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

“You ought, indeed, considering I told you you should find me, or hear

from me here, at the ‘Wheatsheaf,’ in case you wished to do so, or I

wished you should do so either. And I presume you have come by

accident, not intentionally. I had no idea of seeing you, especially at

an hour when I should have thought you would have been enjoying the

hospitality of your kinsman, the rector of Hallgrove.”

“Victor Carrington!” cried Reginald, “are you the fiend himself in

human shape? Surely no other creature could delight in crime.”

“I do not delight in crime, Reginald Eversleigh; and it is only a man

with your narrow intellect who could give utterance to such an

absurdity. Crime is only another name for danger. The criminal stakes

his life. I value my life too highly to hazard it lightly. But if I can

mould accident to my profit, I should be a fool indeed were I to shrink

from doing so. There is one thing I delight in, my dear Reginald, and

that is success! And now tell me why you are here to-night?”

“I cannot tell you that,” answered the baronet. “I came hither,

unconscious where I was coming. There seems a strange fatality in this.

I let my horse choose his own road, and he brought me here to this

house—to you, my evil genius.”

“Pray, Sir Reginald, be good enough to drop that high tragedy tone,”

said Victor, with supreme coolness. “It is all very well to be

addressed by you as a fiend and an evil genius once in a way; but upon

frequent repetition, that sort of thing becomes tiresome. You have not

told me why you are wandering about the country instead of eating your

dinner in a Christian-like manner at the rectory?”

“Do you not know the reason, Carrington?” asked the baronet, gazing

fixedly at his companion.

“How should I know anything about it?”

“Because to-day’s work has been your doing,” answered Reginald,

passionately; “because you are mixed up in the dark business of this

day, as you were mixed up in that still darker treachery at Raynham

Castle. I know now why you insisted upon my choosing the horse called

‘Niagara’ for my cousin Lionel; I know now why you were so interested

in the appearance of that other horse, which had already caused the

death of more than one rider; I know why you are here, and why Lionel

Dale has disappeared in the course of the day.”

“He has disappeared!” exclaimed Victor Carrington; “he is not dead?”

“I know nothing but that he has disappeared. We missed him in the midst

of the hunt. We returned to the rectory in the evening, expecting to

find him there.”

“Did you expect that, Eversleigh?”

“Others did, at any rate.”

“And did you not find him ?”

“No. We left the house, after a brief delay, to seek for him; I among

the others. We were to ride by different roads; to make inquiries of

every kind; to obtain information from every source. My brain was

dazed. I let my horse take his own road.”

“Fool! coward!” exclaimed Victor Harrington, with mingled scorn and

anger. “And you have abandoned your work; you have come here to waste

your time, when you should seem most active in the search—most eager

to find the missing man. Reginald Eversleigh, from first to last you

have trifled with me. You are a villain; but you are a hypocrite. You

would have the reward of guilt, and yet wear the guise of innocence,

even before me; as if it were possible to deceive one who has read you

through and through. I am tired of this trifling; I am weary of this

pretended innocence; and to-night I ask you, for the last time, to

choose the path which you mean to tread; and, once chosen, to tread it

with a firm step, prepared to meet danger—to confront destiny. This

very hour, this very moment, I call upon you to make your decision; and

it shall be a final decision. Will you grovel on in poverty—the worst

of all poverty, the gentleman’s pittance? or will you make yourself

possessor of the wealth which your uncle Oswald bequeathed to others?

Look me in the face, Reginald, as you are a man, and answer me, Which

is it to be—wealth or poverty?”

“It is too late to answer poverty,” replied the baronet, in a gloomy

and sullen tone. “You cannot bring my uncle back to life; you cannot

undo your work.”

“I do not pretend to bring the dead to life. I am not talking of the

past—I am talking of the future.”

“Suppose I say that I will endure poverty rather than plunge deeper

into the pit you have dug—what then?”

“In that case, I will bid you good speed, and leave you to your poverty

and—a clear conscience,” answered Victor, coolly. “I am a poor man

myself; but I like my friends to be rich. If you do not care to grasp

the wealth which might be yours, neither do I care to preserve our

acquaintance. So we have merely to bid each other good night, and part

company.”

There was a pause—Reginald Eversleigh sat with his arms folded, his

eyes fixed on the fire. Victor watched him with a sinister smile upon

his face.

“And if I choose to go on,” said Reginald, at last; “if I choose to

tread farther on the dark road which I have trodden so long—what then?

Can you ensure me success, Victor Carrington?”

“I can,” replied the Frenchman.

“Then I will go on. Yes; I will be your slave, your tool, your willing

coadjutor in crime and treachery; anything to obtain at last the

heritage out of which I have been cheated.”

