Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by the Web Archive
A SECRET OF THE SEA.
Transcriber's Notes (Volume 3):
1. Page scan source: Web Archive
https://archive.org/details/secretofseanovel03spei
(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. III.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON.
1876.
(_All Rights Reserved_.)
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
CHAPTER
I. ELEANOR'S RESOLVE.
II. POD'S STRATAGEM.
III. VAN DUREN'S DREAM.
IV. PRINGLE'S DISCOVERY.
V. A FOUND LETTER.
VI. VAN DUREN IN WALES.
VII. THE MESSAGE TO STAMMARS.
VIII. WINGED WORDS.
IX. VAN DUREN'S FLIGHT.
X. TOLD AT LAST.
XI. "AND YOU SHALL STILL BE LADY CLARE."
XII. THE STRONG-ROOM.
XIII. CONCLUSION.
A SECRET OF THE SEA.
CHAPTER I.
ELEANOR'S RESOLVE.
"I'm in no particular hurry, doctor, to get back to London," Sir
Thomas Dudgeon had quietly hinted to his medical man. "I daresay the
House can get on without me quite as well as with me, so you needn't
hurry yourself to say I'm fit for harness again till you feel quite
sure in your own mind that I am so."
Dr. Welstead was not slow to take the hint, and he kept on calling at
Stammars two or three times a week, and sending one innocuous draught
after another, which draughts Sir Thomas conscientiously poured into
the ash-pan when his wife was not looking, till the baronet's holiday
had extended itself to the beginning of May. But by this time Sir
Thomas looked so well and rosy, and was in possession of such a hearty
appetite, that a vague suspicion that she was being duped began to
haunt her ladyship's mind. She said nothing to her husband, but made
her preparations in silence. Then, one morning at the breakfast-table,
the shell exploded.
"To-day is Wednesday, dear," she said, "and I have made all
arrangements for our going up to town on Saturday morning. Dr.
Welstead seems quite at a loss how to treat you: indeed, country
practitioners, as a rule, are not competent to deal with anything
beyond a simple case of measles; so on Saturday afternoon I will
myself drive you to see Sir Knox Timpany, and wait for you while you
consult that eminent authority, who, I doubt not, will make you as
well as ever you were, in the course of a very few days."
Sir Thomas fumed and fretted, but her ladyship was inexorable. Go he
must; and when he saw there was no help for it, he made a merit of
necessity; but at the same time he registered a silent vow that not
all the wives in England should drag him to the door of Sir Knox
Timpany.
At the last moment, however, the baronet and Gerald started for London
alone. Late on Friday, Lady Dudgeon received a telegram. Her only
sister was very ill, and it was needful that she should hurry off
without an hour's delay. "Considering all that I have done for
Caroline, it is really very ungrateful of her to be ill at a time like
this," she grumbled to her husband. "She knew how anxious I was to get
back to town, and she might have doctored herself up for another month
or two. I hope to goodness she won't die till the season is over. I
can't bear myself in mourning."
"Your only sister, my dear," remarked Sir Thomas, soothingly. "I
wouldn't leave her, if I were you, while there's the least danger.
Your conscience might prick you afterwards, you know."
"Stuff!" was her ladyship's rejoinder. "Of course, I shall do what is
proper; but if I were to die to-morrow, Caroline's first thought would
be how soon after that event she might begin to wear flounces again."
Without wishing his sister-in-law any harm, Sir Thomas would not have
been sorry if her illness had kept his wife at her bedside for half a
year. The thought of having a few weeks, or even a few days, in
London, without being supervised by her ladyship, was to bring back
the feelings of his youth when school broke up for the summer
holidays. In fact, during the three weeks that elapsed before her
ladyship joined him in town, he was more like a schoolboy let loose
than the fancy sketch of him with which the _Pembridge Gazette_ one week
favoured its readers, wherein he was described as a senator, grave and
staid, whose trained and powerful intellect was perpetually engaged in
grappling with the most tremendous social and political problems of
the age.
After a little dinner, quiet and early, at which Gerald generally sat
down with him, Sir Thomas would post off to the House. But an hour or
an hour and a half there was quite enough for him. Whist and a prime
cigar at his club were far preferable to prosy speeches by people whom
he did not know, and on subjects about which he did not care twopence.
