A Secret of the Sea: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

When Ambrose Murray learned that Gerald was the nephew of Jacob Lloyd, the man who had so befriended his daughter, and that Gerald's mother was the Minna Lloyd whom he remembered, and who had been one of his wife's dearest friends, he clung to him as a man who is being carried away by the tide will cling to the life-buoy which his hands have unexpectedly grasped. And, indeed, this man, who, after having been closely shut up from the world for twenty years, found himself thrown again on the great stream of life, seemed as helpless and bewildered as some weak swimmer who contends in vain against the resistless tide that is fast carrying him away. He was more than bewildered--he was frightened by the vast whirlpool of London life in which he found himself such an infinitesimal atom. There had always been an element of weakness, of vacillation, in his character. He had always been one of those men who are inevitably crushed into the background in the great rush and struggle for life with which they are mixed up--men not lacking talent, but simply from want of energy and physique, and power of elbowing their way to the front, drifting year after year helplessly into the rear, seeing themselves distanced by younger and fleeter feet, and seeing the prizes that in the flush of youth seemed so close at hand and easy of attainment, receding hopelessly into the distance. Sometimes disappointment and bitterness of heart sour such men for ever; sometimes they sink into mere dreamers and idealists, who console themselves for the buffets of the real world by living as much as possible an inner life of their own, in which destiny is carved out by them in accordance with their varying fancies, and in which they grasp--in imagination--whatever prizes please them best.

If at twenty-five years of age Ambrose. Murray had been ill-fitted to withstand the rubs of fortune, it was hardly to be expected that his armour should be stronger or his sword brighter after his twenty years of incarceration from the world. It was, indeed, evident from the first, both to Miss Bellamy and to Gerald, that he would have to be treated in many ways as if he were neither more nor less than a grown-up child. He had forgotten so much, and he had so much to learn! The march of events had left him so terribly in the rear, that it seemed doubtful whether he would ever be able to reach the world's full stride again.

Then, again, as time went on and they grew to know him better, a doubt would sometimes make itself felt, both with Miss Bellamy and Gerald, as to whether some shadow of the terrible affliction which had overclouded his mind for years did not linger there still. On ninety-nine topics out of a hundred he would talk as sanely and sensibly as anyone; but the introduction of the hundredth would elicit from him some observation so bizarre, so outrageous, or, on the other hand, so childishly simple, that his hearers could only look at each other in dismay, and change the conversation as quickly as possible.

Ambrose Murray's chief employment in prison since the recovery of his reason would seem to have been the cleaning and repairing of all the clocks and watches in the establishment. When a boy of twelve at home he had been able to take his father's watch to pieces, clean it, and put it together again. The delicacy of the workmanship, and the exquisite adjustment of each part with reference to the whole, had for him, even at that age, a fascination, a charm, that might have led him, step by step, into the highest walks of mechanics, had not a stern parental will decided for him that he was born to be a doctor.

As a result of his labours on the prison clocks and watches, Mr. Murray had contrived, little by little, to save up the sum of twelve pounds. Ten pounds of this amount he placed in the hands of Miss Bellamy the morning after his arrival in London, with a request that she would act as cashier for him in every way as far as the money would go, and that when it was exhausted she would not fail to let him know--although what he would have done in such a case to replenish his purse it would have puzzled him to say. Just then, however, no such consideration troubled his mind. In his best days he had not understood or troubled himself much about money matters, and nowadays ten pounds seemed amply sufficient to last him for an indefinite length of time. And it did last him a very long time, thanks to Miss Bellamy's remarkable management; for when, at the end of two months, he said to her, "I think the ten pounds must be getting rather low, Maria"--he had always been in the habit of calling Miss Bellamy by her Christian name--she only answered with a smile: "That shows how little you know about money matters. There's more than half of it left yet." Ambrose Murray was quite content to think that it was so, and troubled himself no further about the matter.

That first night Gerald took him to his own rooms; but the question that had to be settled next morning was, where he should live for the future. In London he would undoubtedly be safer from pursuit and detection than in the country; besides which, he wanted to be near Miss Bellamy. She was the one link that connected him with the past: away from her he would have felt as helpless as a being who had wandered by mistake on to a wrong planet. As it happened, there were two furnished rooms to be let in the next house to that in which Miss Bellamy lodged, and it was decided that there, for awhile at least, the fugitive should pitch his tent. It was highly necessary that he should both change his name and disguise himself to a certain extent--not that Murray himself would ever have thought of adopting any such precautions, but would have gone about as openly and unsuspiciously as the freest man in England. That some pursuit would be attempted, that some effort would be made to recapture him, there could be no manner of doubt; and both to Miss Bellamy and Gerald it seemed quite evident that unless some few obvious precautions should be adopted, his whereabouts could not long remain unknown to the police. It was accordingly agreed that for the time being he should change his name from Murray to Greaves--that having been his wife's maiden name; and that he should pass as a cousin of Miss Bellamy, who had come to London to look after some property that was in Chancery. The next thing to do was to reduce the length of his flowing white beard and of his long white hair. What was left was then died black--its normal colour--and this simple change was enough to disguise him beyond the chance of recognition by any one who had only seen him as he was when he first took off his hat and plaid in Miss Bellamy's room.

As he was still barely fifty years old, there was nothing incongruous about his black hair and beard; and when his sartorial needs had been duly attended to, the world saw him as a rather tall, frail-looking man, with a thin, scholar-like face, who stooped a little as he walked, and who seemed ever more intent on his own secret thoughts than concerned with anything that was passing around him. Not that the world, as exemplified by Ormond Square and its neighbourhood, ever saw much of him. He rarely stirred out of the house till dusk, and more frequently than mot it was ten or eleven at night before he crossed the threshold, except when he went to see Miss Bellamy--which he did every day; but as he had only to step from one house into the next in order to do that, it could hardly be considered as going out. The noise and bustle of the streets distracted him--even daylight itself, except when it came winnowed through the interstices of the venetian blinds, seemed distasteful to him. The friendly silence of the long, dark suburban streets, where were no gaudy shops or glaring gin-palaces, suited him best. There he could think his inmost thoughts and commune with his strange fancies in silence and peace. There he could feel sure that no keen eyes were prying into his, and trying to find therein some gleam, some lurking trace, of that terrible demon whose fingers had scorched his brain once already, and who still, at times, seemed terribly near at hand, waiting--as in his childish days he believed robbers used to wait for him--round some dark corner no great distance away, with his black cloak in his hands, ready to throw it over his victim's head the moment he passed that way.

After awhile both Gerald and Miss Bellamy were able to tell when this demon was haunting Murray's steps more closely than common. At such times, when not conversing with others, he would talk inaudibly to himself for hours together, unless interrupted, his lips moving as though in earnest assertion, but no sound coming therefrom. At such times, when walking out, he would turn his head slowly from side to side, but without raising his eyes from the ground, as though in search of something.

On the first occasion that Gerald noticed this peculiarity, they were walking together, and he said to him, "Have you lost something, Mr. Murray?"

Murray started, looked up, smiled, and pressed his companion's arm more closely.