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

“Once more, good night, Mr. Dale.”

“Good night.”

The rector stood at the door, watching the gipsy woman as she walked

along the snow-laden pathway. The dark figure moving slowly and

silently across the broad white expanse of hidden lawn and flower-beds

looked almost ghost-like to the eyes of the watcher.

“What does it all mean?” he asked himself, as he watched that receding

figure. “Is this woman a common impostor, who hopes to enrich herself,

or her tribe, by playing upon my fears? She asked nothing of me to-night; and yet that may be but a trick of her trade, and she may intend

to extort all the more from me in the future. What should she be but a

cheat and a trickster, like the rest of her race?”

The question was not easy to settle.

He returned to the drawing-room. His mind had been much disturbed by

this extraordinary interview, and he was in no humour for empty small-talk; nor was he disposed to meet Reginald Eversleigh, against whom he

had received so singular, so apparently groundless, a warning.

He tried to shake off the feeling which he was ashamed to acknowledge

to himself.

He re-entered the drawing-room, and he saw Miss Graham’s face light up

with sudden animation as she saw him. He was not skilled in the

knowledge of a woman’s heart, and he was flattered by that bright look

of welcome. He was already half-enmeshed in the web which she had

spread for him, and that welcoming smile did much towards his complete

subjugation.

He went to a seat near the fascinating Lydia. Between them there was a

chess-table. Lydia laid her jewelled hand lightly on one of the pieces.

“Would you think it very wicked to play a game of chess on a Christmas

evening, Mr. Dale?” she asked.

“Indeed, no, Miss Graham. I am one of those who can see no sinfulness

in any innocent enjoyment.”

“Shall we play, then?” asked Lydia, arranging the pieces.

“If you please.”

They were both good players, and the game lasted long. But ever and

anon, while waiting for Lydia to move, Lionel glanced towards the spot

where Sir Reginald Eversleigh stood, engaged in conversation with

Gordon Graham and Douglas Dale.

If the rector himself had known no blot on the character of Reginald

Eversleigh, the gipsy’s words would not have had a feather’s weight

with him; but Lionel did know that his cousin’s youth had been wild and

extravagant, and that he, the beloved, adopted son, the long-acknowledged heir of Raynham, had been disinherited by Sir Oswald—one

of the best and most high-principled of men.

Knowing this, it was scarcely strange if Lionel Dale was in some degree

influenced by the gipsy’s warning. He scanned the face of his cousin

with a searching gaze.

It was a handsome face—almost a perfect face; but was it the face of a

man who might be trusted by his fellow-men?

A careworn face—handsome though it was. There was a nervous

restlessness about the thin lips, a feverish light in the dark blue

eyes.

More than once during the prolonged encounter at chess, Reginald

Eversleigh had drawn aside one of the window-curtains, to look out upon

the night.

Mr. Mordaunt, a devoted lover of all field-sports, was also restless

and uneasy about the weather, peeping out every now and then, and

announcing, in a tone of disappointment, the continuance of the frost.

In Mr. Mordaunt this was perfectly natural; but Lionel Dale knew that

his cousin was not a man who cared for hunting. Why, then, was he so

anxious about the meet which was to have taken place to-morrow?

His anxiety evidently was about the meet; for after looking out of the

window for the third time, he exclaimed, with an accent of triumph—

“I congratulate you, gentlemen; you may have your run to-morrow. It no

longer freezes, and there is a drizzling rain falling.”

Mr. Mordaunt ran out of the drawing-room, and returned in about five

minutes with a radiant face.

“I have been to look at the weathercock in the stable-yard,” he said;

“Sir Reginald Eversleigh is quite right. The wind has shifted to the

sou’-west; it is raining fast, and we may have our sport to-morrow.”

Lionel Dale’s eyes were fixed on the face of his cousin as the country

squire made this announcement. To his surprise, he saw that face blanch

to a deathlike whiteness.

“To-morrow!” murmured Sir Reginald, with a sigh.

*

CHAPTER XXIII.

“ANSWER ME, IF THIS BE DONE?”

All through the night the drizzling rain fell fast, and on the morning

of the 26th, when the gentlemen at the manor-house rectory went to

their windows to look out upon the weather, they were gratified by

finding that southerly wind and cloudy sky so dear to the heart of a

huntsman.

At half-past eight o’clock the whole party assembled in the dining-room, where breakfast was prepared.

Many gentlemen living in the neighbourhood had been invited to

breakfast at the rectory; and the great quadrangle of the stables was

crowded by grooms and horses, gigs and phaetons, while the clamour of

many voices rang out upon the still air.

Every one seemed to be thoroughly happy—except Reginald Eversleigh. He

was amongst the noisiest of the talkers, the loudest of the laughers;

but the rector, who watched him closely, perceived that his face was

pale, his eyes heavy as the eyes of one who had passed a sleepless

night, and that his laughter was loud without mirth, his talk

boisterous, without real cheerfulness of spirit.

“There is mischief of some kind in that man’s heart,” Lionel said to

himself. “Can there be any truth in the gipsy’s warning after all?”

But in the next moment he was ready to fancy himself the weak dupe of

his own imagination.

