Читать книгу A Secret of the Sea (Vol. 1-3) - T. W. Speight - Страница 6

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The place was Miss Bellamy's lodgings in Ormond Square, Bayswater, and the time eight p.m., on a frosty evening in mid-winter. The people were two: Miss Bellamy herself, and her guest, Mr. Gerald Warburton.

Miss Bellamy was forty-five years of age, but looked older. She was spare in person and lengthy in nose, but still retained considerable traces of former good looks. She wore her hair, which was fast turning grey, in three old-fashioned curls, fastened down with combs on either side her face. She always wore silk in an afternoon, either brown or black--thick, rustling silk, made to wear and last, that would turn and dye, and then look nearly as good as new. Privately, Miss Bellamy used spectacles, but no one had ever seen her wear them except Eliza, the maid-of-all-work; and it was currently reported in the house that that young person had been bribed with two half-crowns never to divulge the terrible secret.

Gerald Warburton was a tall, dark-complexioned young fellow, some six or seven and twenty years old. He had a refined aquiline face, a pair of dark eyes, behind which a smile seemed always to be lurking, and black, silky hair. He had an easy, lounging, graceful manner, more common among Frenchmen or Italians than among us stiff-necked islanders; but then, he had lived so much abroad that he could hardly be said to belong to one country more than another. He possessed the happy faculty of adapting himself with ease to whatever place or persons he might be associated with. Whether living among Laps and reindeer, or smoking the pipe of peace in an Indian wigwam, he made himself equally at home; and what was still rarer, he made those with whom he happened to be feel that, for the time being, he was one of themselves. No Frenchman would have made a mistake as to his nationality, but in a walk down Regent Street or Pall Mall it is not improbable that half the people who noticed him would have set him down as a foreigner.

Just now he was employed, after a thoroughly English fashion, in the slow but sure consumption of a thoroughly English beefsteak. Occasionally he paused to refresh himself from the cup of fragrant tea at his elbow. Miss Bellamy sat opposite to him, looking on with admiring eyes. The more beefsteak he ate and the more tea he drank, the more Miss Bellamy admired him, from which we may conclude that she at least was thoroughly English. Gerald had just reached London, after twenty-four hours of unbroken travelling.

"I wish I could induce you to take another lump of sugar in your tea," said Miss Bellamy. "I never think that you get the real flavour of the leaf without plenty of sugar to assist it."

"There you must allow me to differ from you," said Gerald. "To put sugar in tea seems to me simply to spoil it." Miss Bellamy smiled and shook her head.

"Then you really have some faint recollection of having seen me when you were a child?" she said, after a pause.

"Yes, a very clear and distinct recollection of sitting on your knee and being fed with sugar plums."

"Ah, you are far too big now to care for sugar plums," said Miss Bellamy with a little sigh.

"Not at all too big. Only that I now require a different kind of sugar plum to keep me good, from those I cared for then."

"Why, you could not have been more than four years old!"

"I suppose that was about my age."

"And I never saw your poor dear mamma after that day!"

"I was just ten years old when I lost my mother," said Gerald, gravely.

"Four of us, there were, all bosom friends, and they called us the Four Graces in the little town where we were born and brought up; and now I am the only one that is left alive!" said Miss Bellamy, with a little quaver in her voice. "There was Ellen Barry; she married your uncle, Jacob Lloyd. Then there was Minna, Jacob's sister, who married your father. The third was Mary Greaves, who married Mr. Ambrose Murray. There seemed to be no husband left for me: but, thank Heaven, I have never felt the need of one!"

"It is never too late to make a change for the better," said Gerald, demurely, as he pushed away his plate.

"In my case it would have been for the worse. I should only have tormented some poor man's life out of him, and no one can lay that to my charge now."

As soon as Eliza had cleared the table, Miss Bellamy put a tiny copper kettle to simmer on the hob, and then produced a bottle of whisky, a lemon, and the other materials necessary for brewing a glass of punch. From another cupboard she brought out a box of cigars, which she had made a special journey into the City to buy. Being no judge of such articles, or their cost, she had brought back a box of what Mr. Piper would have called "duffers."

"Snuff-taking among gentlemen is going quite out of fashion nowadays," she had said to herself. "But I've no doubt Gerald is fond of a cigar, and I'll not trouble about the curtains for once."

"You don't seem in the least curious about the news I've got to tell you," said Miss Bellamy at last.

"No, I'm very comfortable," said Gerald as he sipped his grog, "and more than that a man need not wish to be."

"And yet you have come all the way from the south of France to hear it?"

"And yet I have come all the way from France to hear it! But I daresay it will keep a little longer."

"Just your poor mother's careless way of looking at things," said Miss Bellamy with a smile and a shake of the head. "Just the same easy way that I remember so well." She gazed into the fire for a few moments, her mind far away among the things of the past.

"How long did you say that your father has been dead, Gerald?"

"A little more than two years."

"And no reconciliation ever took place between your uncle Jacob and him?"

