Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by the Web Archive
A SECRET OF THE SEA.
Transcriber's Notes (Volume 2):
1. Page scan source: Web Archive
https://archive.org/details/secretofseanovel02spei
(University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
A SECRET OF THE SEA.
A Novel.
By T. W. SPEIGHT,
AUTHOR OF
"IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT," "UNDER LOCK AND KEY," ETC., ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON.
1876.
(_All Rights Reserved_.)
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPTER
I. MIRIAM BYRNE.
II. FLOATING WITH THE STREAM.
III. A QUIET CUP OF TEA.
IV. FASCINATION.
V. EASTER HOLIDAYS.
VI. A SECRET OF THE SEA.
VII. POD'S REVELATION.
VIII. A GLASS OF BURGUNDY.
IX. THE STORY OF THE WRECK.
X. GERALD'S CONFESSION.
XI. KELVIN'S ILLNESS.
XII. RECOGNITION.
A SECRET OF THE SEA.
CHAPTER I.
MIRIAM BYRNE.
It was nearly dusk on the eighth day after Peter Byrne and his
daughter had got settled in their new rooms, when Gerald Warburton
knocked at the door of Max Van Duren's house.
"Is my father at home?" asked Gerald of the middle-aged woman who
answered his summons.
"If you are Mr. Byrne's son, I was told to send you upstairs when you
called," answered the woman. "The first floor, please--door with the
brass handle."
It was at Byrne's request that Gerald agreed to pass as his son on the
occasion of any visits which he might have to make to Van Duren's
house. Gerald could see no reason for the assumption of such a
relationship, but in the belief that Byrne might have some special
motive in the matter, he acceded without difficulty.
Up the stairs he now went, and knocked at the door indicated by the
woman. "Come in," cried a voice, and in he went.
He paused for a moment or two just inside the room, and shut the door
slowly after him while his eyes took in the various features of the
scene.
The room in which Gerald found himself was of considerable size, and
was lighted by three tall, narrow windows, curtained with heavy
hangings of faded crimson velvet. The walls were painted a delicate
green, and the floor was of polished wood. There was a large
old-fashioned fire-place, and a heavy, overhanging marble
chimney-piece, across the front of which was carved a wild procession
of Baechic figures. A Turkey carpet covered the middle of the floor,
but the sides of the room were left bare. Chairs, tables, and bureau
were of dark oak, heavy, uncouth, uncompromising--and if not really
antique, were very good Wardour Street imitations of the genuine
article. On one side of the hearth, however, stood a capacious, modern
easy-chair, for the special delectation of Mr. Peter Byrne, while in
neighbourly proximity to it was the long-stemmed pipe with the china
bowl. On the opposite side of the hearth stood another article, that
seemed more out of keeping with the rest of the room, even, than the
easy-chair. It was a couch or lounge of the most modern fashion, and
upholstered with a gay flowery chintz. There could be no doubt as to
the person for whose behoof this gay piece of furniture was intended.
Stretched on the floor in front of it, and doing duty as a rug, was a
magnificent tiger-skin. On this stood an embroidered footstool. At the
back of the couch was a screen painted with Chinese figures and
landscapes. Near it hung a guitar.
Gerald advanced slowly into the room, and for a moment or two he
altogether failed to recognize the man who rose out of the easy-chair
to greet him. It was Byrne and yet it was not Byrne. "It must be his
father, or an older brother," said Gerald to himself. Even when the
man held out his hand and whispered: "Is there anybody outside the
door?" he was still in doubt.
"There is no one outside the door," said Gerald. "I came up the stairs
alone."
"That's all right, then, and I'm very glad to see you, Mr. Warburton,"
said Byrne's familiar voice, after which there could no longer be any
doubt. "Not a bad make up, eh?" he added, with a chuckle, as he noted
Gerald's puzzled look.
"I certainly did not know you at first," replied the latter. "In fact,
I took you for your own father."
"You could not pay me a higher compliment, sir," said Byrne, with a
gleeful rubbing of the hands. "It is part of the scheme I have in
view, that Van Duren should take me to be an old man, very feeble,
very infirm, and nearly, if not quite, on my last legs."
