A Secret of the Sea: A Novel. Vol. 2 (of 3)

It was nearly dusk on the eighth day after Peter Byrne and his daughter had got settled in their new rooms, when Gerald Warburton knocked at the door of Max Van Duren's house.

"Is my father at home?" asked Gerald of the middle-aged woman who answered his summons.

"If you are Mr. Byrne's son, I was told to send you upstairs when you called," answered the woman. "The first floor, please--door with the brass handle."

It was at Byrne's request that Gerald agreed to pass as his son on the occasion of any visits which he might have to make to Van Duren's house. Gerald could see no reason for the assumption of such a relationship, but in the belief that Byrne might have some special motive in the matter, he acceded without difficulty.

Up the stairs he now went, and knocked at the door indicated by the woman. "Come in," cried a voice, and in he went.

He paused for a moment or two just inside the room, and shut the door slowly after him while his eyes took in the various features of the scene.

The room in which Gerald found himself was of considerable size, and was lighted by three tall, narrow windows, curtained with heavy hangings of faded crimson velvet. The walls were painted a delicate green, and the floor was of polished wood. There was a large old-fashioned fire-place, and a heavy, overhanging marble chimney-piece, across the front of which was carved a wild procession of Baechic figures. A Turkey carpet covered the middle of the floor, but the sides of the room were left bare. Chairs, tables, and bureau were of dark oak, heavy, uncouth, uncompromising--and if not really antique, were very good Wardour Street imitations of the genuine article. On one side of the hearth, however, stood a capacious, modern easy-chair, for the special delectation of Mr. Peter Byrne, while in neighbourly proximity to it was the long-stemmed pipe with the china bowl. On the opposite side of the hearth stood another article, that seemed more out of keeping with the rest of the room, even, than the easy-chair. It was a couch or lounge of the most modern fashion, and upholstered with a gay flowery chintz. There could be no doubt as to the person for whose behoof this gay piece of furniture was intended. Stretched on the floor in front of it, and doing duty as a rug, was a magnificent tiger-skin. On this stood an embroidered footstool. At the back of the couch was a screen painted with Chinese figures and landscapes. Near it hung a guitar.

Gerald advanced slowly into the room, and for a moment or two he altogether failed to recognize the man who rose out of the easy-chair to greet him. It was Byrne and yet it was not Byrne. "It must be his father, or an older brother," said Gerald to himself. Even when the man held out his hand and whispered: "Is there anybody outside the door?" he was still in doubt.

"There is no one outside the door," said Gerald. "I came up the stairs alone."

"That's all right, then, and I'm very glad to see you, Mr. Warburton," said Byrne's familiar voice, after which there could no longer be any doubt. "Not a bad make up, eh?" he added, with a chuckle, as he noted Gerald's puzzled look.

"I certainly did not know you at first," replied the latter. "In fact, I took you for your own father."

"You could not pay me a higher compliment, sir," said Byrne, with a gleeful rubbing of the hands. "It is part of the scheme I have in view, that Van Duren should take me to be an old man, very feeble, very infirm, and nearly, if not quite, on my last legs."

"You look at the very least twenty years older than when I last saw you," remarked Gerald.

"And yet the transformation is a very simple matter," said Byrne. "It would not do to tell everybody how it's done, but from you I can have no secrets of that kind. In the first place, I had my own hair cropped as closely as it was possible for scissors to do it. Then I had this venerable wig made with its straggling silvery locks, and this black velvet skull cap. Two-thirds of my teeth being artificial ones, I have dispensed with that portion of them for the time being, and that of itself is sufficient to entirely alter the character of the lower part of my face. Then this dress--this gaberdine-like coat down to my knees, my collar of an antique fashion, my white, unstarched neckcloth, fastened with a little pearl brooch, this stoop of the shoulders, my enfeebled walk, and the stick that I am obliged to use to help me across the room: all simple matters, my dear sir, but, in the aggregate, decidedly effective."

Mr. Byrne omitted to mention that, as a conscientious artist bent on looking the character he meant to play, he had for the time being abandoned the hare's foot and rouge-pot. Although his use of those, articles had always been marked by the most extreme discretion, his discarding of them entirely did not add to the youthfulness of his appearance.

"And then you must please bear in mind that I am afflicted with deafness," added Byrne, with a smile, when Gerald had drawn a chair up to the fire. "It is not a very extreme form of deafness, but still it is necessary that I should be spoken to in a louder voice than ordinary; and it is sufficiently bad," he added, with a chuckle, "to prevent me, as I sit in my easy-chair by the fire, from overhearing any little private conversation that you and another person--my daughter, for instance--might choose to hold together as you sit by the sofa there, only a few yards away."

