Читать книгу A Secret of the Sea (Vol. 1-3) - T. W. Speight - Страница 11

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When Matthew Kelvin reached home from his journey, he was certainly surprised at the budget of news which his mother had ready for him.

"Where's Olive?" was the first question he asked, as he sat down to his dinner, after kissing his mother, and satisfying himself that she was no worse in health than when he left her.

"She's gone to see the Leightons, and won't be back till to-morrow, so that I shall have my dear boy all to myself this evening. It was very considerate of Olive, I must say."

Mrs. Kelvin was a handsome, stately old lady, with silvery hair and gold-rimmed spectacles. She wore a richly brocaded dress, a China crape shawl--even in the house she always wore a shawl--and a black lace cap of elaborate construction. To see her sitting in her easy chair by the fire, no one would have suspected her of being an invalid; but for many years past she had suffered from a spinal complaint which almost entirely disabled her from walking.

"But we shall soon lose Olive now," added Mrs. Kelvin, a moment or two later.

"Indeed! bow's that?" asked Kelvin, indifferently.

"She is going to Stammars, as governess to Lady Dudgeon's two little girls. At her own terms, too--a hundred guineas a year."

"Well done, Olive!" cried the lawyer. "A clever girl, very; but I'm afraid that she and Lady Dudgeon won't agree long together."

"She may perhaps have a private reason of her own for so readily accepting Lady Dudgeon's offer. Mind, dear, I only say she may have; I don't say she has."

Matthew Kelvin knew that it was expected of him to show some curiosity in the matter.

"Shall I be set down as unduly inquisitive," he said, "if I ask you to tell me what you suppose this private reason to be?"

"I think it quite possible that Olive may be willing to go to Stammars, because--well, because Mr. Pomeroy will be there also."

Mrs. Kelvin drew her shawl round her with quite a relish, and shook her head meaningly at her son.

"Because Mr. Pomeroy will be there also!" said Mr. Kelvin, like a man who could hardly believe his ears. "Who says that Mr. Pomeroy is going to Stammars?"

In the pressure of far more important matters, he had almost forgotten the existence of an individual of so little consequence as Jack Pomeroy.

"Why, Matthew, dear, I thought it was all arranged that as soon as you came home, Mr. Pomeroy was to be made Sir Thomas Dudgeon's secretary, or something of that kind; and Olive and I have advanced him fifty pounds to provide him with an outfit. You know you told me yourself that you didn't suppose he had a shilling in the world."

It tested all Mr. Kelvin's powers of self-control to keep down an explosion of temper. He remembered in time that any outbreak on his part would be sure to upset his mother and make her ill for several days, so for a minute or two he did not speak. He put down his knife and fork, and sipped at his claret, as if in deep thought.

"Fifty pounds is a great deal of money, mother," he said at last.

"It is a great deal of money, Matthew, of course; but Mr. Pomeroy understands that he is to pay the amount back out of his salary."

"The whole affair seems to be cut and dried, and I have not even spoken to Sir Thomas about the man!" he said, not without a touch of impatience. "For anything I know to the contrary, Sir Thomas may have filled up the situation himself, while I have been away."

"I am sorry, dear, if I have done anything against your wishes; but really I thought I was managing everything for the best."

Matthew Kelvin could see a tear in a corner of his mother's eye, and he could not bear that.

"There, there, mother, don't put yourself out of the way," he said. "Fifty pounds won't ruin us, even though we should never get a penny of it back."

"But Mr. Pomeroy was such a nice young man!" continued Mrs. Kelvin. "So good-looking and well-educated; so gentlemanly in every way."

"Some of the most unmitigated scamps I have ever met with were very nice young men indeed," returned Matthew. "Not that I know anything to Pomeroy's discredit; at the same time, I know nothing very greatly to his credit. He has been a Bohemian--a wanderer to and fro on the face of the earth for years; and to introduce such a man, about whom, be it remembered, I know absolutely nothing, into the household of Sir Thomas Dudgeon, is a serious responsibility."

"Oh, I believe Olive satisfied herself thoroughly as to the respectability of Mr. Pomeroy and his connections."

