland wondered at the decision of her mistress’s manner. She had

imagined that Lady Eversleigh would be eager to leave a place in which

she found herself the object of disapprobation and contempt.

 

“If I were her, I would go to France, and be a great lady in Paris—

which is twenty times gayer and more delightful than any place in

stupid, straight-laced old England,” thought Jane Payland. “If I had

her money, I would spend it, and enjoy life, in spite of all the

world.”

 

“I’m afraid your health will suffer from a long residence at the

castle, my lady,” said Jane, presently, determined to do all in her

power to bring about a change in her mistress’s plans. “After such a

shock as you have had, some distraction must be necessary. When I had

the honour of living with the Duchess of Mountaintour, and we lost the

dear duke, the first thing I said to the duchess, after the funeral,

was—‘Change of scene, your grace, change of scene; nothing like change

of scene when the mind has received a sudden blow.’ The sweet duchess’s

physician actually echoed my words, though he had never heard them; and

within a week of the sad ceremony we started for the Continent, where

we remained a year; at the end of which period the dear duchess was

united to the Marquis of Purpeltown.”

 

“The duchess was speedily consoled,” replied Lady Eversleigh, with a

smile which was not without bitterness. “No doubt the variety and

excitement of a Continental tour did much towards blotting out all

memory of her dead husband. But I do not wish to forget. I am in no

hurry to obliterate the image of one who was most dear to me.”

 

Jane Payland looked very searchingly at the pale, earnest face

reflected in the glass.

 

“For me, that which the world calls pleasure never possessed any

powerful fascination,” continued Honoria, gravely. “My childhood and

youth were steeped in sorrow—sorrow beyond anything you can imagine,

Jane Payland; though I have heard you say that you have seen much

trouble. The remembrance of it comes back to me more vividly than ever

now. Thus it is that I shrink from society, which can give me no real

pleasure. Had I no special reason for remaining at Raynham, I should

not care to leave it”

 

“But you have a special reason, my lady?” inquired Jane, eagerly.

 

“I have.”

 

“May I presume to ask—”

 

“You may, Jane; and I think I may venture to trust you fully, for I

believe you are my friend. I mean to stay at Raynham, because, in this

hour of sorrow and desolation, Providence has not abandoned me entirely

to despair. I have one bright hope, which renders the thought of my

future endurable to me. I stay at Raynham, because I hope next spring

an heir will be born to Raynham Castle.”

 

“Oh, what happiness! And you wish the heir to be born at the castle, my

lady?”

 

“I do! I have been the victim of one plot, but I will not fall

blindfold into a second snare; and there is no infamy which my enemies

are not base enough to attempt. There shall be no mystery about my

life. From the hour of my husband’s death to the hour of his child’s

birth, the friends of that lost husband shall know every act of my

existence. They shall see me day by day. The old servants of the family

shall attend me. I will live in the old house, surrounded by all who

knew and loved Sir Oswald. No vile plotters shall ever be able to say

that there was trick or artifice connected with the birth of that

child. If I live to protect and watch over it, that infant life shall

be guarded against every danger, and defended from every foe. And there

will be many foes ready to assail the inheritor of Raynham.”

 

“Why so, my lady?”

 

“Because that young life, and my life, will stand between a villain and

a fortune. If I and my child were both to die, Reginald Eversleigh

would become possessor of the wealth to which he once was the

acknowledged heir. By the terms of Sir Oswald’s will, he receives very

little in the present, but the future has many chances for him. If I

die childless, he will inherit the Raynham estates. If his two cousins,

the Dales, die without direct heirs, he will inherit ten thousand a

year.”

 

“But that seems only a poor chance after all, my lady. There is no

reason why Sir Reginald Eversleigh should survive you or the two Mr.

Dales.”

 

“There is no reason, except his own villany,” answered Honoria,

thoughtfully. “There are some men capable of anything. But let us talk

no further on the subject. I have confided my secret to you, Jane

Payland, because I think you are faithfully devoted to my interests.

You know now why I am resolved to remain at Raynham Castle; and you

think my decision wise, do you not?”

 

“Well, yes; I certainly do, my lady,” answered Jane, after some moments

of hesitation.