"You look at the very least twenty years older than when I last saw
you," remarked Gerald.
"And yet the transformation is a very simple matter," said Byrne. "It
would not do to tell everybody how it's done, but from you I can have
no secrets of that kind. In the first place, I had my own hair cropped
as closely as it was possible for scissors to do it. Then I had this
venerable wig made with its straggling silvery locks, and this black
velvet skull cap. Two-thirds of my teeth being artificial ones, I have
dispensed with that portion of them for the time being, and that of
itself is sufficient to entirely alter the character of the lower part
of my face. Then this dress--this gaberdine-like coat down to my
knees, my collar of an antique fashion, my white, unstarched
neckcloth, fastened with a little pearl brooch, this stoop of the
shoulders, my enfeebled walk, and the stick that I am obliged to use
to help me across the room: all simple matters, my dear sir, but, in
the aggregate, decidedly effective."
Mr. Byrne omitted to mention that, as a conscientious artist bent on
looking the character he meant to play, he had for the time being
abandoned the hare's foot and rouge-pot. Although his use of those,
articles had always been marked by the most extreme discretion, his
discarding of them entirely did not add to the youthfulness of his
appearance.
"And then you must please bear in mind that I am afflicted with
deafness," added Byrne, with a smile, when Gerald had drawn a chair up
to the fire. "It is not a very extreme form of deafness, but still it
is necessary that I should be spoken to in a louder voice than
ordinary; and it is sufficiently bad," he added, with a chuckle, "to
prevent me, as I sit in my easy-chair by the fire, from overhearing
any little private conversation that you and another person--my
daughter, for instance--might choose to hold together as you sit by
the sofa there, only a few yards away."
"I certainly can't understand," said Gerald to himself, "how all this
scheming, and all these disguises, can in any way further the object
which Ambrose Murray has so profoundly at heart."
Gerald felt mystified, and he probably looked it. As if in response to
his unspoken thought, Byrne presently said: "All these things seem
very strange to you, I do not doubt, Mr. Warburton; but you will
believe me when I assure you that I have not for one moment lost sight
of the particular end for which my services are retained. As soon as I
begin to see my way a little more clearly--if I ever do--my plans and
purposes shall all be told to you and Mr. Murray. I have built up a
certain theory in my mind, and there seems only one way of
ascertaining whether that theory has any foundation in fact. If it
has, it may possibly lead us on to the clue we are in search of. If it
has not--but I will not anticipate failure, however probable it may
be. If I still possess the confidence of Mr. Murray and yourself, if
you are still willing to let me have my own way in this thing for a
little while longer, then I am perfectly satisfied."
"We have every confidence in you, Mr. Byrne," said Gerald, earnestly,
"and we are both satisfied that the case could not have been entrusted
into more capable hands than yours."
While Gerald was speaking, a door that led to an inner room was
opened, and Miriam Byrne came in.
Byrne rose, laid one hand on the region of his heart, and waved the
other gracefully.
"My daughter, Mr. Warburton--my only child," he said.
"I am glad that you have called to see us, Mr. Warburton," said
Miriam, frankly, in her rich, full voice. "My father has talked so
much about you that my curiosity was quite piqued to see for myself
what his rara avis was like."
"You will find that I am a bird of very homely plumage," replied
Gerald, with a smile. "Your father has been drawing on a too lively
imagination. I am afraid that his rara avis will prove to be nothing
more wonderful than our familiar friend--the goose."
"What a superb creature!" was Gerald's thought, as he sat down
opposite Miriam; and that was the right phrase to apply to her.
Miss Byrne was at this time close upon her twenty-second birthday. Her
beauty was of an altogether eastern type. Hardly anyone who met Miriam
in the street took her to be an English girl; while to those who knew
both her and her father, it was a constant source of wonder how "old
Peter" could come to have for his daughter a girl so totally unlike
him in every possible way. But Byrne's wife, who died when her
daughter was quite an infant, had been a beautiful woman, and Miriam
more than inherited her mother's good looks. People knowing the family
averred that she was an exact counterpart of her grandmother: a lovely
Roumanian Jewess, who had been brought over to England in the train of
an Austrian lady of rank, and having found a husband here, had never
gone back.