Mr. Kelvin smiled grimly at the idea of Olive Deane getting more information about himself out of Jack Pomeroy than that individual might be inclined to give; but, as we have already seen, Olive never troubled herself with any such unnecessary details.

"If women would but refrain from meddling with matters that they don't understand, what a blessing it would be!" said Kelvin to himself.

"What was that you said just now about Olive and this fellow Pomeroy?" he asked, presently.

"Why, simply this: that I rather fancy Olive has contracted a penchant in that quarter. Something has given me that idea, but I may be quite mistaken."

Mr. Kelvin shrugged his shoulders.

"Of course she is old enough to choose for herself," he said, "and, as a rule, I think Olive is quite capable of taking care of her own interests: but if she should ever fall in love, I should like it to be with a man that one knows something about, and not with a mere adventurer."

"I can't help thinking that you are a little too hard on Mr. Pomeroy. It is a long time since I was so taken with any one as I was with him. A modest, sensible, well-informed young man I set him down as, and a gentleman withal, or else I don't know what a gentleman is."

"I suppose we men of law see with different spectacles from anybody else," said Matthew. "Suspicion is part of our stock-in-trade."

"I was certainly very much taken with Mr. Pomeroy," returned Mrs. Kelvin; "but at the same time my suspicion with regard to Olive made me interest myself more in his case than I should otherwise have done."

Mrs. Kelvin was not a woman to readily abandon any point that she had set her mind on carrying. Before bidding her son goodnight, she won from him a promise that he would do his best to obtain for Mr. Pomeroy the coveted situation.

Olive Deane was quite aware that her cousin would be greatly annoyed when he should come to ascertain what had been done during his absence, and she wisely left to his mother the task of telling him. Certainly she would have been anything but satisfied--anything but pleased--had she heard the conversation between her aunt and her cousin. The reference to a possible liking on her part for Pomeroy would have touched her pride to the quick. Very, very different was the feeling at work deep down in her heart.

Mrs. Kelvin, in fact, had been altogether mistaken with regard to the reasons which had induced Olive to accept the situation of governess to Lady Dudgeon's children. Olive had no option but to accept it--or felt that she had not. When Lady Dudgeon made her the offer, and when her aunt said, "It would be a capital situation for you, and were I you I should certainly accept it," Olive felt that she was not at liberty to do otherwise--not at liberty to live an idle life any longer. She had always given her aunt to understand that she was merely taking a few weeks' rest before looking out for another situation. Here was an excellent situation ready to her hand. How was it possible that she should refuse it?

And yet--and yet no one but herself knew how bitter it was to her to have to quit that roof; no one but herself knew how infinitely sweet to her had been those few weeks of sojourn with her cousin and her aunt! She had loved Matthew Kelvin with an undivided love from the time when, as girl and boy, they had played together. It was a love that had grown with her growth, and had rooted itself more firmly in her heart with each passing year.

She was clear-sighted enough to know that never since the time of that brief, romantic episode at Redcar, when she had had him all to herself for a blissful fortnight, had Matthew Kelvin felt for her anything warmer than a mere cousinly, or, at the most, a quiet, brotherly affection. She was sufficiently versed in worldly knowledge to be aware that the chances that she, a poor governess, neither very young nor very handsome, should ever become the wife of her ambitious, well-to-do cousin were about as remote as it was possible for them to be. And yet, for all that, a dim, faint hope had always held possession of her heart--so dim and so faint, that she herself seemed to be hardly aware of its existence--that among the unknown chances and changes of the future, that out of the involvement and evolution of the great unrehearsed drama of life, with its unforeseen exits and entrances, such a happy climax might somehow--she could not tell how--be brought about.

She had got into the way of looking upon her cousin as a man not likely to marry. If this view of his character struck the foundation from her own hopes, it seemed to preclude fear from any other quarter. When, therefore, Matthew told her the story of his love for, and rejection by, Eleanor Lloyd, it came upon her with all the force of an astounding revelation. Happily there seemed no likelihood of Miss Lloyd altering her determination not to accept Mr. Kelvin; therefore, as far as she--Olive--was concerned, she would not look upon the campaign as entirely lost even now.

Many a husband has been won through his rejection by a rival. Men at such times are prone to seek the first pleasant shelter that offers itself to them. They want to lie quiet and heal them of their wounds; and there are plenty of women in the world ready to act the part of physician to the wounds inflicted by another, provided only that the wounded knight will agree to wear no other gage than theirs in time to come.

