Читать книгу A Secret of the Sea (Vol. 1-3) - T. W. Speight - Страница 7

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Gerald Warburton had not been in London for some time, and two or three days passed quickly and pleasantly away in hunting up old acquaintances, and in seeing sights that he had never seen before. Besides which, he wanted a little time to familiarize himself with the thought of his new-found fortune. By nature and disposition, he was one of the least worldly of men, and the wandering life he had led for many years had tended to make him more unpractical than he might otherwise have been. For money, as money, he cared nothing: nay, he told himself that he thoroughly despised it: but that was probably an exaggeration. He was one of those men who never think of saving--of putting away for a "rainy day," as the phrase goes--and who never can save, not even when their incomes are doubled or trebled, unless some pressure of an extreme kind (a thrifty wife, for instance, who has a will of her own) is brought to bear upon them.

As a matter of course, despite all Gerald's unpracticality, one of the most frequent thoughts in his mind just now--a thought turned over and over in his brain during his long solitary walks through London streets--was what he should do with the ten thousand pounds that was coming to him. He had quite made up his mind that the other ten thousand should be handed over to his cousin Eleanor, as he could not help still calling her to himself. Had anyone asked him a few days previously whether ten thousand pounds would have satisfied all his earthly wants from a monetary point of view, he would have laughed, and answered that half that sum would satisfy his every wish. And yet, now, when so much money was really coming to him, it was quite remarkable what a long list of things that might almost be considered indispensable he could count up in his mind. Instead of ten thousand, thirty or forty would be needed before he could get through even the first few pages of his mental catalogue.

But having got so far, Gerald was obliged to pull himself up suddenly. He called to mind that it was not ten thousand a year that he was coming into, but simply one sum of that value; and that, however pleasant it might be to think how easily and agreeably to himself he could have spent the whole of it in the course of a few days in London or Paris, it would be the height of folly so to do; such an act would indeed be killing the goose with the golden eggs. No: by judiciously investing his ten thousand pounds, he might secure for himself a comfortable little income of five hundred a year, which sum, when added to the income he could already call his own, would serve to make life tolerably pleasant in time to come. He would live in Paris, of course: somehow he always felt more at home in Paris than in London. He would be able to dabble a little more than heretofore among his favourite bronzes, and coins, and old cups and saucers. He could afford a stall rather oftener at the Opéra or the Français. He would drink a choicer wine to his dinner, and honour his wine with a better repast. A month or six weeks among the glaciers, or in the Black Forest, need no longer be a serious question with him on the score of expense. Altogether, he felt very well satisfied with the pleasant future that seemed looming before him. That he was somewhat of an Epicurean, addicted to self-indulgence, and hardly knowing the meaning of self-sacrifice, cannot be denied; but it is to be hoped that we shall not altogether lose our interest in him on that account. He had many vague noble impulses, as most of us have at one time or another; but, as yet, no necessity had arisen in his life for testing whether those impulses were strong enough to bear chaining down to the hard rough usages of everyday life.

Often in his solitary musings he would ask himself of what possible use or service he was to the world in which he found himself; and now and then a dim idea would trouble him for awhile that there were many kinds of wheels turning in it, to one or other of which, if he were so minded, he might put his shoulder with some little profit both to himself and his fellows. But when next day came, it would find him leading his old slip-shod far-niente kind of life. Amid the glitter and bustle of the Boulevards, noble impulses and vague ideals seemed of the stuff that poets rave about, and girls weave into the tissue of their dreams.

The more Miss Bellamy saw of Gerald, the better she liked him. The easy geniality of his disposition, and the soft courtesy of his manner, were alike pleasing to her. Gerald, on his side, conceived a very warm regard for the true-hearted lady who had been his dead mother's dearest friend. He soon got into the way of calling her "aunt"; the relationship seemed a natural one between them, and the assumption was satisfactory to both.

Miss Bellamy's sitting-room was a pleasant apartment, with three French windows that opened on a balcony and that looked out on the grass and trees of the square. It was pleasantly furnished, too; in a somewhat old-fashioned style it must be admitted; but then, Miss Bellamy herself was somewhat old-fashioned, so that there was nothing incongruous between the room and its mistress.