Eyes and hair of the black-set had Miriam Byrne. Large, liquid eyes,
shaded with long, black lashes, and arched with delicate, well-defined
brows; hair that fell in a thick, heavy mass to her very waist. Tints
of the damask rose glowed through the dusky clearness of her cheeks.
Her forehead was low and broad as that of some antique Venus. Her
mouth was ripe and full, and might have looked somewhat coarse, had
it not been relieved by her finely-cut nose with its delicate
nostrils. She had on, this evening, a long, trailing dress of violet
velvet, which harmonized admirably with her dusky loveliness--a rich,
heavy-looking dress by gaslight, but one which daylight would have
shown to be faded and frayed in many places. It had, in fact, at one
time been a stage-dress, and as such, had been worn by Miss Kesteven
of the Royal Westminster Theatre, when playing the heroine of one of
Sardou's clever dramas.
The necklace of pearls, with earrings to match, which Miriam wore this
evening, were also of stage parentage, but they looked so much like
the real thing, that no one, save an expert, could have told without
handling them that they were nothing better than clever shams. The one
ring, too, which she wore--a hoop of diamonds--on her somewhat large,
but well-shaped hand, was not more genuine than her pearl necklace. It
had been bought for a few shillings in the Burlington Arcade; but it
flashed famously in the gaslight; and as one cannot well take off a
lady's ring in order to examine it, answered its purpose just as well
as if it had cost a hundred guineas.
But we must not be too hard on Miriam. No doubt she was as fond of a
little finery as most of her sisters are at two-and-twenty, but, in
the present case, all these sham trinkets had been assumed by her at
her father's wish, and "for a certain purpose," as the old man said.
At the same time one need not imagine that the wearing of them,
although they were counterfeit, was in any way distasteful to Miriam.
As she herself would have been one of the first to say, go long as
other people accepted her jewellery as real, the end for which it was
worn was thoroughly gained.
"And how do you like your new home, Miss Byrne?" asked Gerald.
"I would much rather it had been at the West End than in the City,"
answered Miriam. "The rooms I like very much. They are large and
old-fashioned, and have seen better days. To live in such rooms makes
one feel as if one were somebody of importance--as if one had money in
the Bank of England. But the look-out is dreadful. At the back, into
that horrid churchyard; while in the front, there is nothing to be
seen but a high, blank wall. I am always glad when it is time to draw
the curtains and light the gas."
"You must get out for a little change and amusement now and then,"
said Gerald. "It will never do for you to get moped and melancholy
through shutting yourself up in this gloomy old house. A visit once a
week to a theatre, for instance, or----"
"Don't speak of it," interrupted Miriam. "I hope I shall not see the
inside of a theatre for a couple of years, at the very least."
"Perhaps the opera would suit you better," suggested Gerald,
altogether at a loss to know why the theatre should be so emphatically
tabooed. "If you are fond of the opera, I think I can manage to get a
couple of tickets for you now and then."
"Oh, that will be delightful!" exclaimed Miriam, clasping her hands
with Oriental fervour. "I have never been to the opera but twice in my
life, and I should dearly love to go again."
"Then you are fond of music?" asked Gerald.
"Passionately. I love it anywhere and everywhere; but I love it best
on the stage. That is the glorification of music. It is to honour
music as it ought to be honoured. When I listen to an opera, I seem to
be lifted quite out of my ordinary self. I feel as if I were so much
better and cleverer than I really am. And then I always have a longing
to rush on to the stage and join in the choruses, and make one more
figure in the splendid processions."
"I will send you tickets for Friday, if you will honour me by
accepting them," said Gerald.
"You are very kind, Mr. Warburton; and to such an offer I cannot find
in my heart to say No," answered Miriam, with a "Oh, how I wish I were
clever!" she cried next moment; "clever enough to be a great singer on
the stage, or to paint a great picture, or to write a book that
everybody talked about. Don't you think, Mr. Warburton, that it must
be a glorious thing to be clever?"