Such a physician would Olive gladly have become, rather than lose her knight, if he would but have consented to such a method of treatment. But Mr. Kelvin was no soft-hearted swain who thinks the world is no longer good for anything because a certain pair of white arms refuse to coil themselves round his neck. It is true that he had told her of his wounds, but he had expressed no desire to be healed of them; he had given Olive no encouragement whatever to offer herself as his nurse. He had expressed himself very bitterly with regard to the person who had so wounded him, and Olive had done her best to intensify that bitterness; but that was all. She felt that she was not one step nearer the capture of her cousin's heart than on that day, now several weeks ago, when he had first told her of his love for Miss Lloyd. But was that love really dead? Was it not, unknown to himself, still smouldering in his heart, ready at the slightest provocation to burst into a flame tenfold more ardent than before?

She felt instinctively that no other woman would ever become the wife of Matthew Kelvin so long as Eleanor Lloyd remained unmarried; and this feeling it was that was at the bottom of the plot for inducing Pomeroy to make love to the latter. That dangerous rival once out of the way for ever, Olive's ambitious scheme would not look so entirely hopeless as it did just now.

Chagrined as Olive was at having to quit her cousin's roof with the hidden purpose of her life no nearer its accomplishment than before, she yet acknowledged to herself that she would much rather go to Stammars than anywhere else. She had all a woman's curiosity to see that other woman about whom she had been told so much, and who had been in her thoughts, day and night, ever since she had heard the first mention of her name. At Stammars, too, she would have an opportunity of seeing Matthew now and then when he should come there to visit Sir Thomas on business. Then, she would be on the spot, ready, with deft fingers, to tie up any threads of her plot which might be accidentally broken, or to hasten Pomeroy's footsteps along the path she wanted him to tread, should it prove needful to do so. In any case, she need not stay there longer than was necessary for the carrying out of her own views. At any time she could pick a quarrel with Lady Dudgeon, throw up her situation, and go back for a while to the shelter of her aunt's roof.

Five days after her cousin's return, Olive Deane found herself duly installed in her new home, and two days after that Mr. John Pomeroy made his appearance at Stammars.

Mr. Kelvin, despite his irritation and chagrin at what had taken place during his absence, did not fail to carry out the promise he had made to his mother. The situation was still open, and Sir Thomas at once promised it to Pomeroy. Then Kelvin wrote to the latter, telling him when he would be expected at Stammars, but not in any way alluding to the loan of fifty pounds. As a matter of course, on passing through Pembridge, Gerald called to see Kelvin, but the lawyer was not at home--purposely. He had done his duty by his mother, but he had no wish to see the man who had caused him so much annoyance; he only hoped that Pomeroy would do nothing to disgrace his recommendation. For the present he washed his hands of him.

Mr. Kelvin had not been without his own thoughts all this time as to the course he had taken at Olive's suggestion in keeping from Miss Lloyd the contents of the sealed packet sent him by Miss Bellamy. He was not usually a man whose mind vacillated with regard to any of his intentions or purposes. "There's no shilly-shallying about Matthew," his mother would often say. "When he sees his point he goes straight at it: fire and water would hardly keep him back."

But in this matter of the sealed packet he did shilly-shally painfully, blowing hot and cold by turns, making up his mind one day that he would tell everything, and being as stedfastly determined the next that he would do nothing of the kind. He was not unaware of the meanness of what he was doing; it was altogether foreign to his notions of right and wrong, to act with anything but the strictest honour towards his clients, rich or poor. Still, about this particular case there was something so exceptional as to remove it out of the ordinary category of purely professional business--that is what he said to himself: but the real reason was that his own feelings were more deeply interested than they had ever been before. Under such circumstances it is by no means difficult to argue oneself into the belief that although the action on which we are engaged may not be positively meritorious, it is, at least, one from which no one will suffer. "I am only doing Miss Lloyd a negative wrong," Kelvin would sometimes say to himself. "If anything, she ought to thank me for keeping the secret from her as long as possible." Having put off the revelation for so long a time, he shrank more than ever from telling her now. One morning on getting up he would swear to himself that he had never loved Eleanor Lloyd as he loved her now: next morning he would vow that he had never hated any human being as he hated her. He had been rendered very wretched by Miss Lloyd's rejection of his suit; but with all his unhappiness he had never till now lost his own sense of self-respect: not that he would have admitted for a single moment that he had so lost it. He made believe, even to himself, that it was still as safely in his possession as ever it had been. But the acute consciousness of its loss which came over him at odd times--only to be at once thrust into the background with a firm hand--by no means tended to mitigate the intensity of his determination to be avenged, in one form or another, on the woman to whom he owed this strange new feeling, which not seldom made him shrink within himself, as though he were in reality little better than a whipped cur.

