MISS BELLAMY.
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."