"AND YOU SHALL STILL BE LADY CLARE."
On leaving the library after the scene with Olive Deane, Gerald had
whispered to Eleanor: "Don't open the sealed packet till you have seen
me again. I shall be in the conservatory half an hour after luncheon."
To the conservatory Eleanor went at the time specified, taking the
sealed packet with her, and there she found Gerald awaiting her
arrival. There was a bright, happy look in his eyes, such as she had
not seen in them since that never-to-be-for-gotten evening when he
first took her in his arms and told her that he loved her. He came to
meet her as soon as she opened the door, took both her hands in his,
kissed her, and led her to a seat where they would be safe from
interruption.
Eleanor did not feel at all like a young lady on whom fickle Fortune
had been playing one of her strangest practical jokes; she did not
feel a bit like the genteel pauper Lady Dudgeon had called her: she
felt very, very happy. It was wrong of her to feel so--very wrong; but
she could not help it.
"I dare say you thought my request a very singular one," said Gerald,
as he sat down beside her, "but you will hear something still more
singular before the day is over."
"This has been a day of surprises," answered Eleanor. "It seems like
twenty years since yesterday."
"It will seem like twice twenty when you shall have heard all that I
have to tell you."
He looked into her eyes, and in their shrinking depths he seemed to
read a question which she was afraid to put into words: "Are you going
to tell me that you love me no longer?"
A kiss--or it may be half-a-dozen, for in such cases one soon loses
count--did something towards reassuring her.
"I asked you not to open the sealed packet till you had seen me again,
because I thought it better that I should first tell you a certain
strange story, of which as yet you know nothing, and so prepare your
mind for what you will find there when you come to open it."
"But--but how is it possible that you can know anything as to the
contents of the sealed packet?"
"It is quite possible, as you shall presently hear," answered Gerald,
with a smile. "But before I go any further, I want you to promise me
one thing."
"Only one! I think I may promise that. But tell me what it is."
"Simply this. That nothing I may tell you this afternoon will be
allowed in any way to prejudice the promise which you gave me this
morning."
"The promise which you stole, you mean."
"Well, then, the promise which I stole. But since you put the case in
that way, I must change my request into a warning. Take notice, that
I, John Pomeroy, do hereby warn you, Eleanor Lloyd, that whatever I
may have to tell you to-day notwithstanding, I shall consider you
bound in honour to fulfil and carry out a certain promise which,
whether it was stolen from you or given of your own free will, is none
the less a promise, and binding on your conscience as such. I cannot
just now call to mind the particular Act of Parliament applicable in
such cases, but I have no doubt that there is one. Consider yourself,
therefore, as having been properly warned."
"And now, sir, may I ask of what strange, eventful history all this
may be looked on as the prologue?"
Her lip quivered a little as she asked this question. She was
beginning to fear she knew not what. Involuntarily her fingers
closed more tightly on the hand that was still holding hers. The
close contact seemed to give her strength. "What need I fear now
I know that he loves me?" she asked herself; and her heart whispered
back--"Nothing."
"A strange, eventful history, indeed," said Gerald; "so strange, that
I hardly know how to begin it."
His tone was grave enough now. He was, in truth, puzzled how and where
to begin his revelations.
"Once on a time," he said, at last--"that is to say, some five or six
months ago--I was living very quietly in a little town in the south of
France, when, one fine morning, I was summoned post haste to London. A
certain lady, an old friend of yours. Miss Bellamy by name, was the
person whose imperative summons I felt bound to obey."
"Do you know Miss Bellamy?" asked Eleanor, opening her eyes very wide
indeed.
"Miss Bellamy used to buy me sweets when I was a very small shaver
indeed. In fact, there is a legend current that she assisted at the
cutting of my first tooth."
"But why did she send for you all the way from France?"
"Some seven weeks previously, she had sent through the post, to Mr.
Kelvin at Pembridge, the very sealed packet about which so much has
been said to-day. That packet had been placed by Mr. Lloyd in her
hands many years before, with a request that she would keep it
carefully by her till after his decease. When that event took place,
Miss Bellamy was at Guernsey, and six months elapsed before the packet
reached the hands of Mr. Kelvin. Immediately on receipt of it, his
duty was to communicate to you those facts of which you were allowed
to remain in ignorance till this morning. Finding, after a lapse of
several weeks, that Mr. Kelvin had done nothing in the affair, Miss
Bellamy sent for me, and asked me to go down to Pembridge, and
ascertain from Kelvin the reason of his unaccountable inaction. I went
down to Pembridge and saw Kelvin--whom I had once met years
previously; but, singular as it may seem, I said nothing to him of the
one particular object that had taken me there. At that time Olive
Deane was living with her cousin, and it was suggested by her that, as
Sir Thomas Dudgeon happened to be in want of a secretary, the place
might perhaps be one that would suit me. She suggested, too, that I,
being a poor man, might improve my fortunes by marrying an heiress,
the heiress in question being Miss Eleanor Lloyd. For reasons of my
own, I appeared to fall in with her views. The situation was procured
for me, and I made my appearance at Stammars.
