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

in

your Temple chambers,” answered Sir Reginald. “If report does not belie

you, you spend the greater part of your existence at a certain villa at

Fulham.”

 

There was that in Sir Reginald Eversleigh’s tone which attracted the

attention of the men within hearing—almost all of whom were well

acquainted with the careers of the two cousins, and many of whom knew

them personally.

 

Though the club loungers were too well-bred to listen, it was

nevertheless obvious that the attention of all had been more or less

aroused by the baronet’s tone and manner.

 

Douglas Dale answered, in accents as audible, and a tone as haughty as

the accents and tone of his cousin.

 

“Report is not likely to belie me,” he said, “since there is no mystery

in my life to afford food for gossip. If by a certain villa at Fulham

you mean Hilton House, you are not mistaken. I have the honour to be a

frequent guest at that house.”

 

“It is an honour which many of us have enjoyed,” answered Reginald,

with a sneer.

 

“An honour which I used to find deuced expensive, by Jove!” exclaimed

Viscount Caversham, who was standing near Douglas Dale.

 

“That was at the time when Sir Reginald Eversleigh usurped the position

of host in Madame Durski’s house,” replied Douglas. “You would find

things much changed there now, Caversham, were the lady to favour you

by an invitation. When Madame Durski first came to England she was so

unfortunate as to fall into the hands of evil counsellors. She has

learned since to know her friends from her enemies.”

 

“She is a very charming woman,” drawled the viscount, laughingly; “but

if you want to keep a balance at your banker’s, Dale, I should strongly

advise you to refuse her hospitality.”

 

“Madame Durski will shortly be my wife,” replied Douglas, in a voice

loud enough to be heard by the bystanders; “and the smallest word

calculated to cast a slur on her fair fame will be an insult to me—an

insult which I shall know how to resent.”

 

This announcement fell like a thunderbolt in the assembly of

fashionable idlers. All knew the history of the house at Fulham. They

knew of Paulina Durski only as a beautiful, but dangerous, syren, whose

fatal smiles lured men to their ruin. That Douglas Dale should unite

himself to such a woman seemed to them little short of absolute

madness.

 

Love must be strong indeed which will face the ridicule of mankind

unflinchingly. Douglas Dale knew that, in redeeming Paulina from her

miserable situation, in elevating her to a position that many blameless

and well-born Englishwomen would have gladly accepted, he was making a

sacrifice which the men amongst whom he lived would condemn as the act

of a fool. But he was willing to endure this, painful though it was to

him, for the sake of the woman he loved.

 

“Better that I should have the scorn of shallow-brained worldlings than

that the blight on her life should continue,” he said to himself. “When

she is my wife, no man will dare to question her honour—no woman will

dare to frown upon her when she enters society leaning on my arm.”

 

This is what Douglas Dale repeated to himself very often during his

courtship of Paulina Durski. This is what he thought as he stood erect

and defiant in the crowded room of the Pall Mall club, facing the

curious looks of his acquaintances.

 

After the first shock there was a dead silence; no voice murmured the

common-place phrases of congratulation which might naturally have

followed such an announcement. If Douglas Dale had just announced that

some dire misfortune had befallen him, the faces of the men around him

could not have been more serious. No one smiled; no one applauded his

choice; not one voice congratulated him on having won for himself so

fair a bride.

 

That ominous silence told Douglas Dale how terrible was the stigma

which the world had set upon her he so fondly loved. The anguish which

rent his heart during those few moments is not to be expressed by

words. After that most painful silence, he walked to the table at which

it was his habit to sit, and began to read a newspaper. Sir Reginald

watched him furtively for a few moments in silence, and then left the

room.

 

After this the two cousins met frequently; but they never spoke. They

passed each other with the coldest and most ceremonious salutation. The

idlers of the club perceived this, and commented on the fact.

 

“Douglas Dale and his cousin are not on speaking terms,” they said:

“they have quarrelled about that beautiful Austrian widow, at whose

house there used to be such high play.”

 

In Paulina’s society, Douglas tried to forget the cruel shadow which

darkened, and which, in all likelihood, would for ever darken, her

name; and while in her society he contrived to banish from his mind all

bitter thought of the world’s harsh verdict and cruel condemnation.

 

But away from Paulina he was tortured by the recollection of that scene

at the Phoenix Club; tormented by the thought that, let him make what

sacrifice he might, he could never wipe out the stain which those

midnight assemblies of gamesters had left on his future wife’s

reputation.

 

“We will leave England for ever after the marriage,” he said to himself

sometimes. “We will make our home in some fair Italian city, where my

Paulina will be respected and admired as if she were a queen, as well

as the loveliest and sweetest of women.”

 

If he asked Paulina where their future life was to be spent she always

replied to him in the same manner.