Stammars, the residence of Sir Thomas Dudgeon, was, as a family mansion, still quite in its infancy, being something under twenty years old. Sir Thomas had stuck to the old house as long as it was safe for him to do so; but when, during a night of terrible storm, a great part of it was blown about his ears, he began to see that it would not be advisable to delay his removal much longer. So, on a windy knoll about half a mile from the old house, the new mansion was built. It was built with all modern conveniences and appliances. The rooms were large and lofty, and had huge plate-glass windows with venetian blinds. Round about were gardens, and shrubberies, and hothouses, with a view beyond over miles of pleasant Hertfordshire scenery. Everybody expressed themselves as being enchanted with the house, and yet everybody felt that it lacked one essential. There was no homelike comfort about it. Whether it was that the rooms were too big and the fire-places too few; whether it was that the house was built so high above the surrounding country as to be exposed to every wind that blew, and so had never been able to get itself warmed through; or from whatever other cause it might arise, certain it is that Stammars never seemed otherwise than cold and comfortless. Each room in the house seemed to have its own particular draught, while the wind seemed to be for ever playing at hide-and-seek up and down the great wide corridors and staircases, banging every now and then a bedroom door, or creeping with snake-like motion under any piece of carpet that had not been firmly nailed down.

The old mansion of Stammars had dated back for upwards of four centuries, and had originally been the home of the Fyzackerleys, one of the most ancient families in the county. So ancient, indeed, had the Fyzackerleys at length become that they had died out, and the estate had been brought to the hammer. The fortunate purchaser was the present Sir Thomas's grandfather, at that time a sugar refiner in the Minories, and some five years subsequently Lord Mayor of London. While filling the latter office he had the good fortune to be knighted, and later still by two or three years he was created a baronet. Why such an honour had been conferred on the worthy but obscure sugar refiner, no one seemed to know. There was some question about it at the time, and certain people went so far as to whisper that the baronetcy had been given in return for a loan of twenty thousand pounds made to a certain august personage, who would have found repayment of the same a somewhat inconvenient matter. But such a report was probably the invention of pure malice. Be that as it may, the sugar refiner took his title and his money down to Stammars; and there he died, and there in due course he was buried. After him came his son, and then, in the ordinary course of events, his grandson, the present Sir Thomas Dudgeon and the third baronet of that name.

Sir Thomas, at this time, was close upon sixty years of age, and was a short-statured, podgy man, with white hair, and a red, good-natured face. He almost invariably wore a black tail-coat, black waistcoat, pepper-and-salt trousers, and shoes. He wore starched check neckcloths, and pointed collars that nearly touched his ears. His hats were always of fluffy, white beaver and as they were very rarely brushed, they gave him a certain shaggy and unkempt appearance. He had a trick of whistling under his breath when he had nothing better to do, and of jingling the keys and loose change in his pocket. It was a peculiarity of Sir Thomas that his shoes always creaked when he walked. No one could tell why every pair of shoes that he had should do so, but they did. At Stammars everybody was so accustomed to this creaking that if by any possibility he had become possessed of a noiseless pair, his family would certainly have been alarmed: they would have taken it as an omen that something dreadful was about to happen. It was told in Pembridge as a good thing that when Sir Thomas was presented to his Sovereign, his shoes creaked so loudly that the eyes of all the great functionaries were turned on him in horror; but that the little man backed smilingly out of the royal presence, blandly unconscious of the consternation he had excited. When we first make his acquaintance he had just been elected member for Pembridge, in place of the late Mr. Rackstraw, who had represented that borough for more than twenty years. Parliament would meet in February, when the family would go up to town, and Sir Thomas would take his oaths and his seat, and do his best to justify the hopes of his Pembridgian supporters, that he would speedily become one of the shining lights of his country's senate.