"One of my reasons for acting thus was my desire to see and be near
you. I had heard a great deal about you at different times, and I
wanted to make your acquaintance, and judge you for myself before
letting you know that I was in any way mixed up with your private
affairs. I wanted, in fact, to meet you as an utter stranger."
"Before you go any further," said Eleanor, "I should like to ask you
one question. When you first came down to Pembridge, did you know that
I was not Mr. Lloyd's daughter, and, consequently, not entitled to his
property?"
"I did know it."
"Then it was very wrong of you to let me live on in ignorance of my
real position. You were making yourself the accomplice of Mr. Kelvin."
"Granted. But I had very special reasons for acting as I did. I
suspected the existence of some plot or scheme against you which I was
desirous of fathoming. Besides, I could not find in my heart to be the
one to strike the cruel blow that would deprive you of name and
fortune, and shake the very foundations of your life."
"The cruelty lay in not telling me. You did me a great injustice, and,
at the same time, you deeply wronged Mr. Warburton the real heir."
"Oh, if Mr. Warburton's anything like a decent sort of fellow, he
won't mind a bit when it's all explained to him," said Gerald, with a
twinkle in his eye.
Eleanor looked excessively pained. "You talk so strangely," she said
in a faltering voice, "that I hardly understand you."
Gerald's arm went round her waist, and before she could offer any
resistance half a score kisses had been rained on her cheeks.
"Oh! my darling," he cried, "cannot you see through it? Cannot you
understand it all? I--I am Gerald Warburton!"
"You Gerald Warburton!" she said, as if repeating the words
mechanically after him, but without comprehending what they meant. She
put his arm aside, and stood up and stared into his face, as she might
have stared had she been walking in her sleep, and were now coming
back to consciousness.
"You Gerald Warburton!"
He drew her down gently on to the seat again, and made one of her
hands a prisoner in his.
"It is even as I have told you," he said.
"It was I who Miss Bellamy sent for when she became alarmed by
Kelvin's long silence. It was then, for the first time, that I heard
your real history. Up to that day I had always looked upon you as my
cousin. I came here under an assumed name, and I accepted the
secretaryship to Sir Thomas Dudgeon, simply that I might see you and
be near you, myself unknown. To see you and be near you was to love
you. I determined, if it were possible to do so, to win you in the
character of a poor man. Whether I have succeeded or failed, you know
best."
"All this seems very hard to believe," said Eleanor at last. "And yet,
if you tell me it is true, I suppose it must be so." She sighed; and
then, in a low tone of voice, as if speaking to herself, she said:
"'Lord Ronald is heir of all my lands, and I am not the Lady Clare.'"
"Yes; but what says his lordship in conclusion? 'We two will wed the
morrow morn, and you shall still be Lady Clare.'"
She gazed at him sadly, wonderingly.
"Don't forget your promise," he said. "With Heaven's help, this day
month we will be man and wife!"
"Then you knew from the first that you were Gerald Warburton, the
heir, and that I was--nobody?"
She seemed as if she wanted his further assurance before that fact
would impress itself with sufficient clearness on her mind.
"I knew, dearest, what I have just told you. I heard it from Miss
Bellamy before I first came down to Pembridge."
"You came to me as a poor man, and stole my heart away before I knew
what had happened--stole it away, perhaps, for mere amusement. But now
that you have thrown off your disguise, now that I know you for the
caliph himself, the amusement is at an end, and you had better give me
back a poor trifle for which you can now have no possible use."
"As if that poor trifle, as you call it, were not the one treasure
which I hold as far more precious than aught else the world could
offer me. I have won you, and I mean to keep you, so you may as well
resign yourself to your fate."
"Are we in a land of freedom, or are we not?
"You are not in a land of freedom."
"Then resistance is useless?"
"Entirely so."
Eleanor mused for a moment.
"Tell me this," she said. "Why did you make that confession to me one
day in the library? Why did you accuse yourself of having been
actuated by mercenary motives?"
"Because I had been told of the interview between young Piper and
yourself. I knew, after that, what your thoughts must be concerning
me, so that, all things considered, it seemed to me the best thing I
could do was to cry 'mea culpa,' even at the expense of lowering
myself for a time in your estimation."
"But rather than do that, why not have confessed everything? Why not
have told me then what you have told me to-day?"
"Because at that time my plans were not ripe for such a confession.
Because I could not then have taken you to your father."