 

“Wherever you take me I shall be content,” she said. “I can never be

grateful enough for your goodness; I can never repay the debt I owe

you. Let our future be your planning, not mine.”

 

“And you have no wish, no fancy, that I can realize, Paulina?”

 

“None. Prom my earliest girlhood I have sighed for only one blessing—

peace! You have given me that. What more can I ask at your hands? Ah!

Douglas, I fear my love has already cost you too dearly. The world will

never forgive you for your choice; you, who might make so brilliant a

marriage!”

 

Her generous feelings once aroused, Paulina could be almost as noble as

her lover. Again and again she implored him to withdraw his promise—to

leave, and to forget her.

 

“Believe me, Douglas, our engagement is a mistake,” she said. “Consider

this before it is too late. You are a proud man where honour is

concerned, and the past life of her whom you marry should be without

spot or blemish. It is not so with me. If I have not sinned as other

women have sinned, I have stooped to be the companion of gamblers and

rou�s; I have allowed my house to become the haunt of reckless and

dissipated men. Society revenges itself cruelly upon those who break

its laws. Society will neither forget nor forgive my offence.”

 

“I do not live for society, but for you, Paulina,” replied Douglas,

passionately; “you are all the world to me. Let me never hear these

arguments again, unless you would have me think that you are weary of

me, and that you only want an excuse for getting rid of me.”

 

“Weary of you!” exclaimed Paulina; “my friend, my benefactor. How can I

ever prove my gratitude for your goodness—your devotion?”

 

“By learning to love me a little,” answered Douglas, tenderly.

 

“The lesson ought not to be difficult,” Paulina murmured.

 

Could she do less than love this noble friend, this pure-minded and

unselfish adorer?

 

He came to her one day, accompanied by a solicitor; but before

introducing the man of law, he asked for a private interview with

Paulina, and in this interview gave her a new proof of his devotion.

 

“In thinking much of our position, dearest, I have been struck with a

sudden terror of the uncertainty of life. What would be your fate,

Paulina, if anything were to happen—if—well, if I were to die

suddenly, as men so often die in this high-pressure age, before

marriage had united our interests? What would be your fate, alone and

helpless, assailed once more by all the perplexities of poverty, and,

perhaps, subject to the mean spite of my cousin, Reginald Eversleigh,

who does not forgive me for having robbed him of his place in your

heart, little as he was worthy of your love?”

 

“Oh, Douglas!” exclaimed Paulina, “why do you imagine such things? Why

should death assail you?”

 

“Why, indeed, dearest,” returned Douglas, with a smile. “Do not think

that I anticipate so sad a close to our engagement. But it is the duty

of a man to look sharply out for every danger in the pathway of the

woman he is bound to protect. I am a lawyer, remember, Paulina, and I

contemplate the future with the eye of a lawyer. So far as I can secure

you from even the possibility of misfortune, I will do it. I have

brought a solicitor here to-day, in order that he may read you a will

which I have this morning executed in your favour.”

 

“A will!” repeated Madame Durski; “you are only too good to me. But

there is something horrible to my mind in these legal formalities.”

 

“That is only a woman’s prejudice. It is the feminine idea that a man

must needs be at the point of death when he makes his will. And now let

me explain the nature of this will,” continued Douglas. “I have told

you that if I should happen to die without direct heirs, the estate

left me by Sir Oswald Eversleigh will go to my cousin Reginald. That

estate, from which is derived my income, I have no power to alienate; I

am a tenant for life only. But my income has been double, and sometimes

treble, my expenditure, for my habits have been very simple, and my

life only that of a student in the Temple. My sole extravagance,

indeed, has been the collection of a library. I have, therefore, been

able to save twelve thousand pounds, and this sum is my own to

bequeath. I have made a will, leaving this amount to you, Paulina—

charged only with a small annuity to a faithful old servant—together

with my personal property, consisting only of a few good Italian

pictures, a library of rare old books, and the carvings and decorations

of my roams—all valuable in their way. This is all the law allows me

to give you, Paulina; but it will, at least, secure you from want.”

 

Madame Durski tried to speak; but she was too deeply affected by this

new proof of her lover’s generosity. Tears choked her utterance; she

took Douglas Dale’s hand in both her own, and lifted it to her lips;

and this silent expression of gratitude touched his heart more than the

most eloquent speech could have affected it.

 

He led her into the room where the attorney awaited her.

 

“This gentleman is Mr. Horley,” he said, “a friend and adviser in whom

you may place unbounded confidence. My will is to remain in his

possession; and should any untimely fate overtake me, he will protect

your interests. And now, Mr. Horley, will you be good enough to read

the document to Madame Durski, in order that she may understand what

her position would be in case of the worst?”

 

Mr. Horley read the will. It was as simple and concise as the law

allows any legal document to be; and it made