Lady Dudgeon was a tall, large-boned woman, some half dozen years younger than her husband. She had a loud, rough-edged voice, and a magisterial cross-examining manner. She was never happier than when laying down the law to some of her servants or dependents, or scolding them for an infringement of one or another of the innumerable rules and regulations with which she strove to fence round the daily lives of all those over whom she had any control. Had she been a man, Lady Dudgeon would infallibly have developed into a Justice of the Peace, and as such have been a terror to all the evil-doers of the neighbourhood. With two exceptions, everybody at Stammars, her husband included, stood in awe of her. Those exceptions were her eldest daughter, Sophia, aged thirteen; and Eleanor Lloyd.

Lady Dudgeon had only two children living--the aforesaid Sophia, and Caroline, who was two years younger than her sister. For their behoof it was that an engagement had been entered into with Olive Deane. They were two handsome, resolute girls, full of high spirits and mischief who looked upon governesses as their natural enemies. Three ladies of this profession they had already worried into resigning their position at Stammars, and they had looked forward with considerable glee to worrying Miss Deane in like manner.

It was on a complaint from Madame Ribaud, who was governess number two, respecting some terrible act of mutiny, that Sophia obtained a signal victory over her mother, and from that time she had never let go the advantage thus gained. In consequence of Madame's complaint, Lady Dudgeon had taken Sophia by the hand, and had led her away with the avowed intention of shutting her up in a certain dark closet under the stairs, and there leaving her to do penance during the whole of a long summer's day--a day when the sun was shining and all the birds in the shrubbery were calling to her to go out of doors and be one with them.

"Mamma, you are not going to shut me up in that horrid hole?" said Sophia, when the door had been flung open for her to enter.

"I certainly am going to shut you up here," said Lady Dudgeon, with a portentous shake of her head.

"Then do you know what I shall do, mamma?"

"I don't know what you will do, Sophia, neither do I care."

"You are going to have a dinner-party on Friday," said Sophia, with determination. "In the middle of the dinner I will walk into the room and tell everybody that you wear a wig and have five false teeth!"

Lady Dudgeon glared down into the girl's bold face as if she could hardly believe the evidence of her ears. What Sophia had just stated she had hitherto fondly believed to be a secret known to her husband and her maid alone.

"You naughty, vile girl," she stammered out. "I will send you right away from home to a school on the Continent, and you shall not come back any more until you are quite grown up."

"All right, mamma; I'll go," said the undaunted girl; "but I'll write to everybody by post and tell them about the wig and the teeth;" and, as Lady Dudgeon knew, her daughter was just the girl to carry out the threat. Her ladyship was puzzled. "Look here, mamma," said Sophy: "between you and me, Ribaud's nothing but an old stupid, and no more fit to be a governess than I am. You take my advice, and send her about her business. I'm going to get my rope and have a jolly skip round the laurels."

And almost before her ladyship knew what had happened, she had been well hugged, and found herself alone, staring blankly into the closet under the stairs.

A few days later Madame Ribaud received a month's notice, and Lady Dudgeon never attempted extreme measures with Sophia after that time.

It is not improbable that she had this very incident in her mind during her first interview with Miss Deane after the latter's arrival at Stammars. "I place them entirely in your hands," said her ladyship, in reference to her two girls. "Exercise whatever discipline over them you may think best, only don't box their ears, and don't trouble me. If you find that they are becoming your master instead of you being theirs, don't come and complain in the expectation that I shall assist you to maintain an authority that you are not strong enough to keep in your own hands. Should such a contingency arise, it would be better for you to resign your situation at once."