“Enough! You have made your decision. Henceforward let me hear no

repinings, no hypocritical regrets. And now, order your horse, gallop

back as fast as you can to the neighbourhood of Hallgrove, and show

yourself foremost amongst those who seek for Lionel Dale.”

“Yes, yes; I will obey you—I will shake off this miserable hesitation.

I will make my nature iron, as you have made yours.”

Sir Reginald rang, and ordered his horse to be brought round to the

door of the inn.

“Where and when shall I see you again?” he asked Victor, as he was

putting on the coat which had hung before the fire to be dried.

“In London, when you return there.”

“You leave here soon?”

“To-morrow morning. You will write to me by to-morrow night’s post to

tell me all that has occurred in the interval.”

“I will do so,” answered Reginald.

“Good, and now go; you have already been too long out of the way of

those who should have witnessed your affectionate anxiety about your

cousin.”

*

CHAPTER XXIV.

“I AM WEARY OF MY PART.”

Reginald mounted his horse, questioned the ostler respecting the way to

the appointed spot on the river-bank, and rode away in the direction

indicated. He had no difficulty in discovering the scene of the

appointed meeting. The light of the torches in the hands of the

searchers guided him to the spot.

Here he found gentlemen and grooms, huntsmen and farmers, on horseback,

riding up and down the river-bank; some carrying lighted torches, whose

lurid glare shone red against the darkness of the night; all busy, all

excited.

Amongst these the baronet found Douglas Dale, who rode up to meet his

cousin, as the other approached.

“Any news, Reginald?” he asked, in a voice that was hoarse with fatigue

and excitement.

“None,” answered Sir Reginald: “I have ridden miles, and made many

inquiries, but have been able to discover no traces. Have you no

tidings?”

“None but evil ones,” replied Douglas Dale, in a tone of despair “we

have found a battered hat on the edge of the river—hat which my

brother’s valet identifies as that worn by his master. We fear the

worst, Reginald—the very worst. All inquiries have been made in the

village, at every farm-house in the parish, and far beyond the parish.

My brother has been seen nowhere. Since we rode down the hill, it seems

as if no human eye had rested on him. In that moment he vanished as

utterly as if the earth had opened to swallow him up alive.”

“What is it that you fear?”

“We fear that he tried to cross the river at some point higher up,

where the stream is swollen to a perilous extent, and that both horse

and rider were swept away by the current.”

“In that case both horse and rider must be found—alive or dead.”

“Ultimately, perhaps, but not easily,” answered Douglas; “the bed of

the stream is a mass of tangled weeds. I have heard Lionel say that men

have been drowned in that river whose bodies have never been

discovered.”

“It is horrible!” exclaimed Reginald; “but let us still hope for the

best. All this may be needless misery.”

“I fear not, Reginald,” answered Douglas; “my brother Lionel is not a

man to be careless about giving anxiety to those who love him.”

“I will ride farther along the bank,” said the baronet; “I may hear

something.”

“And I will wait here,” replied Douglas, with the dull apathy of

despair. “The news of my brother’s death will reach me soon enough.”

Reginald Eversleigh rode on by the river brink, following a group of

horsemen carrying torches. Douglas waited, with his ear on the alert to

catch every sound, his heart beating tumultuously, in the terrible

expectation that each moment would bring him the news he dreaded to

hear.

Endless as that interval of expectation and suspense appeared to

Douglas Dale, in reality it was not of very long duration. The cold of

the winter’s night did not affect him, the burning fever of fear

devoured him. Soon he lost sight of the glimmering of the torches, as

the bearers followed the bend of the river, and the sound of the men’s

voices died out of his ears. But after a while he heard a shout, then

another, and then two men came running towards him, as fast as they

could in the darkness. Douglas Dale knew them both, and called out,

“What is it, Freeman? What is it, Carey? Bad news, I fear.”

“Yes, Mr. Douglas, bad news. We’ve found the rector’s hunting-whip.”

“Where?” stammered Douglas.

“Below the bridge, sir, close by the ash-tree; and the bank is broken.

I’m afraid it’s all up, sir; if he went in there, the horse and he are

both gone, sir.”

Like a man walking in a dream, Douglas Dale accompanied the bearers of

the evil tidings to the spot where the group of searchers was collected

together. In the midst stood Squire Mordaunt, holding in his hand a

heavy hunting-whip, which all present recognized, and many had seen in

the rector’s hand only that morning. They all made way for Douglas

Dale; they were very silent now, and hopeless conviction was on every

face.

“This makes it too plain, Douglas,” said Squire Mordaunt, as he handed

the whip to the rector’s brother; “bear it as well as you can, my dear

fellow. There’s nothing to be done now till daylight.”

“Nothing more?” said Reginald, while Douglas covered his face, and

groaned in unrestrained anguish; “the drags can surely be used? the—”

“Wait a minute, Sir Reginald,” said the squire, holding up his hand;

“of course your impatience is very natural, but it