The Admiral's Daughter

by Margaret Stuart Lane

'I see,' said Simone. 'I can see it all. So that was why my nurse, to my great delight, brought little Suzanne Marie with us. I was so pleased. She was my playmate. I remember how nice it was to have Suzanne Marie going with me to the strange place. I remember the ship and the sea. I remember the queer English voices when we landed and got into the coach to go to London.' Simone spoke slowly as she called up the minute details of the distant day. 'There was a place Victoire took us to, to lodge until my guardian came. We had queer sort of meat for dinner, and a pudding with plums in it. Then we went out into the street to find a shop. Victoire was going to buy me a new ribbon for my hair. Probably you remember too, Victoire. "A nice black ribbon," you said. Then you—you left me in the street. I walked and walked and cried until I was sick. And then——' Simone stopped. 'I don't think I want to remember any more, M. le Colonel,' she said, in that quiet composed voice which drew from Mistress Keziah and Sampson cross-glances of admiration. 'That is all. And so Suzanne Marie came here and was the kind Admiral's ward.'

'But was there no one all these years who saw Victoire or Elise?' asked Colonel Sampson, his voice breaking in on the silence that had followed Simone's speech. 'No one of the family?'

The figure by the door stirred, and was still again. Marion raised her head. There was something uncanny in this trying of a silent prisoner.

'Do you know, Marion?' continued the Colonel

'I remember my father told me,' said Marion in a low voice, 'that the only person left was M. Lebrun the lawyer.'

'Ah!' The exclamation came from Mrs. Curnow. 'So now us do be knowing. Mistress Penrock and you, Sir, I can tell 'ee. Victoire here have had as you might say a secret messenger all these years, a man as do be known for the vilest wretch in the waters. Her's gone to France and come back, many a time a year, putting into Haunted Cove down along and making a signal. A foul place that, Sir, such as no God-fearing man would step into. And they two Victoire and Mademoiselle, have gone down secret-like, to talk to un and leave messages belike. Always when there was rough weather or a thick mist, so as they thought, I suppose, no one would know. But the village knew. The village have known for years there was something tur'ble wrong. I see it now, plain as my hand. The only danger for they two was the old lawyer. And when at last the Admiral arranges for the old gentleman to be a-coming over, Victoire finds out, and her suddenly learns her dear mother be sick unto death, and needs a daughter's care.'

'Why?' queried Mistress Keziah. 'Having done all this, why should she fear meeting the lawyer? In ten years a child alters out of recognition. Elise and Simone are of the same complexion.'

Simone was watching the face by the door. 'She was afraid,' she said.

'Oh yes,' remarked Sampson. 'She was afraid of the old lawyer, afraid that in spite of her care a whisper of her secret might have been heard. It was very clever of her to go away. A lawyer is of an inquiring turn of mind, as a rule, given to asking questions. And this old gentleman who, I fear, must be dead, or Victoire would not be with us (I remember now your talking of him in London, Marion—he was ailing, and his journey had to be postponed), this old gentleman might have had the wit to question the two, Victoire and Elise, separately. There might not have been an exact correspondence in replies. And so Victoire goes out of the way and leaves Elise to manage the old gentleman herself.'

'And now us do be knowing another thing,' burst out the old housekeeper. 'Us knows why Mademoiselle swore away dear Master Roger's life. Master Roger had found out about the doings in Haunted Cove.'