"My father, Gerald!" she cried, as she started to her feet. "Oh! say
those words again!"
It was the first time she had called him by his real name, and it
thrilled him strangely to hear it from her lips.
"Eleanor, your father--I do not speak of your adopted father this
time--is still alive--is waiting and longing to see you. I had a
telegram from him only a few hours ago. See, here it is." He took a
telegram from his pocket, opened it, and read aloud as follows:
"Everything proved. Our task is at an end. Come at once, and bring my
daughter with you."
These words, "my daughter," from a father whom she had never seen,
moved Eleanor strangely. Her heart beat so fast, that for a little
while she could not speak.
"If I have a father," she stammered out at last, "why did he not send
for me before? Why have you kept me from him all this time?"
"The story that I have now to tell you," answered Gerald, "is a very
painful one, but that it will have a happy ending there is proof
positive in the telegram which we have just read together. It is the
same story in substance as you will find told by Mr. Lloyd in the
sealed packet. I think it will be better that I should tell it to you
first, and leave you to read it afterwards."
Eleanor was trembling a little. She could not help it. She seemed to
dread hearing what Gerald might yet have to tell her. He tried to
comfort her after the foolish fashion of people in love. Then drawing
her close to him, so that her head rested on his shoulder, he went on
with his narrative.
"Many years ago, in a small provincial town more than two hundred
miles from this place, there lived four young ladies who had all been
schoolfellows together, and who, now that they were grown up, were
bosom friends. One of these young ladies married a gentleman, Ambrose
Murray by name, and a doctor by profession. You are their only child,
and your name is Eleanor Murray. Another of the young ladies married
Mr. Jacob Lloyd, and you were their adopted daughter. The third
married my father. The fourth remained unmarried, and is your friend
and mine--Miss Bellamy.
"A few months after you were born, a terrible misfortune befel your
father. He was arrested on a false charge of murder, was tried, and
condemned to die."
"Murder! Condemned to die!" gasped Eleanor.
"The charge was a false one, dearest--don't forget that. But before
the day came that would have left you fatherless, his mind gave way
under the shock, and his sentence was commuted into one of
imprisonment for life. Your mother, frail of health and delicate from
a child, found the burden of life more than she could bear, and
Heaven, in its pity, took her to itself."
Gerald paused, and as he did so he felt that Eleanor was sobbing
silently, with her head still resting on his shoulder.
"Then it was, when you were left alone in the world, that Mr. Lloyd
and his wife took you to their hearts and home. They had no children
of their own, and they adopted you as their daughter, even to giving
you their name--for, as you must remember, your fathers innocence had
never been proved. The evidence at the trial had been terribly against
him, and the world still adjudged him to be guilty.
"Shortly after their adoption of you, Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd removed to
Pembridge, where they were entire strangers, and, except Miss Bellamy,
no one ever knew that you were not their own child.
"And so years went on till Mrs. Lloyd died. It was shortly after this
event that Mr. Lloyd, mindful, probably, of the uncertainty of life,
put into Miss Bellamy's hands the very sealed packet about which we
have heard so much of late. In case Miss Bellamy should survive him,
it was to be given over by her into the hands of Mr. Kelvin, who had
had the management of Mr. Lloyd's affairs for years. Mr. Lloyd himself
doubtless shrank from telling you the real facts of your history; but
as your father was still living, it was imperatively necessary that
you should be made aware of them whenever he--Mr. Lloyd--should die.
To Mr. Kelvin was delegated the task of breaking the news to you. In
what way he has fulfilled that task we have now seen.
"All these long years Mr. Murray had been shut up in his living tomb.
In the course of time his senses had mercifully been given back to
him. Two or three times a year Miss Bellamy went to see him, and took
him tidings of you and of the outside world. He knew that you were
safe and well, and he would not let your young life be blighted by the
sad story of his wrongs and sufferings."
"Oh, if some kind friend but told me!" exclaimed Eleanor. "It was
cruel, cruel to keep me in ignorance of what it was my simple right to
be told! It was my place, not Miss Bellamy's, to go to see him and
comfort him."
"It was at Mr. Murray's own frequently-expressed desire that you were
left in ignorance."
"All those years--all those summers and winters while I was growing up
a happy, careless girl, he--my father--was shut up between the
terrible walls of a prison. I--I cannot bear to think of it!"
"But it is air over now, and in a few hours more you will be with
him."
"And you know him, Gerald! You have seen him and talked with him! No
wonder some instinct of the heart bade me love you."
Gerald kissed her again--whether for the twentieth or twenty-first
time in the short space of thirty minutes, matters nothing to nobody.
He felt that he had long arrears to make up. Then he went on with his
story.