 

“And now leave me. Good night! I have kept you long this evening, I see

by that timepiece. But my thoughts were wandering, and I was

unconscious of the progress of time. Good night!”

 

Jane Payland took a respectful leave of her mistress, and departed,

absorbed in thought.

 

“Is she a good woman or a bad one?” she wondered, as she sat by the

fire in her own comfortable apartment. “If she is a bad woman, she’s an

out-and-outer; for she looks one in the face, with those superb black

eyes of hers, as bright and clear as the image of truth itself. She

must be good and true. She must! And yet that night’s absence, and that

story about Yarborough Tower—that seems too much for anybody on earth

to believe.”

 

CHAPTER XIV.

 

A GHOSTLY VISITANT.

 

For nearly three years Thomas Milsom had been far away from London. He

had been arrested on a charge of burglary, within a month of Valentine

Jernam’s death, and condemned to five years’ transportation. In less

than three years, by some kind of artful management, and by the

exercise of consummate hypocrisy, Mr. Milsom had contrived to get

himself free again, and to return to England his own master.

 

He landed in Scotland, and tramped from Granton to Yorkshire, where an

accidental encounter with an old acquaintance tempted him to linger at

Raynham. The two tramps, scoundrels both, and both alike penniless and

shoeless, had stood side by side at the gates of the park, to see the

stately funeral train pass out.

 

And thus Thomas Milsom had beheld her whom he called his daughter,—the

girl who had fled, with her old grandfather, from the shelter of his

fatal roof three years before.

 

After that unprofitable interview with Honoria, Thomas Milsom his face

Londonwards.

 

“The day will come when you and I will square accounts, my lady,” he

muttered, as he looked up to those battlemented turrets, with a

blasphemous curse, and then turned his back upon Raynham Castle, and

the peaceful little village beneath it.

 

The direction in which Mr. Milsom betook himself, after he passed the

border-land of waste ground and newly-built houses which separates

London from the country, was the direction of Ratcliff Highway. He

walked rapidly through the crowded streets, in which the crowd grew

thicker as he approached the regions of the Tower. But rapidly as he

walked, the steps of Time were faster. It had been bright noon when he

entered the quiet little town of Barnet. It was night when he first

heard the scraping fiddles and stamping feet of Ratcliff Highway. He

went straight to the ‘Jolly Tar’.

 

Here all was unchanged. There were the flaring tallow candles, set in a

tin hoop that hung from the low ceiling, dropping hot grease ever and

anon on the loungers at the bar. There was the music—the same Scotch

reels and Irish jigs, played on squeaking fiddles, which were made more

inharmonious by the accompaniment of shrill Pandean pipes. There was

the same crowd of sailors and bare-headed, bare-armed, loud-voiced

women assembled in the stifling bar, the same cloud of tobacco-smoke,

the same Babel of voices to be heard from the concert-room within;

while now and then, amongst the shouts and the laughter, the oaths and

the riot, there sounded the tinkling of the old piano, and the feeble

upper notes of a very poor soprano voice.

 

Black Milsom had drawn his hat over his eyes before entering the “Jolly

Tar.”

 

The bar of that tavern was sunk considerably below the level of the

street, and standing on the uppermost of the steps by which Mr.

Wayman’s customers descended to his hospitable abode, Black Milsom was

able to look across the heads of the crowd to the face of the landlord

busy behind his bar.

 

In that elevated position Black Milsom waited until Dennis Wayman

happened to look up and perceive the stranger on the threshold.

 

As he did so, Thomas Milsom drew the back of his hand rapidly across

his mouth, with a gesture that was evidently intended as a signal.

 

The signal was answered by a nod from Wayman, and then Black Milsom

descended the three steps, and pushed his way to the bar.

 

“Can I have a bed, mate, and a bit of supper?” he asked, in a voice

that was carefully disguised.

 

“Ay, ay, to be sure you can,” answered Wayman; “you can have everything

that is comfortable and friendly by paying for it. This house is one of

the most hospitable places there is—to those that can pay the

reckoning.”

 

This rather clumsy joke was received with an applauding guffaw by the

sailors and women next the bar.

 

“If you’ll step through that door yonder, you’ll find a snug little

room, mate,” said Dennis Wayman, in the tone which he might have used