"None whatever. My father knew he was in the wrong, and that only served to embitter him still more against my uncle. My uncle could neither forgive nor forget my father's cruel treatment of my mother. I believe that if a woman's heart was ever broken, hers was."

"Don't talk in that way, Gerald. You must not forget that the man was your father."

"Can I ever forget it?" said Gerald, bitterly. "You were my mother's friend, and I tell you distinctly that my father broke her heart. The bitterest tears that ever I shed, or that I ever can shed in this world, were those with which I mourned her loss."

"You left home soon afterwards, did you not?"

"I was thirteen years old when I ran away to sea. By that time my father's tyranny had become unendurable. One victim had eluded him by dying, but I was still left. On the morning of my birthday I left home to seek my fortune, my sole earthly possessions being four-and-sixpence in money, two ally-taws, an apple, and a thick slice of bread."

"But you saw your father again after that?"

"On two occasions only, and then only at an hotel where we met by appointment. Time had softened my bitterness against him, but not his against me. Had I been a dog at his feet he could hardly have treated me worse. Reconciliation on the terms proposed by him was impossible."

"Were you not with him when he died?"

"No. He died rather suddenly, and I was abroad at the time."

"But at least, he surely did not forget you in his will?"

"He left everything to different charities in the town where he died. There is some talk of erecting a statue to him."

"My poor boy! And how have you contrived to live, all these years?"

"As I best could; but all things considered, I have not done amiss. I stopped at sea till I was seventeen; then I got a situation as a storekeeper on a South American hacienda, and there I stayed till I was twenty. Growing tired of that, I set up a photographic apparatus and travelled some thousands of miles with it, earning my bread as I went. Those were some of my happiest days. When I was of age, I came into possession of two hundred and fifty pounds a year, left me by my mother. Since that time I have lived chiefly on the Continent, pottering about among antiquities, buying now and again a bronze, a coin, or a tazza in a cheap market, and selling it in a dear one; writing at odd times an article for one or other of the magazines; having no settled home, leading a vagabond, Bohemian kind of existence, but by no means an unhappy one."

"You did hear that your uncle Lloyd was dead?"

"Quite by chance I saw the announcement in an English newspaper."

"And yet you never thought it worth your while to inquire whether he had remembered you in his will?"

"Knowing that he had a daughter, and that he had never seen me since I was six years old, it did not seem to me worth while to make any such inquiry."

"It might have been," said Miss Bellamy, drily.

"Your uncle died between seven and eight months ago," resumed Miss Bellamy. "I was away in Guernsey at the time, and did not hear of it till my return to London, some seven week's since. It was a great shock to me. Your aunt and I had been like sisters, and after her death the friendship between Mr. Lloyd and myself remained unbroken. It is only about eighteen months since I left Pembridge and came to reside in London; and up to that time I was a frequent visitor at Bridgeley, the place where he lived for the last eighteen years. Several years ago Mr. Lloyd put into my hands a sealed packet of papers, addressed to a certain person, and labelled 'not to be opened till after my death,' with a request that I should keep it till that event took place, and then forward it to the person to whom it was addressed. At the time that he placed the packet in my hands he told me of what the contents consisted. The chief document was a statement of certain events in his personal history which were already well known to me, and about which he and I had often talked. As already explained, I did not know of your uncle's death till six or seven weeks ago, consequently it was not till six months after that event that the packet I held could reach the person to whom it belonged. That person ought to have acted on the contents of the packet without a day's unnecessary delay. Seven weeks have gone by, and as yet he has taken no action in the matter. It is for that very reason that I sent you so imperative a summons to come to me here as quickly as possible."

Gerald stared across the table at Miss Bellamy as if he could hardly believe the evidence of his ears. "But in what possible way can all this affect me?" he asked.

"All this affects you very nearly indeed," answered Miss Bellamy. "Your uncle Lloyd had been a prudent man. When he was dead, it was discovered that he was worth something over twenty thousand pounds. He died without a will, and you are his heir-at-law."

"I my uncle's heir-at-law!" said Gerald, with a little laugh. "How can that be, my dear Miss Bellamy? You seem to forget that my uncle had a daughter."

"Your uncle had no daughter."

Gerald sat speechless for several seconds. "If my cousin Eleanor is dead, I certainly never heard of it."

"You never had a cousin Eleanor."

"My dear Miss Bellamy," said Gerald, "will you kindly run a pin into my arm, so that I may make sure I am not dreaming."

"You are not dreaming, Gerald Warburton. The young lady you have hitherto believed to be your cousin, is no relation whatever to you, neither was she any relation to your uncle, Jacob Lloyd. She was simply his adopted daughter."

After hearing this startling news, Gerald's silence was not to be wondered at. He woke up like a man rousing himself from a dream.

"You have all along known what you have just told me, Miss Bellamy?"

