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

by T. W. Speight

Lady Dudgeon's liking for Eleanor did not lessen with years. The child was a frequent visitor at Stammars up to the time that she was sent to Germany to finish her education. And when her two years of absence were over, and she was back again at home, the intercourse was at once resumed, although by this time Lady Dudgeon had two young daughters of her own. After the sudden death of Jacob Lloyd, and the announcement that Eleanor had come into a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, there seemed all the more reason why the bond of intimacy should be drawn still closer: and no one was surprised when it was given out that Miss Lloyd had, for the present, accepted Lady Dudgeon's invitation to live with her at Stammars.

A day or two before the departure of the family for Harley Street, Lady Dudgeon called Eleanor into her bedroom. "My dear," she said, "I am going to show you something that you have never seen before--something that no eyes but my own have seen for years. To you they may, perhaps, seem hardly worth keeping, but they are very precious to me."

She opened a drawer as she spoke, the contents of which were covered with several layers of tissue-paper. When the paper had been carefully removed, there were displayed to Eleanor's view several articles that had evidently belonged to a child. There was a little crimson frock and a sash, a pair of tiny shoes, a broken doll, and part of a necklace of coral beads. Eleanor looked up wonderingly. For the first time in her life she saw tears in the eyes of Lady Dudgeon. "They belonged to my little daughter, whom I lost before I ever saw you. She died when she was four years old. She would just have been your age had she lived. Like you, she was fair and had blue eyes. That first day when I saw you at your father's, it almost seemed to me as if my own lost darling had come back again. I could not help loving you then, dear, and I have loved you ever since."

From the first moment that Gerald Warburton set eyes on Eleanor Lloyd, he made up his mind that, if it were in the possibility of things to do so, he would make her his wife, and from that determination he had never wavered. The more he saw of her the more settled became his conviction that he had never really loved till now. Flirtations he had had, and little love-smarts in plenty. Many a pleasant face had haunted his dreams for a night or two, but never for longer. In his writing-desk were two or three crumpled gloves, a ribbon or two, and at least half a dozen cartes-de-visite: tokens all, as he sometimes said to himself, of how hard he had tried to love, of how often he had fancied himself to be in love, and of the very short space of time it had taken him to discover either what an ass he had made of himself, or what an ass some girl had made of him. Such mementoes are not without a certain amount of instructiveness. Gerald looked upon them in the light of warnings. "How terrible and strange it is to think," he said to himself one day, "that each one of these gages d'amour represents a most foolish moment in my life, a moment that might have been the turning-point of my existence: such a moment as has been the turning-point of many a man's existence! How well one knows the history of such relics A pair of bright eyes, a waltz, a glass of champagne, a glove or a ribbon dropped by accident or design; or else a moonlight ramble capped with some poet's soft nonsense, and a little hand nestling timidly under your arm. Then comes a pressure of the tiny hand, an appealing glance into the bright eyes, a whispered word, and unless your enslaver does not really care for you--in which case nothing but your vanity suffers--your fate is sealed, and the chances are that you wake up next morning to find that, for the sake of an hour's foolish romance, you have bound yourself for life to a person for whom in your heart, you don't care the price of a box of cigars."

So moralized Gerald, as he took his relics out of their resting-place for the last time and dropped them quietly, one by one, into the fire. Without a single pang he saw them flare and shrivel into ashes. Let the dead past bury its dead.

No doubt ever clouded his mind as to the strength and reality of that passion which in these latter days had taken possession of his heart. It was no mere will-o'-the-wisp, to be followed with passionate footsteps through brake and morass, but the Planet of Love itself, serene and beautiful: the lodestar of his life and fortune shining down on him at last with a light that nothing but death could ever again eclipse.

Since that first meeting with Eleanor he had made it his business to see as much of her as the exigencies of his position would allow of his doing. Except when they had company, he generally dined with Sir Thomas and Lady Dudgeon. He had the happy knack of being able to select topics of conversation that had an interest for both of them. He did his best to please them, and he succeeded, simply that he might be able thereby to see more of Miss Lloyd than he could otherwise have hoped to do. The peculiar circumstances under which Eleanor and he had first met had done more to break the ice between them than a month of ordinary intercourse would have done; besides which, it had supplied them with a subject for conversation that Eleanor seemed never to grow tired of, and one in which our artful Gerald feigned a far deeper interest than he really felt.

Days and weeks had come and gone, and he was still as undecided as ever what steps to take in the matter of the sealed packet. Kelvin still maintained his mysterious silence. Gerald had said to himself that, after having been at Stammars for a little while, after having seen and made the acquaintance of Eleanor, should Kelvin not then have spoken, he would write to him in his real name, and demand some explanation of his unaccountable silence. This would at once force matters to a climax, and he, Gerald, would then be able, in the natural course of events, to assume his proper name and position. But day by day was flitting away, and he still neglected to take this very obvious course. As matters had turned out, he shrank from doing so. He loved this girl with all the strength of his ardent temperament. Should he declare himself, such a declaration would take from her all that she had hitherto deemed her own, all that was most dear to her in life: name, wealth, position--everything. Should his be the hand to knowingly strike her such a blow? The more he thought of it, the more hateful such a proceeding seemed to him. He could never hope to see Love's sweet light dawn in those beautiful eyes were he to smite her thus. And then how much more precious to him would it be to win her love for his own sake, to win it as a poor man, to fight for her against the host of other suitors who would surely come when they should discover what a golden prize was there for the winning; to say no word to her of this thing, but to let her rest in blissful ignorance till their wedding day was come. After that, she might, perchance, learn to love him all the more for his long silence. Thus it was that Gerald argued with himself, and thus it was that to the world at large he was still known as John Pomeroy, secretary to Sir Thomas Dudgeon, at an honorarium of one hundred and fifty guineas per annum.

As Gerald was strolling quietly through Kensington Gardens one day between luncheon and dinner, he was met by Eleanor, who was coming from an opposite direction. They shook hands, and Gerald turned and walked back with her.

"What are you meditating this morning?" asked Eleanor. "A sonnet, or another speech on the Sugar Duties?" She had seen and heard enough to know from what fount it was that Sir Thomas derived the stream of his Parliamentary eloquence.