One of Miss Bellamy's most valued possessions was a portrait of her uncle, the late Dean of Winstead. It was a three-quarter-length in oils, with a very ornate frame, and it occupied a post of honour, being hung immediately over the chimney-piece, where it at once attracted the eyes of all who came into the room. The Dean, a very atrabilious-looking gentleman, with a bald head, was represented as seated at a table with one elbow resting on three thick volumes of his own sermons, and with his thumb and forefinger pressed lightly against his cheek. Pens and ink were upon the table, and the Dean was presumably thinking out another of his discourses. Several copies of his sermons, together with an income of three hundred a year, had come to Miss Bellamy on the death of her reverend relative, so that she had ample reasons for cherishing his memory. You could not pay Miss Bellamy a higher compliment than to tell her that there was a strong family likeness between herself and her uncle, and her admiration for him rose almost to the height of hero-worship. She made a point of reading one of his sermons through every Sunday of her life. Her firm belief was that there were no such eloquent and soul-stirring appeals to an unawakened conscience to be met with in the lukewarm religious literature of to-day, and that you must go back to the days of Jeremy Taylor to find anything like their equal. From long habit, when sitting near a table, either thinking or working, she naturally fell into the same pose as that of the Dean in his picture--her elbow resting on the table, her thumb and forefinger pressed against her cheek--and those who knew her weakness--her friends, her toadies, and her pensioners--whenever they saw her sitting thus, would not fail to remark to her how like she was to her Very Reverend Uncle.

However deeply Gerald's curiosity might be excited to hear the sequel of the strange story which Miss Bellamy had promised to tell him, the subject was evidently so painful a one to her that he could not venture even to hint at his wishes in the matter. There was nothing for it but to wait patiently till she should feel in the humour to tell him what he wanted to know. He was in no particular hurry to take the journey to Pembridge, and a few days more or less in London were of no consequence to him. She had promised to tell him all about Eleanor, and he felt sure that she would not break her promise. In so thinking Gerald was quite right, but it was not until the evening of the fourth day after his arrival in London that Miss Bellamy recurred to the subject in any way.

"I will tell you to-morrow," she said to him that evening, as he shook hands with her at parting. "And then you must get down to Pembridge as quickly as you can. You have lingered in London quite long enough."

Miss Bellamy was a believer in suppers. In fact, she still stuck to the old-fashioned hours for meals to which she had been accustomed when a girl at home: dinner at half-past one, tea at six, and supper at ten. In such a case supper is generally the pleasantest and most sociable meal of all; people then seem more inclined for talking than at any other time, and subjects that one hardly cares to mention during the day seem to assimilate themselves quite naturally to the time and place, and come to be discussed without much difficulty.

Supper was over, and the cloth removed. The night being cold, Miss Bellamy had drawn her easy chair up close to the fire, and now sat resting her chin in the palm of one hand, and gazing silently into the glowing embers. Gerald, prepared to listen to a sad story, had thrown himself into an easy chair opposite Miss Bellamy on the other side of the fire. At length Miss Bellamy roused herself with a sigh, and turned on Gerald a face that seemed suddenly to have grown five years older.

"Twenty years ago, this very month," she said, "a terrible murder was committed. All murders are terrible in a greater or a lesser degree, but this one was terrible, not merely from the crime itself, but from the after consequences that arose out of it. The name of the murdered man was Paul Stilling; the place where he was murdered was the Pelican Hotel, Tewkesbury; and the name of the man who was accused of the crime was Ambrose Murray."

Gerald started.

"Stilling was a young man, the junior partner in a firm of Birmingham jewellers. At the time he met with his death he had property on him of the value of four thousand pounds. It was for the sake of this property that he was murdered. He was found dead in his bed, stabbed to the heart. In the portmanteau of Ambrose Murray, who was stopping that night in the same hotel, was found a bracelet of the value of two hundred pounds, which had belonged to Stilling. No other portion of the property has, to my knowledge, ever been found from that day to this.

"Ambrose Murray was arrested, committed for wilful murder, subsequently tried, and condemned to death in due form," went on Miss Bellamy. "Before, however, the time had come for carrying out the last dread sentence of the law, symptoms of undoubted insanity manifested themselves in the condemned man, and his sentence had to be commuted into imprisonment for life."

Gerald sat lost in wonder.

"So far, I daresay, you see nothing uncommon in my story--nothing that has any particular interest for you. But when I tell you that Ambrose Murray's wife was my intimate friend, as well as being the intimate friend of your mother and your aunt--when I tell you that Ambrose Murray's wife died heart-broken within twelve months of the time her husband was taken from her; when I tell you that the child adopted by your uncle and aunt was none other than the child of a man condemned to death for murder, and that Eleanor Lloyd is in reality Eleanor Murray--when I tell you all this, you cannot say that my story has no interest for you, you cannot say that I have claimed your attention without sufficient warrant for so doing."

"What a strange chapter of family history you have opened for me," exclaimed Gerald. "What you told me the other night seemed to me sufficiently wonderful, but this is stranger than all. Poor Eleanor poor girl!" he added. "Although I have never seen her, I have always felt that when we did meet I should come to regard her as a sister; and now you tell me that I cannot even claim her as a cousin."

