Run to Earth by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (ready player one ebook TXT) 📕

me. You will be good enough to prepare rooms for myself and my maid.”

“You would like your maid’s bedroom to be adjoining your own, no

doubt, madam?” hazarded the landlady.

“No,” answered Honoria; “I do not wish that; I prefer entire privacy in

my own apartment.”

“As you please, madam—we have plenty of bedrooms.”

The landlady of the “Rose and Crown” ushered her visitors into the best

sitting-room the house afforded—an old-fashioned apartment, with a

wide fireplace, high wooden mantel-piece, and heavily-timbered

ceiling—a room which seemed to belong to the past rather than the

present.

Lady Eversleigh sat by the table in a thoughtful attitude, while the

fire was being lighted and a tray of tea-things arranged for that

refreshment which is most welcome of all others to an Englishwoman.

Jane Payland stood by the opposite angle of the mantel-piece, watching

her mistress with a countenance almost as thoughtful as that of Honoria

herself.

It was in the wintry dusk that these two travellers arrived at Frimley.

Jane Payland walked to one of the narrow, old-fashioned windows, and

looked out into the street, where lights were burning dimly here and

there.

“What a strange old place, ma’am,” she said.

Honoria had forbidden her to say “my lady” since their departure from

Raynham.

“Yes,” her mistress answered, absently; “it is a world-forgotten old

place.”

“But the rest and change will, no doubt, be beneficial, ma’am,” said

Miss Payland, in her most insinuating tone; “and I am sure you must

require change and fresh country air after being pent up in a London

street.”

Lady Eversleigh shook off her abstraction of manner, and turned towards

her servant, with a calm, serious gaze.

“I want change of scene, and the fresh breath of country air, Jane,”

she said, gravely; “but it is not for those I came to Frimley, and you

know that it is not. Why should we try to deceive each other? The

purpose of my life is a very grave one; the secret of my coming and

going is a very bitter secret, and if I do not choose to share it with

you, I withhold nothing that you need care to know. Let me play my part

unwatched and unquestioned. You will find yourself well rewarded by and

by for your forbearance and devotion. Be faithful to me, my good girl;

but do not try to discover the motive of my actions, and believe, even

when they seem most strange to you, that they are justified by one

great purpose.”

Jane Payland’s eyelids drooped before the serious and penetrating gaze

of her mistress.

“You may feel sure of my being faithful, ma’am,” she answered,

promptly; “and as to curiosity, I should be the very last creature upon

this earth to try to pry into your secrets.”

Honoria made no reply to this protestation. She took her tea in

silence, and seemed as if weighed down by grave and anxious thoughts.

After tea she dismissed Jane, who retired to the bedroom allotted to

her, which had been made very comfortable, and enlivened by a wood

fire, that blazed cheerily in the wide grate.

Jane Payland’s bedroom opened out of a corridor, at the end of which

was the door of the sitting-room occupied by Honoria. Jane was,

therefore, able to keep watch upon all who went to and fro from the

sitting-room to the other part of the house. She sat with her door a

little way open for this purpose.

“My lady expects some one to-night, I know,” she thought to herself, as

she seated herself at a little table, and began some piece of fancy-work.

She had observed that during tea Lady Eversleigh had twice looked at

her watch. Why should she be so anxious about the time, if she were not

awaiting some visitor, or message, or letter?

For a long time Jane Payland waited, and watched, and listened, without

avail. No one went along the corridor to the blue parlour, except the

chambermaid who removed the tea-things.

Jane looked at her own watch, and found that it was past nine o’clock.

“Surely my lady can have no visitor to-night?” she thought.

A quarter of an hour after this, she was startled by the creaking sound

of a footstep on the uncarpeted floor of the corridor. She rose hastily

and softly from her chair, crept to the door, and peeped put into the

passage. As she did so, she saw a man approaching, dressed like a

countryman, in a clumsy frieze coat, and with his chin so muffled in a

woollen scarf, and his felt hat drawn so low over his eyes, that there

was nothing visible of him but the end of a long nose.

That long, beak-like nose seemed strangely familiar to Miss Payland;

and yet she could not tell where she had seen it before.

The countryman went straight to the blue parlour, opened the door, and

went in. The door closed behind him, and then Jane Payland heard the

faint sound of voices within the apartment.

It was evident that this countryman was Lady Eversleigh’s expected

guest.

Jane’s wonderment was redoubled by this extraordinary proceeding.

“What does it all mean?” she asked herself. “Is this man some humble

relation of my lady’s? Everyone knows that her birth was obscure; but

no one can tell where she came from. Perhaps this is her native place,

and it is to see her own people she comes here.”

Jane was obliged to be satisfied with this explanation, for no other

was within her reach; but it did not altogether allay her curiosity.

The interview between Lady Eversleigh and her visitor was a long one.

It was half-past ten o’clock before the strange-looking countryman

quitted the blue parlour.

