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

heaven. If you find your regiment too expensive for your altered means,

I would recommend you to exchange into the line. And now, Mr.

Eversleigh, I wish you good morning.”

“But, Sir Oswald—uncle—my dear uncle—you cannot surely cast me off

thus coldly—you—”

The baronet rang the bell.

“The door—for Mr. Eversleigh,” he said to the servant who answered his

summons.

The young man rose, looking at his kinsman with an incredulous gaze.

He could not believe that all his hopes were utterly ruined; that he

was, indeed, cast off with a pittance which to him seemed positively

despicable.

But there was no hope to be derived from Sir Oswald’s face. A mask of

stone could not have been more inflexible.

“Good morning, sir,” said Reginald, in accents that were tremulous with

suppressed rage.

He could say no more, for the servant was in attendance, and he could

not humiliate himself before the man who had been wont to respect him

as Sir Oswald Eversleigh’s heir. He took up his hat and cane, bowed to

the baronet, and left the room.

Once beyond the doors of his uncle’s mansion, Reginald Eversleigh

abandoned himself to the rage that possessed him.

“He shall repent this,” he muttered. “Yes; powerful as he is, he shall

repent having used his power. As if I had not suffered enough already;

as if I had not been haunted perpetually by that girl’s pale,

reproachful face, ever since the fatal hour in which I abandoned her.

But those letters; how could they have fallen into my uncle’s hands?

That scoundrel, Laston, must have stolen them, in revenge for his

dismissal.”

He went to the loneliest part of the Green Park, and, stretched at full

length upon a bench, abandoned himself to gloomy reflections, with his

face hidden by his folded arms.

For hours he lay thus, while the bleak March winds whistled loud and

shrill in the leafless trees above his head—while the cold, gray light

of the sunless day faded into the shadows of evening. It was past seven

o’clock, and the lamps in Piccadilly shone brightly, when he rose,

chilled to the bone, and walked away from the park.

“And I am to consider myself rich—with my pay and fifty pounds a

quarter,” he muttered, with a bitter laugh; “and if I find a crack

cavalry regiment too expensive, I am to exchange into the line—turn

foot-soldier, and face the scornful looks of all my old acquaintances.

No, no, Sir Oswald Eversleigh; you have brought me up as a gentleman,

and a gentleman I will remain to the end of the chapter, let who will

pay the cost. It may seem easy to cast me off, Sir Oswald; but we have

not done with each other yet.”

*

CHAPTER IV.

OUT OF THE DEPTHS.

After dismissing his nephew, Sir Oswald Eversleigh abandoned himself

for some time to gloomy thought. The trial had been a very bitter one;

but at length, arousing himself from that gloomy reverie, he said

aloud, “Thank Heaven it is over; my resolution did not break down, and

the link is broken.”

Sir Oswald had made his arrangements for leaving London that afternoon,

on the first stage of his journey to Raynham Castle. There were few

railroads six-and-twenty years ago, and the baronet was in the habit of

travelling in his own carriage, with post-horses. The journey from

London to the far north of Yorkshire was, therefore, a long one,

occupying two or three days.

Sir Oswald left town an hour after his interview with Reginald

Eversleigh.

It was ten o’clock when he alighted for the first time in a large,

bustling town on the great northern road. He had changed horses several

times since leaving London, and had accomplished a considerable

distance within the five hours. He put up at the principal hotel, where

he intended to remain for the night. From the windows of his rooms was

to be seen the broad, open market-place, which to-night was brilliantly

lighted, and thronged with people. Sir Oswald looked with surprise at

the bustling scene, as one of the waiters drew the curtains before the

long windows.

“Your town seems busy to-night,” he said.

“Yes, sir; there has been a fair, sir—our spring fair, sir—a cattle

fair, sir. Perhaps you’d rather not have the curtains drawn, sir. You

may like to look out of the window after dinner, sir.”

“Look out of the window?—oh, dear no! Close the curtains by all

means.”

The waiter wondered at the gentleman’s bad taste, and withdrew to

hasten the well-known guest’s dinner.

It was long past eleven, and Sir Oswald was sitting brooding before the

fire, when he was startled from his reverie by the sound of a woman’s

voice singing in the market-place below. The streets had been for some

time deserted, the shops closed, the lights extinguished, except a few

street-lamps, flickering feebly here and there. All was quiet, and the

voice of the street ballad-singer sounded full and clear in the

stillness.

Sir Oswald Eversleigh was in no humour to listen to street-singers. It

must needs be some voice very far removed from common voices which

could awaken him from his gloomy abstraction.

It was, indeed, an uncommon voice, such a voice as one rarely hears

beyond the walls of the Italian opera-house—such a voice as is not

often heard even within those walls. Full, clear, and rich, the

melodious accents sent a thrill to the innermost heart of the listener.