"The first time I ever saw Mr. Murray was in Miss Bellamy's
sitting-room a few nights after my arrival in London in answer to her
summons. Your father had escaped from prison, and had come to Miss
Bellamy, as the only person living whom he knew, for shelter."
"Escaped! Oh! if I had only been there to receive him!"
"He and I became friends at once when he knew that I was the son of
one whom his wife had known and loved so well. Fortunately, no very
extreme search was made after him, and I may so far relieve your mind
at once by telling you that he has never been re-captured. In making
his escape from prison, Mr. Murray's mind seemed to be possessed by
one idea, and one only. That idea was the possibility, or probability,
of being able to prove to the world his innocence of the dreadful
crime laid to his charge twenty long years ago.
"How and by what means this great end has at last been accomplished,
it would take me too long to tell you in detail now. That may be left
for an after occasion. That he has succeeded completely and fully in
what for a long time seemed an utterly impossible task, this telegram
in his own words is ample proof. Not till he should have so succeeded
would he allow you to be communicated with, or even to be made aware
of his existence."
"How very strange of him! If he had but trusted me!"
"But the troubles of the past are over now. I propose to start for
London by the six o'clock train this evening, and to take you with me.
We shall find your father waiting at Miss Bellamy's to receive you."
"This evening! See my father this very evening!"
"Why not? Has he not sent for you?"
"I shall have to speak to Lady Dudgeon, and--and----"
"And you will be ready equipped for your start by 5.30. I will ask Sir
Thomas to let Fenton drive us to the station in the wagonette."
Eleanor stood up and pressed both her hands to her head. "I am far
from sure that it's not all a dream," she said.
Her eyes were still tear-stained, but a wan April smile was hovering
faintly round her lips.
"Kiss me, and try to discover whether you are awake or asleep that
way."
"Does my father know that you are acquainted with me?" she asked
suddenly.
"Not till a few days ago was he made aware that I had ever seen you."
"Then all the time you have been at Stammars you have known my father,
but without making him aware that you knew me, as you have known that
I was not Mr. Lloyd's daughter, and that you yourself were the heir to
his property."
"It would be impossible to state the case more briefly and clearly."
"Even now I hardly seem to see clearly the motives by which you were
actuated. But I have heard so many strange things to-day, that that is
hardly to be wondered at."
"The two most powerful motives that actuated me were these: your
father's strongly-expressed wish that you should be left unaware of
his existence and of the terrible story of his life till he himself
was prepared to reveal everything; and secondly, my desire to win my
wife as a poor man wins his--for himself alone, and not for whatever
worldly goods fortune may have encumbered him with."
"I am afraid," said Eleanor, still with a smile, "that you are a far
more enigmatical character than I took you to be--that I shall find
you far more difficult to understand than, in my simplicity, I ever
dreamt of."
"You hold the key to my heart, and that unlocks everything. When you
come to know me better, as I hope you will do some day, you will find
that, like most of my fellows, I am very shallow when properly gauged.
Only, perhaps, I have the art of hiding it better than some. But now I
must leave you for a little while. Remember, I shall expect you to be
ready by half-past five. In fact, I have already telegraphed that we
shall leave for London by the six o'clock train."
He pressed her hastily to his heart, and then she fled.
It was half-past seven when Eleanor and Gerald alighted at King's
Cross Station. Miss Bellamy was there to meet them. Eleanor's arms
were round her neck in a moment.
"Oh, my dear Miss Bellamy!" she exclaimed, half laughing and half
crying, "how happy it makes me to see you again! I thought you had run
away from me forever."
"Only for a little while, love. I had some one else to look after of
late--someone who is anxiously waiting to see you."
They all got into a cab. There was no opportunity for much
conversation as they rattled through the noisy streets; but just then
Eleanor did not want to talk. She sat holding Miss Bellamy's hand very
fast and inwardly trembling.
It was a good hour's drive to Ormond Square, but to Eleanor it seemed
only a few minutes. Gerald, having handed the ladies out of the cab,
took his leave for a little while, promising to call again in an hour.
Eleanor, still like one in a maze, and still clinging tightly to Miss
Bellamy, found herself next moment indoors.
"Take off your hat, love, but don't bother about anything else just
now," said Miss Bellamy.
Then they went upstairs, and then a door was flung open, and there,
in the middle of the lighted room, Eleanor saw standing a tall,
frail-looking man, who seemed as though he were obliged to steady
himself by clinging to the back of a chair, and whose lips were
working with nervous excitement.
"Eleanor Murray, there is your father!" said Miss Bellamy, in a voice
that was not without a touch of solemnity.
Eleanor staggered forward into the room. Ambrose Murray met her
half-way, and caught her in his arms. She fell on his breast in a
passion of sobs.
"Oh, papa, papa! why have you kept me from you all this time?" was all
she could say.
Miss Bellamy came gently out and shut the door.