Since the day of his confession in the library, Gerald had seen very
little of Eleanor. If they met casually in passing from one room to
another, a bow and a faint smile was all the greeting that passed
between them. When they met at the dinner-table, no ordinary observer
would have noticed any difference in their demeanour towards each
other. Gerald talked as much as ever he had done: he knew that Sir
Thomas and his wife liked him to make talk for them: but fewer of his
observations were now addressed directly to Miss Lloyd than used to be
the case at one time. Sometimes he even turned over the music for
Eleanor when she played after dinner; but had Lady Dudgeon been the
most Argus-eyed of dowagers, instead of the most unsuspicious, she
could not possibly have found fault with his demeanour on such
occasions. He was Sir Thomas Dudgeon's secretary--and nothing more.
Eleanor had received his confession in a spirit somewhat different
from what he had expected. He had thought that her pride would be more
deeply wounded by the deception he had practised on her than it
appeared to be. That it was wounded, he knew full well; but when he
parted from her at the close of the interview, he did not fail to
notice the quiver of her lip, and the longing, wistful look in her
eyes. In his previous thoughts of her, it was evident he had not
calculated sufficiently on the effect which his frank confession and
prayer for forgiveness would have on a generous and loving disposition
like that of Eleanor. It seemed by no means unlikely, as Gerald said
to himself afterwards, when thinking over the interview, that she had
indeed so far forgiven him as to make his reinstatement in her regards
the question merely of a little time and perseverance; and under other
circumstances he would not have allowed a day to pass without
attempting a renewal of his suit. But fixed as he was just then, he
could not bring his mind to the adoption of such a course. That he had
fallen somewhat in Eleanor's esteem, that he had sunk to a lower level
in her thoughts, he could not doubt; and however much she might feel
inclined to forgive him, it was questionable whether--had the
circumstances of the case really been such as she believed them to
be--she could ever have looked upon him with quite the same eyes as
before. Such a change as this Gerald did not care to face. He
preferred that, for a little while, she should think all was over
between them; that he had given up all thoughts of winning her for his
wife. He knew that before very long she would have to be told
everything, and till that time should come he would speak no word of
love to her again. The more hardly she thought of him now, the greater
would be the re-bound towards him when, from other lips than his, she
should hear the whole strange story that must soon be told her.
About a fortnight after sending his first letter to Kelvin, Gerald
followed it up with another. But again came the same answer as before,
that Mr. Kelvin was still too ill to attend to business. Gerald was
debating in his own mind as to the advisability of going over to
Pembridge and seeking an interview with Kelvin, when the receipt of
certain news from Ambrose Murray decided him to wait a short time
longer. Murray told him the result of the inquiries in Wales, and how
he and Peter Byrne were going to start for Marhyddoc in the course of
a few days; and Gerald was entreated to follow them as quickly as
possible. Under these circumstances there seemed to Gerald no
necessity for troubling Kelvin any further at present. Should Ambrose
Murray find that which he was going to Wales to search for, then would
all necessity for concealment on his part be at an end. One of his
first acts would be to ask for the daughter who knew him not. Then
would come the time for Gerald to say who and what he was. His first
act after Eleanor knew that he was no longer John Pomeroy, the poor
secretary, but Gerald Warburton, the heir to Mr. Lloyd's wealth, would
be to tell her how truly he still loved her, and to ask her to become
his wife. Let her, for a week or two longer, think that he had yielded
her up without a struggle: in a very little while she should discover
that no power on earth could make him yield her up--nothing, save her
own deliberate dismissal of him, could do that.
Thus it was that Gerald left Stammars without saying a word of
farewell to Eleanor; and she, sitting half heart-broken by the window
of her own room, saw him drive off to the station, and cried after
him, "Oh, my darling, why have you left me? Perhaps I shall never see
you again."
Gerald had only done Eleanor simple justice when he said to himself
that she was ready to forgive and forget the past. "He has confessed
everything to me, and confession is atonement," she said to herself
"He need not have said a word to me, had he been so minded; but the
very fact of his telling me is proof sufficient that he is no longer
seeking to win me for my money, but for myself only."
Day by day she had been expecting to receive some word, some look
even, from him which would tell her that his feelings were still
unchanged; but day passed after day, and neither word nor look was
vouchsafed her. She was chilled and hurt by Gerald's persistent
silence and evident avoidance of her. Could it be, she asked herself,
that he thought he had sinned past forgiveness? To prove that such was
not the case, she would be more gracious and complaisant towards him
than she had ever been before. She would endeavour to let him see, as
far as a modest maiden might do so, that he had nothing to fear; that
the past was forgiven, and that the future rested with himself alone.