The song which the vagrant was singing was the simplest of ballads. It

was “Auld Robin Gray.”

While he sat by the fire, listening to that familiar ballad, Sir Oswald

Eversleigh forgot his sorrow and indignation—forgot his nephew’s

baseness, forgot everything, except the voice of the woman singing in

the deserted market-place below the windows.

He went to one of the windows, and drew back the curtain. The night was

cold and boisterous; but a full moon was shining in a clear sky, and

every object in the broad street was visible in that penetrating light.

The windows of Sir Oswald’s sitting-room opened upon a balcony. He

lifted the sash, and stepped out into the chill night air. He saw the

figure of a woman moving a way from the pavement before the hotel very

slowly, with a languid, uncertain step. Presently he saw her totter and

pause, as if scarcely able to proceed. Then she moved unsteadily

onwards for a few paces, and at last sank down upon a door-step, with

the helpless motion of utter exhaustion.

He did not stop to watch, longer from the balcony. He went back to his

room, snatched up his hat, and hurried down stairs. They were beginning

to close the establishment for the night, and the waiters stared as Sir

Oswald passed them on his way to the street.

In the market-place nothing was stirring. The baronet could see the

dark figure of the woman still in the same attitude into which he had

seen her sink when she fell exhausted on the door-step, half-sitting,

half-lying on the stone.

Sir Oswald hurried to the spot where the woman had sunk down, and bent

over her. Her arms were folded on the stone, her head lying on her

folded arms.

“Why are you lying there, my good girl?” asked Sir Oswald, gently.

Something in the slender figure told him that the ballad-singer was

young, though he could not see her face.

She lifted her head slowly, with a languid action, and looked up at the

speaker.

“Where else should I go?” she asked, in bitter tones.

“Have you no home?”

“Home!” echoed the girl. “I have never had what gentlemen like you call

a home.”

“But where are you going to-night?”

“To the fields—to some empty barn, if I can find one with a door

unfastened, into which I may creep. I have been singing all day, and

have not earned money enough to pay for a lodging.”

The full moon shone broad and clear upon the girl’s face. Looking at

her by that silvery light, Sir Oswald saw that she was very beautiful.

“Have you been long leading this miserable life?” Sir Oswald asked her

presently.

“My life has been one long misery,” answered the ballad-singer.

“How long have you been singing in the streets?”

“I have been singing about the country for two years; not always in the

streets, for some time I was in a company of show-people; but the

mistress of the show treated me badly, and I left her. Since then I

have been wandering about from place to place, singing in the streets

on market-days, and singing at fairs.”

The girl said all this in a dull, mechanical way, as if she were

accustomed to be called on to render an account of herself.

“And before you took to this kind of life,” said the baronet, strangely

interested in this vagrant girl; “how did you get your living before

then?”

“I lived with my father,” answered the girl, in an altered tone. “Have

you finished your questions?”

She shuddered slightly, and rose from her crouching attitude. The moon

still shone upon her face, intensifying its deathlike pallor.

“See,” said her unknown questioner, “here are a couple of sovereigns.

You need not wander into the open country to look for an empty barn.

You can procure shelter at some respectable inn. Or stay, it is close

upon midnight: you might find it difficult to get admitted to any

respectable house at such an hour. You had better come with me to my

hotel yonder, the ‘Star’—the landlady is a kind-hearted creature, and

will see you comfortably lodged. Come!”

The girl stood before Sir Oswald, shivering in the bleak wind, with a

thin black shawl wrapped tightly around her, and her dark brown hair

blown away from her face by that bitter March wind. She looked at him

with unutterable surprise in her countenance.

“You are very good,” she said; “no one of your class ever before

stepped out of his way to help me. Poor people have been kind to me—

often—very often. You are very good.”

There was more of astonishment than pleasure in the girl’s tone. It

seemed as if she cared very little about her own fate, and that her

chief feeling was surprise at the goodness of this fine gentleman.

“Do not speak of that,” said Sir Oswald, gently; “I am anxious to get

you a decent shelter for the night, but that is a very small favour. I

happen to be something of a musician, and I have been much struck by

the beauty of your voice. I may be able to put you in the way of making

good use of your voice.”

“Of my voice!”

The girl echoed the phrase as if it had no meaning to her.

“Come,” said her benefactor, “you are weary, and ill, perhaps. You look

terribly pale. Come to the hotel, and I will place you in the

landlady’s charge.”

He walked on, and the girl walked by his side, very slowly, as if she

had scarcely sufficient strength to carry her even that short distance.

There was something strange in the circumstance of Sir Oswald’s meeting

with this girl. There was something strange in the sudden interest

which she had aroused in him—the eager desire which he felt to learn

her previous history.

The mistress of the “Star Hotel” was somewhat surprised when one of the

waiters summoned her to the hall, where the street-singer was standing

by Sir Oswald’s side;