"Yes, I have known it all along. But to no one else was the secret ever imparted by your uncle and aunt. Eleanor was adopted by them when she was quite a little thing, and when they were living in a town more than two hundred miles away from Pembridge. For certain reasons they gave her their own name. She never knew, she does not know now, that they were not really her parents. She loved them as such, and they could not have thought more tenderly of her had she been that which the world believed her to be. But Jacob Lloyd was not only a kind-hearted man: he was a just one. He shrank from revealing the truth to Eleanor while he was alive, but it was imperatively necessary, for certain reasons which I may one day explain to you, that she should become cognisant of everything after his death. Hence the sealed packet: which contains a duly authenticated statement of these facts."

"You take my breath away! There is nothing in the 'Arabian Nights' half so exciting," exclaimed Gerald.

"The one unfortunate feature of the case is this," resumed Miss Bellamy. "From what your uncle hinted to me at different times, I am perfectly convinced that it was his intention to provide very handsomely for Eleanor. Unfortunately, he kept putting off the making of his will till it was too late. One morning he was found dead in his bed, and the girl whom he brought up and cherished as his own child is left an absolute beggar."

A tear stood in Miss Bellamy's eye, as she ceased speaking. "There need be no trouble on that score," said Gerald emphatically. "If, as you state, I am my uncle's heir, and the young lady, through an unwise oversight, has been left penniless, why, then, my duty lies clearly before me. Whatever may be the amount that will come to me from my uncle, whether it be a hundred pounds or twenty thousand pounds, this young lady, whom I cannot help looking upon as my cousin, is clearly entitled to half of it. And half of it she shall have, as sure as my name is Gerald Warburton!"

"Don't make any rash promises, Gerald, in the heat of the moment. You may regret them afterwards."

"Such a promise as this I could never regret. I should indeed be base."

"It was certainly not in my province to send for you, and tell you all that you have just now heard," said Miss Bellamy, "and, under other circumstances I should not have thought of doing so. The lawyer in whose hands was the management of Mr. Lloyd's affairs is the proper person to have communicated with you. He ought to have broken the news to Eleanor, and have communicated with you at the same time. The sealed packet has been in his hands for upwards of seven weeks, and, as yet, he has done neither one thing nor the other."

"May I ask how you know that he has not yet broken the news to Miss Lloyd?"

"Because I had a letter from Eleanor only three days ago, written from Stammars, the residence of Sir Thomas Dudgeon, where I find that she is visiting. She talks of coming to London with Lady Dudgeon very shortly, and says that her ladyship treats her quite as one of the family--proof positive that Eleanor is still living on in happy ignorance."

"Perhaps the lawyer did not know where to find me? Perhaps he has delayed breaking the news to Eleanor on that account?"

"No: I suspect that there is some other motive at the bottom of Matthew Kelvin's strange silence. He has sense enough to know that any letter addressed to you at Brexly would be sure to find you. He knows all about Brexly, and the quarrel between your father and Mr. Lloyd."

"Kelvin--Matthew Kelvin?" said Gerald, musingly. "I seem to have heard that name before."

"You can readily understand why I never breathed even the faintest suspicion of the truth to Eleanor. Such a revelation would be too painful for me to make to a person whom I have known and loved from a child. Therefore I have sent for you: and my advice is that you at once go down to Pembridge, see Mr. Kelvin, give him to understand that you know everything, and demand from him an explanation of his singular silence."

"Is this Mr. Kelvin aware that you have any knowledge of the real facts of the case?"

"No: I am convinced that he has no such knowledge."

"His silence certainly seems rather singular; but we shall probably find on inquiry that he has been ill, or away from home, or something of that sort."

Miss Bellamy shook her head. She was far from being convinced. "A clever schemer, but not to be trusted," she said, presumably with reference to Kelvin.

"But about this cousin who is no cousin--about Eleanor," said Gerald. "You know that I have never seen her. What is she like? Is she good-looking? Is she nice?"

"I don't know what you young gentlemen call nice," said Miss Bellamy. "I don't see young ladies with the eyes that you see them with. Eleanor Lloyd is a dear good girl; slightly impulsive, perhaps, but open and honest as the day--a girl that any man might be proud to call his wife."

Gerald pursed his lips a little. Miss Bellamy's outline was too vague to take his fancy. "A country-bred hoyden, evidently, with red cheeks and large hands, and a healthy appetite," he muttered to himself.

"There is one point that you have not enlightened me upon," he said presently. "But perhaps it is one on which I have no right to question you."

"Tell me what it is."

"You say that Eleanor, when an infant, was adopted by my uncle and aunt. She must have been somebody's child. You have not yet told me who and what her friends were."

Miss Bellamy's face became more grave and troubled than Gerald had yet seen it. "Pardon me," he said, "if I have unintentionally wounded your feelings."

"You have not wounded my feelings. You have only brought back the memory of a very old trouble. But, as I have told you so much, I see no reason why I should not tell you the remainder. You must learn the story sooner or later, and you had better hear it from my lips than from the lips of anyone else."

"I am so sorry----" began Gerald.

"Pray don't say another word. How were you to know?--Yes, Gerald Warburton, I will tell you the story, painful though it be--but not now. You have heard enough to ponder over and dream about for one night. I shall just mix you one more glass, and then I shall send you oil to bed."