"I certainly can't understand," said Gerald to himself, "how all this scheming, and all these disguises, can in any way further the object which Ambrose Murray has so profoundly at heart."

Gerald felt mystified, and he probably looked it. As if in response to his unspoken thought, Byrne presently said: "All these things seem very strange to you, I do not doubt, Mr. Warburton; but you will believe me when I assure you that I have not for one moment lost sight of the particular end for which my services are retained. As soon as I begin to see my way a little more clearly--if I ever do--my plans and purposes shall all be told to you and Mr. Murray. I have built up a certain theory in my mind, and there seems only one way of ascertaining whether that theory has any foundation in fact. If it has, it may possibly lead us on to the clue we are in search of. If it has not--but I will not anticipate failure, however probable it may be. If I still possess the confidence of Mr. Murray and yourself, if you are still willing to let me have my own way in this thing for a little while longer, then I am perfectly satisfied."

"We have every confidence in you, Mr. Byrne," said Gerald, earnestly, "and we are both satisfied that the case could not have been entrusted into more capable hands than yours."

While Gerald was speaking, a door that led to an inner room was opened, and Miriam Byrne came in.

Byrne rose, laid one hand on the region of his heart, and waved the other gracefully.

"My daughter, Mr. Warburton--my only child," he said.

"I am glad that you have called to see us, Mr. Warburton," said Miriam, frankly, in her rich, full voice. "My father has talked so much about you that my curiosity was quite piqued to see for myself what his rara avis was like."

"You will find that I am a bird of very homely plumage," replied Gerald, with a smile. "Your father has been drawing on a too lively imagination. I am afraid that his rara avis will prove to be nothing more wonderful than our familiar friend--the goose."

"What a superb creature!" was Gerald's thought, as he sat down opposite Miriam; and that was the right phrase to apply to her.

Miss Byrne was at this time close upon her twenty-second birthday. Her beauty was of an altogether eastern type. Hardly anyone who met Miriam in the street took her to be an English girl; while to those who knew both her and her father, it was a constant source of wonder how "old Peter" could come to have for his daughter a girl so totally unlike him in every possible way. But Byrne's wife, who died when her daughter was quite an infant, had been a beautiful woman, and Miriam more than inherited her mother's good looks. People knowing the family averred that she was an exact counterpart of her grandmother: a lovely Roumanian Jewess, who had been brought over to England in the train of an Austrian lady of rank, and having found a husband here, had never gone back.

Eyes and hair of the black-set had Miriam Byrne. Large, liquid eyes, shaded with long, black lashes, and arched with delicate, well-defined brows; hair that fell in a thick, heavy mass to her very waist. Tints of the damask rose glowed through the dusky clearness of her cheeks. Her forehead was low and broad as that of some antique Venus. Her mouth was ripe and full, and might have looked somewhat coarse, had it not been relieved by her finely-cut nose with its delicate nostrils. She had on, this evening, a long, trailing dress of violet velvet, which harmonized admirably with her dusky loveliness--a rich, heavy-looking dress by gaslight, but one which daylight would have shown to be faded and frayed in many places. It had, in fact, at one time been a stage-dress, and as such, had been worn by Miss Kesteven of the Royal Westminster Theatre, when playing the heroine of one of Sardou's clever dramas.

The necklace of pearls, with earrings to match, which Miriam wore this evening, were also of stage parentage, but they looked so much like the real thing, that no one, save an expert, could have told without handling them that they were nothing better than clever shams. The one ring, too, which she wore--a hoop of diamonds--on her somewhat large, but well-shaped hand, was not more genuine than her pearl necklace. It had been bought for a few shillings in the Burlington Arcade; but it flashed famously in the gaslight; and as one cannot well take off a lady's ring in order to examine it, answered its purpose just as well as if it had cost a hundred guineas.

But we must not be too hard on Miriam. No doubt she was as fond of a little finery as most of her sisters are at two-and-twenty, but, in the present case, all these sham trinkets had been assumed by her at her father's wish, and "for a certain purpose," as the old man said. At the same time one need not imagine that the wearing of them, although they were counterfeit, was in any way distasteful to Miriam. As she herself would have been one of the first to say, go long as other people accepted her jewellery as real, the end for which it was worn was thoroughly gained.

"And how do you like your new home, Miss Byrne?" asked Gerald.

"I would much rather it had been at the West End than in the City," answered Miriam. "The rooms I like very much. They are large and old-fashioned, and have seen better days. To live in such rooms makes one feel as if one were somebody of importance--as if one had money in the Bank of England. But the look-out is dreadful. At the back, into that horrid churchyard; while in the front, there is nothing to be seen but a high, blank wall. I am always glad when it is time to draw the curtains and light the gas."