Miss Bellamy said nothing. She was gazing into the fire again, but with thoughts that were far away. She was roused at last by a direct question from Gerald.

"How much of the story you have just told me will be known to this Mr. Kelvin, when he comes to open the sealed packet which you sent him by my uncle's instructions?"

"He will know that Eleanor is no relation of your uncle, and that is the news which he will have to break to her. Inside his own packet is a second packet, sealed up and directed to Eleanor, and to be opened by her alone. This packet will tell her everything."

"What a shock for a girl like her!"

"You are right, Gerald; it will be a terrible shock. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that I have been spared the pain of enlightening her."

"About her father. Did you believe him to be guilty or innocent?"

"I would stake my life on Ambrose Murray's innocence. No one who ever knew him would for a single moment believe in his guilt. He was one of the gentlest-hearted men I ever met. There was something almost feminine about him. His was, indeed, a most lovable disposition."

"What was he by profession?"

"A doctor. He had been staying at Malvern for the benefit of his health--he was always delicate--and was walking home by easy stages. He had got as far as Tewkesbury, and happened to be stopping there on that one particular night when Paul Stilling was murdered."

"Is he still alive?"

"He is. I saw him only a few months ago. In fact, I have been in the habit of visiting him at intervals ever since his wife's death. For many years he did not know me. But gradually--imperceptibly almost--his reason has come back to him, and he is now, and has been for the last five years, as sane as either you or I."

"Is there no prospect of his ever being released?"

"None whatever, I'm afraid. You see, the crime--assuming him for the moment to have been guilty of it--was committed before his insanity declared itself. It is not as though he had been a lunatic at the time of the murder."

"What a terrible fate! Does he know that his daughter is alive?"

"He knows everything. It is at his own wish that Eleanor has been kept in ignorance of her real parentage for so long a time; and, had Jacob Lloyd lived, the secret would not have been told her even now."

"But how did it happen that none of the gossips of Pembridge found out that Eleanor was not my uncle's child?"

"It was not till about a year after their adoption of the child that your uncle, aunt, and Eleanor made their first appearance at Pembridge, your uncle having just bought Bridgeley, where he lived till he died. They had come from a town two hundred miles away, and did not know a soul in the place."

"Has no rumour of the truth ever crept out?"

"Never, I am certain."

"And Eleanor herself has never had any suspicion?"

"Not the slightest, so far as I know. How should she? She was but eleven months old when her mother died: far too young to have the faintest recollection of anything that happened."

At this moment, they both heard a knock at the front door, but without paying any heed to it. Miss Bellamy was never troubled with late visitors. There were other lodgers in the house, and the knock could come from no one in search of her.

But presently came the sound of footsteps on the stairs, followed by Eliza's timid tap at the room door. "Come in," said Miss Bellamy, a little more sharply than usual. She felt annoyed that her tête-à-tête with Gerald should be thus interrupted.

The door opened, and Eliza's head was intruded. "A gentleman to see you, ma'am. He won't give no name."

"A gentleman to see me!" said Miss Bellamy, as she started up in surprise. She felt slightly scandalised to think that any gentleman should be so indiscreet as to call upon her at such an hour as eleven o'clock p.m.

But by this time the gentleman, who followed the girl upstairs, had pushed himself into the room; and Eliza, a little frightened at his audacity, slunk timidly out and shut the door quickly behind her.

"May I ask, sir----" began Miss Bellamy frigidly, and then something in the stranger's face suddenly froze her into silence.

And yet not much of his face was to be seen, all the lower part of it being hidden in the folds of a large plaid, and the upper part shaded by the broad brim of a soft felt hat, from under which looked forth two dark melancholy eyes of singular beauty. Miss Bellamy's hands began to tremble, and she leaned against the table for support.

The stranger did not speak, but swiftly unrolling his plaid, let it half drop to the ground and took off his hat. Miss Bellamy's face grew as white as death. She started forward; and then she shrank back, all a-tremble. Gerald Warburton's eyes turned from the stranger to her, and then went back to the man; a tall, thin, frail-looking figure, with a long white beard, and white hair that fell over the collar of his coat.

"Sir--you--you are either Ambrose Murray or his ghost!" slowly gasped Miss Bellamy. "In Heaven's name, what has brought you here?"

"I have escaped!" exclaimed the man in a low, hoarse voice. "Escaped at last!"

He clasped his hands suddenly above his head, gave utterance to a short, sharp, hysterical laugh, staggered forward a few steps, and would have fallen to the ground had not Gerald Warburton caught him in his arms.