“I dare say my cousin’s manner is but what it always is,” he thought;

“the weary manner of a man who has wasted his youth, and sacrificed all

the brilliant chances of his life, and who, even in the hour of

pleasure and excitement, is oppressed by a melancholy which he strives

in vain to shake off.”

The gathering at the breakfast-table was a brilliant one.

Lydia Graham was a superb horsewoman; and in no costume did she look

more attractive than in her exquisitely fitting habit of dark blue

cloth. The early hour of the meet justified her breakfasting in riding-costume; and gladly availing herself of this excuse, she made her

appearance in her habit, carrying her pretty little riding-hat and

dainty whip in her hand.

Her cheeks were flushed with a rich bloom—the warm flush of excitement

and the consciousness of success. Lionel’s attention on the previous

evening had seemed to her unmistakeable; and again this morning she saw

admiration, if not a warmer feeling, in his gaze.

“And so you really mean to follow the hounds, Miss Graham?” said Mrs.

Mordaunt, with something like a shudder.

She had a great horror of fast young ladies, and a lurking aversion to

Miss Graham, whose dashing manner and more brilliant charms quite

eclipsed the quiet graces of the lady’s two daughters. Mrs. Mordaunt

was by no means a match-making mother; but she would have been far from

sorry to see Lionel Dale devoted to one of her girls.

“Do I mean to follow the hounds?” cried Lydia. “Certainly I do, Mrs.

Mordaunt. Do not the Misses Mordaunt ride?”

“Never to hounds,” answered the matron. “They ride with, their father

constantly, and when they are in London they ride in the park; but Mr.

Mordaunt would not allow his daughters to appear in the hunting-field.”

Lydia’s face flushed crimson with anger; but her anger changed to

delight when Lionel Dale came to the rescue.

“It is only such accomplished horsewomen as Miss Graham who can ride to

hounds with safety,” he said. “Your daughters ride very well, Mrs.

Mordaunt; but they are not Diana Vernons.”

“I never particularly admired the character of Diana Vernon,” Mrs.

Mordaunt answered, coldly.

Lydia Graham was by no means displeased by the lady’s discourtesy. She

accepted it as a tribute to her success. The mother could not bear to

see so rich a prize as the rector of Hallgrove won by any other than

her own daughter.

Douglas Dale was full of his brother’s new horse, “Niagara,” which had

been paraded before the windows. The gentlemen of the party had all

examined the animal, and pronounced him a beauty.

“Did you try him last week, Lionel, as I requested you to do?” asked

Douglas, when the merits of the horse had been duly discussed.

“I did; and I found him as fine a temper as any horse I ever rode. I

rode him twice—he is a magnificent animal.”

“And safe, eh, Lio?” asked Douglas, anxiously. “Spavin assured me the

horse was to be relied on, and Spavin is a very respectable fellow; but

it’s rather a critical matter to choose a hunter for a brother, and I

shall be glad when to-day’s work is over.”

“Have no fear, Douglas,” answered the rector. “I am generally

considered a bold rider, but I would not mount a horse I couldn’t

thoroughly depend upon; for I am of opinion that a man has no right to

tempt Providence.”

As he said this, he happened by chance to look towards Reginald

Eversleigh. The eyes of the cousins met; and Lionel saw that those of

the baronet had a restless, uneasy look, which was utterly unlike their

usual expression.

“There is some meaning in that old woman’s dark hints of wrong and

treachery,” he thought; “there must be. That was no common look which I

saw just now in my cousin’s eyes.”

The horses were brought round to the principal door; a barouche had

been ordered for Mrs. Mordaunt and the two young ladies, who had no

objection to exhibit their prettiest winter bonnets at the general

meeting-place.

The snow had melted, except here and there, where it still lay in great

patches; and on the distant hills, which still wore their pure white

shroud.

The roads and lanes were fetlock-deep in mud, and the horses went

splashing through pools of water, which spurted up into the faces of

the riders.

There was only one lady besides Lydia Graham who intended to accompany

the huntsmen, and this lady was the dashing young wife of a cavalry

officer, who was spending a month’s leave of absence with his relatives

at Hallgrove.

The hunting-party rode out of the rectory gates in twos and threes. All

had passed out into the high road before the rector himself, who was

mounted on his new hunter.

To his extreme surprise he found a difficulty in managing the animal.

He reared, and jibbed, and shied from side to side upon the broad

carriage-drive, splashing the melted snow and wet gravel upon the

rector’s dark hunting-coat.

“So ho, ‘Niagara,’” said Lionel, patting the animal’s arched neck;

“gently, boy, gently.”

His voice, and the caressing touch of his hand seemed to have some

little effect, for the horse consented to trot quietly into the road,

after the rest of the party, and Lionel quickly overtook his friends.

He rode shoulder by shoulder with Squire Mordaunt, an acknowledged

judge of horseflesh, who watched the rector’s hunter with a curious

gaze for some minutes.

“I’ll tell you what it is, Dale,” he said, “I don’t believe that horse

of yours is a good-tempered animal.”

“You do not?”

“No, there’s a dangerous look