This occurred three days before Christmas-day. On the following evening

another stranger arrived at Frimley by the mail-coach, which passed

through the quiet town at about seven o’clock.

This traveller did not patronise the “Rose and Crown” inn, though the

coach changed horses at that hostelry. He alighted from the outside of

the coach while it stood before the door of the “Rose and Crown,”

waited until his small valise had been fished out of the boot, and then

departed through the falling snow, carrying this valise, which was his

only luggage.

He walked at a rapid pace to the other end of the long, straggling

street, where there was a humbler inn, called the “Cross Keys.” Here he

entered, and asked for a bedroom, with a good fire, and something or

other in the way of supper.

It was not till he had entered the room that the traveller took off the

rough outer coat, the collar of which had almost entirely concealed his

face. When he did so, he revealed the sallow countenance of Victor

Carrington, and the flashing black eyes, which to-night shone with a

peculiar brightness.

After he had eaten a hasty meal, he went out into the inn-yard, despite

the fast-falling snow, to smoke a cigar, he said, to one of the

servants whom he encountered on his way.

He had not been long in the yard, when a man emerged from one of the

adjacent buildings, and approached him in a slow and stealthy manner.

“All right, guv’nor,” said the man, in a low voice; “I’ve been on the

look-out for you for the last two days.”

The man was Jim Hawkins, Mr. Spavin’s groom.

“Is ‘Wild Buffalo’ here?” asked Victor.

“Yes, sir; as safe and as comfortable as if he’d been foaled here.”

“And none the worse for his journey?”

“Not a bit of it, sir. I brought him down by easy stages, knowing you

wanted him kept fresh. And fresh he is—oncommon. P’raps you’d like to

have a look at him.”

“I should.”

The groom led Mr. Carrington to a loose box, and the surgeon had the

pleasure of beholding the bay horse by the uncertain light of a stable

lantern.

The animal was, indeed, a noble specimen of his race.

It was only in the projecting eyeball, the dilated nostril, the

defiant carriage of the head, that his evil temper exhibited itself.

Victor Carrington stood at a little distance from him, contemplating

him in silence for some minutes.

“Have you ever noticed that spot?” asked Victor, presently, pointing to

the white patch inside the animal’s hock.

“Well, sir, one can’t help noticing it when one knows where to look for

it, though p’raps a stranger mightn’t see it. That there spot’s a kind

of a blemish, you see, to my mind; for, if it wasn’t for that, the

brute wouldn’t have a white hair about him.”

“That’s just what I’ve been thinking,” answered Victor. “Now, my friend

is just the sort of man to turn up his nose at a horse with anything in

the way of a blemish about him, especially if he sees it before he has

tried the animal, and found out his merits. But I’ve hit upon a plan

for getting the better of him, and I want you to carry it out for me.”

“I’m your man, guv’nor, whatever it is.”

The surgeon produced a phial from his pocket, and with the phial a

small painters’ brush.

“In this bottle there’s a brown dye,” he said; “and I want you to paint

the white spot with that brown dye after you’ve groomed the ‘Buffalo,’

so that whenever my friend comes to claim the horse the brute may be

ready for him. You must apply the dye three or four times, at short

intervals. It’s a pretty fast one, and it’ll take a good many pails of

water to wash it out.”

Jim Hawkins laughed heartily at the idea of this manoeuvre.

“Why you are a rare deep one, guv’nor,” he exclaimed; “that there game

is just like the canary dodge, what they do so well down Seven Dials

way. You ketches yer sparrer, and you paints him a lively yeller, and

then you sells him to your innocent customer for the finest canary as

ever wabbled in the grove—a little apt to be mopish at first, but

warranted to sing beautiful as soon as ever he gets used to his new

master and missus. And, oh! don’t he just sing beautiful—not at all

neither.”

“There’s the bottle, Hawkins, and there’s the brush. You know what

you’ve got to do.”

“All right, guv’nor.”

“Good night, then,” said Victor, as he left the stable.

He did not stay to finish his cigar under the fast-falling snow; but

walked back to his own room, where he slept soundly.

He was astir very early the next morning. He went down stairs, after

breakfasting in his own room, saw the landlord, and hired a good strong

horse, commonly used by the proprietor of the “Cross Keys” on all his

journeys to and from the market-town and outlying villages.

Victor Carrington mounted this horse, and rode across the Common to the

village of Hallgrove.

He stopped to give his horse a drink of water before a village inn, and

while stopping to do this he asked a few questions of the ostler.

“Whereabouts is Hallgrove Rectory?” he asked.

“About a quarter of a mile farther on, sir,” answered the man; “you

can’t miss it if you keep along that road. A big red house, by the side

of a river.”

“Thanks. This is a great place for hunting, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that it be, sir. The Horsley foxhounds are a’most allus meeting

somewheres about here.”