"Not being clever myself, I am hardly in a position to judge,"
answered Gerald, amused at the girl's earnestness. "But if we
commonplace people only knew it, I have no doubt that cleverness has
its disadvantages, like every other exceptional quality. Besides, it
would not do for us all to be clever; in that case, the world would
soon become intolerable. I think a moderate quantity of brains, and a
large amount of contentment, are the best stock-in-trade to get
through life with."
"Hear, hear!" cried Byrne, from his easy-chair. "My sentiments
exactly."
Miriam pouted a little.
"Now you are making fun of me," she said.
"No, indeed," returned Gerald, earnestly.
"I don't know why the girl should always be raving about wanting to be
clever," said Byrne, addressing himself, to Gerald. "She has plenty of
good looks, and ought to be content. Five women out of six have
neither brains nor good looks--though they will never believe that
they haven't got the latter," added the old cynic, under his breath.
"Oh, yes, I know that I'm good-looking," said Miriam, naively, but not
without a touch of bitterness. "People have told me that ever since I
can remember anything. Besides, I can see it for myself in the glass,"
with an involuntary glance at the Venetian mirror hanging opposite.
"Then why are you always dissatisfied--always flying in the face of
Providence?" growled Byrne. "What are your good looks given you for,
but that some man with plenty of money may fall in love with you, and
make you his wife?"
"Why not send me to the slave-market at Constantinople?" said Miriam,
bitterly. "I dare say that I should fetch a tolerable price there."
Gerald thought it time to change the conversation.
"Do you come in contact at all with Van Duren?" he said to Byrne.
"We have seen more of him to-day than we saw yesterday, and more of
him yesterday than previously. He is gradually learning to overcome
the native bashfulness of his disposition," added Byrne, with a sneer.
"Then he has not shrouded himself altogether from view?" said Gerald.
"Not a bit of it. What he would have done had I been living here with
a wife instead of a daughter, I can't say. But the fact is, he seems
inclined to admire Miriam."
The old man sat staring at Gerald with a twinkle in his eye, as he
finished speaking.
Gerald was at a loss to know in what way it was expected that he
should greet such an item of news. So he merely fell back on a safe,
though unmeaning, "Oh, indeed!"
Miriam, gazing into the fire, either had not heard, or did not heed,
her father's words.
"For the sort of ursa major that he is," resumed Byrne, "he doesn't
conduct himself so much amiss. Has not been much used to ladies'
society, I should say. Does not talk much, but likes to look and
listen."
"Then you have had him in here!" said Gerald, with surprise.
"Yes, twice. There's the magnet"--pointing to Miriam. "It isn't me,
bless you, not me," added the old man, with a chuckle, as he proceeded
to poke the fire vigorously.
To say that Gerald was mystified is to say no more than the truth.
But it was evident that whatever Byrne might have to tell him with
regard to his plans and purposes, he was not inclined to tell yet, and
Gerald would not question him.
"Does Mr. Van Duren keep up a large establishment?" he said.
"No: a small one. Everything on a miserly scale. Every item of
expenditure cut down to the lowest possible point."
"Perhaps he is poor."
"Poor! my dear sir. Tcha! When did you ever know a money-lender to be
poor?"
"But I did not know that Van Duren was a money-lender."
"That's what he is: neither more nor less."
"Then, in that case, he must be a man of capital?"
"Certainly, to some extent. But you never know how the webs of such
spiders as he interlace and cross each other. Perhaps he is only used
as a decoy to catch foolish flies for bigger and older spiders than
himself. But, in any case, you may be sure that he comes in for a good
share of the plunder."
"From what you have said, I presume that he is unmarried?"
"There are no signs of a wife under this roof," said Byrne. "Besides
himself, there is, in the office, first, his clerk, Pringle--a
drunken, disreputable old vagabond enough, from what I have seen of
him; and secondly, a youth of fifteen, to copy letters and run
errands, and so on. Then, downstairs, in a dungeon below the level of
the street, we have Bakewell and his wife, as custodians of the
premises and personal attendants on Van Duren--a harmless, ignorant
couple enough. These, with Miriam and myself, make up the sum total of
the establishment. Pringle and the boy, I may add, do not sleep on the
premises."
"Are you acquainted with Mr. Van Duren?" asked Miriam, suddenly
lifting her eyes from the fire.