But Gerald might have been made of marble, so cold and impassive did
he seem to the tender-hearted girl, who had only discovered of late
how fondly she loved him.
Then her pride came to her aid, and she tried her best to emulate
Gerald's indifference. She laughed and talked, and seemed altogether
merrier than of old; but no one knew what she suffered in the solitude
of her own room.
Now it was that she determined to put into execution a project that
had been more or less in her thoughts for a longtime. She was tired of
the empty, frivolous life that she had been leading for some time
past. It had seemed very pleasant to her while the freshness lasted,
but that had now worn off, and she had made up her mind that she would
have no more of it--or only a taste of it now and then as a relief
from more serious duties. What she wanted was some plain, earnest work
to do--some work that would benefit others as well as herself For a
long time she had seemed like one groping in the dark; but at last she
thought she saw a clear line of duty marked out for her footsteps, the
following of which might not be altogether without avail.
And now her purpose grew firm within her. All was at an end between
her and Pomeroy. She had only herself to consult. In hard work she
might, perchance, find an anodyne for her wound. In any case, she
would try to do so.
"I suppose, my dear, that you won't object to give me a month this
autumn?" said Lady Dudgeon to her husband, as they sat together one
morning, about a couple of days before their projected return to
London.
"Oh, ho! it's come to that, has it?" answered the baronet. "Well, I
suppose you must have your own way in the matter, although you know
that I hate both the place and the class of people one meets there. I
suppose we can take Eleanor with us? It will be a treat to her, and
company for you."
"Eleanor's a little fool!"
"Possibly so; you know best, I dare say."
"She tells me that she is going to leave us."
"Eleanor going to leave us!"
Sir Thomas looked quite dumbfounded. At this moment Eleanor entered
the room.
"What is this I hear, little one?" he cried. "You are not going to
leave us, surely?"
"For a little while, dear Sir Thomas. Perhaps not for long," answered
Eleanor.
"I'm sorry for that--very sorry indeed. I had grown to like you almost
as much as if you were a daughter of my own."
Tears came into Eleanor's eyes. She crossed the room, and taking Sir
Thomas's hand in both hers, pressed it to her lips.
"My gratitude--my love, if you care for it--will always be yours! I
can never repay even a tithe of the kindness shown me by Lady Dudgeon
and yourself."
"Eleanor, I have no patience with you!" cried Lady Dudgeon, dipping
her pen viciously in the inkstand.
"But where is the girl going, and what is she going to do?" asked the
baronet.
"Let her answer for herself."
"You will think it very strange of me, I dare say," said Eleanor; "but
Miss Mulhouse, whose name is no doubt familiar to you, has offered to
find me a position in one of the Homes for Destitute Girls, which she
is trying to establish in different parts of London."
"Heaven bless us!" exclaimed Sir Thomas. "You don't mean to say that
you are going to leave a place like Stammars on purpose to spend your
days in a back slum in the east end of London?"
"I am going to try to find something to do," said Eleanor. "I am going
to try to make myself of some little use in the world."
"A madcap scheme, my dear--I can call it nothing else," said the old
gentleman, with a melancholy shake of the head "If you feel charitably
disposed, a twenty-pound note at Christmas, judiciously laid out, will
go a long way--a very long way, indeed."
"To give money alone does not seem to me enough. I want to work for
those poor helpless ones; to labour for them with head and hands; to
learn their histories and their wants; to win their sympathies, and to
make their lives a little less hard, if I can possibly do so."
"My dear," said Sir Thomas, turning to his wife, "what a pity it is
that you have not found a husband for Miss Lloyd!"
"Miss Lloyd has had three most eligible offers since she placed
herself under my care."
"And she refused them?"
"Every one."
"Then her case must be a hopeless one indeed."
"I have argued and reasoned with her, but all to no purpose," said her
ladyship. "She is determined to have her own headstrong way. But I
prophesy that before six months are over we shall have Miss Lloyd back
at Stammars, tired and disgusted with a task which may look very nice
in theory, but which must be excessively unpleasant when reduced to
practice."
"She will always be welcome at Stammars whenever she likes to come
back to us."
"You won't think me ungrateful for leaving you, will you, Sir Thomas?"
pleaded Eleanor.
"That I won't, my dear. I'll never think anything but what's good of
you."
Thus it was that Eleanor Lloyd, sitting in the window of her room,
watching Gerald Warburton drive away, cried to herself, "Perhaps I
shall never see him again!"