Running the Gauntlet: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

There was no longer the least doubt about Laurence's mysterious correspondent. Both notes were in the same handwriting.

At luncheon that day Miss Gillespie's disappearance was the principal theme of conversation, and many and various were the comments it evoked. Lady Mitford seemed a little scandalized at the circumstance; but Mrs. Hammond, her first astonishment over, treated it very lightly. She had always thought Miss Gillespie a "curious person," she said; there was always something "odd" about her. Very likely, when they got back to town, they would find she would return to them. Perhaps, after all, the reason of her flight was that she was a little bored in the country. And then Mrs. Hammond forgot all about Miss Gillespie in her delight at having Sir Charles Mitford sitting next her again, at finding him paying her little attentions and compliments, talking to her in a dropped voice, and regarding her with deep tender glances, just as he had done in the first days of her visit to Redmoor. She delighted in all this, and her delight was increased when she marked the grave gloom on Laurence Alsager's face, as she shot a glance of saucy triumph across at him. Then he guessed the meaning of Miss Gillespie's note more thoroughly than he had yet done. She had had some hold either on Mrs. Hammond or on Sir Charles; that was gone, and he alone was left to do his best to keep them in check. And what could he do? Any overt act of his would be misconstrued by Mrs. Hammond, and turned to her own purposes, while over Mitford he had not the smallest power. What could he do? Had Lord Dollamore given any sign of intending to persecute Lady Mitford with his attentions, Laurence thought that his staying in the house might be of some use; but Dollamore had hitherto been perfectly respectful. So Alsager determined that he would remain a couple of days longer, and then start off for Knockholt.

After luncheon a proposal was made to go and see some new horses which Captain Bligh had inspected when last in Torquay, and which he thought might be obtained as bargains. So most of the party adjourned to the stable-yard, where these horses had been brought; and the visit ended in a pair of them being put to, and Sir Charles and Mrs. Hammond mounting the phaeton to which they were harnessed. The horses were young and fresh, and plunged a great deal at starting; but Sir Charles had them well in hand, and with his companion by his side and a groom in the back-seat, went flying down the avenue. It was full an hour before they returned, and Sir Charles's verdict on the pair was that they were too hot to hold. He had had all his work, he said, to keep them at all within bounds. Mrs. Hammond looked flushed and elated; but she went straight up to Lady Mitford, and told her how she had enjoyed the drive, and was full of praises of Sir Charles's powers of coachmanship.

That evening Sir Charles took Mrs. Hammond in to the dining-room, and addressed his conversation principally to her. He drank a great deal of wine both with and after dinner, and was in more boisterous spirits than any of his friends had yet seen him. When they went into the drawing-room he made straight for Mrs. Hammond's chair, and there he remained the whole evening, talking to her in a lowered tone, and regarding her with glances the fire of which had by no means been subdued by the quantity of claret he had drunk. Poor Georgie! The events of this day, culminating as they were, had totally upset her, and had reduced her very much to the same condition as when she begged Alsager to be her charioteer to Egremont Priory. There could be no mistake about it now. Surely it was a flagrant case; and the colour flushed in her cheeks as she saw Mrs. Masters's shoulder-shrugs and marked Lord Dollamore's ill-disguised cynical manner. Poor Georgie! She asked Mrs. Charteris to sing, and sat and listened to her as usual, and thanked her at the end of the performance; and she chatted with the Tyrrell girls, and she took the deepest interest in Mrs. Masters's embroidery,--and all the time her heart was sick within her, and she kept stealing glances at the couple seated in the embrasure of the window, with their heads so nearly touching. All present noticed her state of mind; but no one understood it or pitied it like Laurence Alsager, who began to confess to himself that what Dollamore had prophesied at the club was undoubtedly coming true, so far as Mitford was concerned; and did, not the wife's future, even in Lord Dollamore's prophecy, hinge upon the husband's conduct? It was a most horrible shame; but how on earth was he to protest against it? He had no position to enable him to do anything of the kind. There was only one thing that he could do, and that was to speak to Laura Hammond. He could do that; it might not be of much use, but he would do it.

So, accordingly, the next morning after breakfast Colonel Alsager sent to Mrs. Hammond a polite little note, in which he presented his compliments, and requested the pleasure of a few minutes' conversation; and to which a verbal answer was returned to the effect that Mrs. Hammond would be delighted to see Colonel Alsager, if he could come up at once. He followed the lady's-maid, and found Mrs. Hammond in the boudoir, dressed in her habit and hat. She received him with great cordiality.

"I am so sorry to have sent what may have seemed a peremptory message, Colonel Alsager," she said; "but the fact is, Sir Charles has been round here just now, and we have arranged a little riding-party,--he and I, and Emily Tyrrell, and Captain Bligh, and Mr. Somers, and one or two more; and I promised to be ready by eleven."

"Make no excuses, pray," said Laurence, in a hard dry tone. "I won't detain you, as your time's valuable, by any preamble. I will simply ask, are you determined to persist in your present course?"

"In what course, my dear Colonel Alsager?"

"In bringing destruction on a household, Laura Hammond! In blighting the happiness of a young wife, and spreading snares for a foolish husband! In rendering yourself conspicuous, and your host contemptible! Do I speak plainly enough?"

"Scarcely," said she with a little smile; "for though you insult me, and give way to your own rage, you do not condescend to--or you dare not--explain your motives. Don't think that I am weak enough to imagine that you are jealous of me, Laurence. I know you too well for that. I know that whatever command I may have had over you is past and gone. But perhaps the passion, the caprice that I had for you--call it what you will--continues. Suppose it does? Suppose the sight of you, the meeting with you after so long a separation, has renewed the dormant flame? You scorn me, and I see you prostrate at the feet of a sweetly pretty piece of propriety and innocence--don't interrupt me, please--who then becomes my rival? Revenge is sweet, especially to women, you know. This child of the fields makes herself my rival,--I make myself hers! I show to you and others, that if you care for me no longer, there are others who will. I show to her and others, that if she is preferred to me by one I--yes, I love,--I am preferred to her by one she loves. As yet I have never run second for anything for which I've entered, Colonel Alsager, and I don't intend to do so now."