"I have not that honour," said Gerald, drily.
"There is a great deal of power about him," said Miriam, "and I like
power in a man. He seems to me to be a man who would stand at nothing
in working out his own ends either for good or evil. For women--weak
women--such characters generally have a peculiar fascination."
"That's because you never have a will of your own for an hour
together," said Byrne. "Women always admire what they possess least of
themselves."
"Papa always runs the ladies down," said Miriam, smilingly, to Gerald.
"But if only one-half that I have heard whispered be true, no one
could be fonder of their society than he was, so long as he was young
and good-looking."
"And now that he is neither----?" said Byrne.
"No one delights to run them down more than he. The old story, Mr.
Warburton. Olives have no longer any flavour for him, therefore only
fools eat olives."
Gerald rose and made his adieux. It was arranged that he should call
again on the following Tuesday or Wednesday.
"You won't forget the tickets for the opera, will you, Mr. Warburton?"
were Miriam's whispered words as they stood for a moment at the street
door, she having gone down stairs to let him out.
"Well, kitten, and what do you think of your new-found brother?" asked
Byrne, as soon as Miriam got back into the room.
"I like him. It would be impossible to help liking him," said Miriam.
"Your reasons--if you have any?"
"Ladies are not supposed to give reasons. I like him because I like
him. For one thing, he is not commonplace. There is an air of
cleverness about him. You would not feel a bit surprised if at any
moment he were to tell you that he was the author of the last
celebrated poem, or the painter of the last great picture, or that he
had been down the crater of Vesuvius, or had invented a new balloon
that would take you half-way to the moon. By the time you have been in
Mr. Warburton's society ten minutes, you say to yourself: 'Here's a
man who has brains.'"
"Rather different from James Baron, Esq., eh?"
"Now, papa!" said Miriam, in a hurt tone. Then she turned from him and
went to the window, and drew aside the curtain, and peered out into
the darkness. "I thought it was understood between us that on this
point there was no longer to be any contention. I thought you
thoroughly understood, papa, that nothing could alter my
determination."
"Oh, you have made me understand all that, plainly enough," said
Byrne. "But when I think how mad and foolish you are--how determined
you are to throw away your one great chance in life, I can't help----"
"Pray spare me, papa! Why cover ground that you and I have trodden so
often already?"
"To think," said Byrne, indignantly, "of my daughter demeaning herself
to marry a common, underpaid clerk!"
"Yes, a clerk whose father is a dean; and who was educated at college,
and----"
"And who was expelled from college for----"
"Papa, for shame! Is his one fault to stick to him through life?"
"Even his own people discard him."
"Let them do so. He will make his way in spite of them. He is a
gentleman bred and born."
"A gentleman, forsooth!"
"Yes--a gentleman who has bound himself to marry a ballet girl--for
that's what I am. Neither more nor less than a ballet girl!"
"Had it not been for my misfortunes----"
"We need not speak of them, papa. But was it a wise thing on your part
to expose me to all the temptations of a theatre?"
"I had every confidence in the strength of your principles."
"Had you known one tithe of the temptations to which I was exposed,
you might well have trembled for me. Why, the very last night I was at
the Royal Westminster there was a note left for me at the stage door
and a splendid bouquet, and inside the bouquet was this."
As Miriam spoke, she extracted from her watch-pocket a ring set with
five or six costly brilliants, and handed it to her father.
"You are not going to wear this!" he said, looking up at her with
sudden suspicion.
"You ought to know me better, papa, than to ask such a question."
"Do you know from whom it came?"
"It would not be difficult to find out, I dare say."
"Then why have you not sent the ring back?"
"Because I mean the sender of it to pay for his folly. You remember my
telling you how little Rose Montgomery broke her leg at the theatre
the other week, through falling down a trap. She is little more than a
child, and has not another friend than myself in all London. I am
going to ask James to sell the ring for me. I shall give Rose the
money. It will keep her when she comes out of the hospital till she is
strong enough to begin dancing again."
"James! James! How I hate to hear the name!" said Byrne, as he got up
and left the room.
"It is the name of the man I love--of the man whose wife I am going to
be," replied Miriam.
Then she sat down and began to cry.