For the first two or three days all went tolerably well, but hardly to Olive's satisfaction. There were no overt signs of rebellion, but the girls seemed unaccountably stupid. Whether their stupidity arose from inattention, from weakness of memory, or from a natural lack of intelligence, she was for some time at a loss to judge. But, by-and-by, she began to suspect that this stupidity was merely an assumption on their part purposely to annoy her, and that all the time they were laughing at her in their sleeves. But at such a game as that, Olive knew that her patience was far more than a match for theirs, and so it turned out. Miss Deane seemed so quiet and easy, that there was evidently no fun to be got out of her without trying something more practical than stumbling over one's French verbs, or making mistakes in the spelling of one's copies. Thus it fell out on a certain morning when Miss Deane was going out for a walk, that she found it impossible to get her arms into the sleeves of her waterproof On examination, it was found that the sleeves had been sewn up at the wrist. Miss Deane hung the waterproof up without a word, and took off her bonnet. Then she said, "I think, young ladies, we will not go for our usual walk this morning." Sophy and Carry, half frightened and half defiant, were nudging each other and making believe that it was great fun.

When they got back into the schoolroom, said Miss Deane: "As you young ladies appear to be so fond of playing off practical jokes on other people, you cannot reasonably object to one being played off on you. You will, if you please, write out in detail and learn by heart, pages twenty-five to twenty-nine of the irregular verbs in your French Instruction Book. And you will not leave the room till you can repeat the lesson to my satisfaction."

The two girls made a face at each other, but said nothing. It was not the first time they had had a big task set them for a punishment, but they had always contrived to win the day either by force or stratagem, and they did not doubt their ability to do so in the present case.

By luncheon time they had got the lesson written out. It was not pleasant to have to sacrifice their luncheon, but they were prepared to submit to that: dinner would make up for everything. They did not expect that Miss Deane would let them go down to dinner as usual, but they did expect that she would go down herself, as Madame Ribaud had done in similar cases. When this had happened, one of the housemaids had always supplied them surreptitiously with a basket of provisions, which they had drawn up to their window by means of a cord, and had afterwards feasted on in secret. No dinners had ever tasted half so sweet. Thus provisioned, they had been able to set Madame Ribaud at defiance, who, indeed, had never the heart to extend their quarantine beyond the usual hour for tea, and would then set her rebels free, with a little sigh and an ominous shake of her head. As it had happened before, so would it fall out again, thought the girls; but they did not know Olive Deane.

Between luncheon and dinner-time they dawdled over their lesson, skimming it carelessly over a few times, but employing themselves more in drawing caricatures than in anything else. After a time the dinner-bell rang--they dined early at Stammars when there was no company--but apparently Miss Deane took no notice.

"Did you not hear the dinner-bell, Miss Deane?" asked Caroline, timidly.

"Yes, I heard it; but I don't want any dinner to-day. I am going to stay here with you."

The girls looked at each other. Carry's eyes flushed with tears; but Sophy clenched her sharp white teeth, and said something under her breath. All the same, she was as hungry as a young wolf. Both the girls, in fact, were blessed with fine, healthy appetites, which they took care to indulge on every possible occasion; and now their appetites cried out in a way that it was almost impossible to resist.

Candles were lighted, and the afternoon wore itself wearily on till tea-time came round. Anxious eyes were turned on Miss Deane. Surely she would go down to tea; if not, what could she be made of? But no, Miss Deane merely changed one book for another, and went on with her reading, totally unconcerned.

Carry snivelled a little in secret, but Sophy looked as fierce as a young brigand. Presently Sophy wrote a little note, and flung it across to her sister. "If she doesn't let us out soon, I'll kill her and roast her for supper."

This made poor Carry tremble violently. She fully believed in her sister's ability to carry out her terrible threat. And so another wretched hour doled itself wearily out.

Sophy's wolf was becoming very ravenous indeed. She saw clearly that her enemy was too strong for her. By-and-by she tossed a scrap of paper to her sister, on which she had written the words: "It's no use. She carries too many guns for us"--this was a favourite phrase of her father. "I'm going to learn my task, and I advise you to do the same."

Three-quarters of an hour later, Sophy walked up to Miss Deane and held out her book in silence. Then she went through her task without a single mistake. She took back the book, made Miss Deane an elaborate curtsey, and marched out of the room with the dignified air of a young duchess.

Carry did not manage so well. She broke down when about half-way through, and burst into tears. Olive quietly shut the book, drew the girl to her and kissed her, and then bade her run off and get some supper.

From that day forth, Miss Deane and her pupils were on the best possible terms.