A perilous secret

Front matter

THE PICCADILLY NOVELS. POPULAR STORIES BY THE BEST AUTHORS. Library Editions, many Illustrated. Crown 8vo., cloth extra, y. 6J. each. [See aho Chatto and Windus's List of 450 Two-Shilling Novels.] By GRANT ALLEN. Babylon. The Devil's Die. Philistia. The Tents of Shem. In all Shades. For Maimie's Sake. This Mortal Coil. The Great Taboo. By MORTIMER & FRANCES COLLINS. Sweet Anne Page. Blacksmith and Transmigration. Scholar. From Midnight to The Village Comedy. Midnight. You Play Me False. By ALAN ST. AUBYN. A Fellow of Trinity. By Rev. S. BARING GOULD. Red Spider. | Eve. By WALTER BESANT & JAMES RICE. Ready-Money Mor- By CeUa's Arbour. tiboy. Monks of Thelema. My Little Girl. 'Twas in Trafalgar's Case of Mr. Lucraft. Bay. This Son of Vulcan. The Seamy Side. With Harp & Crown. Ten Years' Tenant.

The GoldenBu tterfly. Chaplain of the Fleet Ey HALL CAINE. The Shadow of a I A Son of Hagar. Crime. | The Deemster. By JAMES DE MILLE. A Castle in Spain. By J. LEITH DERWENT. Our Lady of Tears. | Circe's Lover3. By MRS. ANNIE EDWARDES. Archie Lovell. By M. BETHAM-EDWARDS. Felicia. By PERCY FITZGERALD. Fatal Zero. By WALTER BESANT. All Sorts and Condi- Children of Gibeon. tions of Men. The World Went By R. E. FRANC1LLON. Queen Cophetua. I One by One. A Real Queen. | King or Knave ? Prefaced by SIR H. BARTLE FRERE. The Captains' Room. Very Well Then. All in a Garden Fair. Herr Paulus. Dorothy Forster. For Faith & Freedom Uncle Jack. The Bell of St. Paul's. To Call Her Mine. Pandurang H_tri. By EDWARD GARRETT. The Capel Girls. By ROBERT BUCHANAN. A Child of Nature. Annan Water. God and th e Man.

Matt. By CHARLES GIBBON. Robin Gray. A Heart's Problem. In Honour Bound. The Golden Shaft. Matt. Shadow of the Sword The New Abelard. The Martyrdom of Foxglove Manor. Madeline. Master of the Mine. Love Me for Ever. The Heir of Linne. QueenoftheMeadow Of High Degree. Flower of the Forest. Loving a Dream. By ERNEST GLANVILLE. The Lost Heiress. By BRET HARTE. Waif of the Plains. I A Sappho of Green Ward of Golden Gate | Springs. By MRS. H. LOVETT CAMERON, Juliet's Guardian. | Deceivers Ever. By WILLIAM CYPLES. Hearts of Gold. By ALPHONSE DAUDET. By JULIAN HAWTHORNE. Garth. Beatrix Randolph. Ellico Quentin. David Poindexter's Sebastian Strome. Disappearance. Dust. The Spectre of the Fortune's Fool. Camera. The Evangelist ; or, Port Salvation. By WILKIE COLLINS. Antonina. The Frozen Deep. Basil.

Chapter II. The Rich Man's Child

The world is very big, and contains hundreds of millions who are strangers to each other. Yet every now and then the big world seems to turn small ; so many people whose acquaintance we make turn out to be the acquaintances of our acquaintances. This concatenation of acquaintances is really one of the marvels of social life, if one considers the chances against it, owing to the size and population of the country. As an example of this phenomenon, which we have all observed, William Hope was born in Derbyshire, in a small parish which belonged, nearly all of it, to Colonel Clifford ; yet, in that battle for food, which is, alas ! the prosaic but true history of men and nations, he entered an office in Yorkshire, and there made friends with Colonel Clifford's son, Walter, who was secretly dabbling in trade and matrimony under the name of Bolton ; and this same Hope was to come back, and to ajiply for a place to Mr. Bartley.

Mr. Bartley was brother-inlaw to that same Colonel Clifford, though they were at daggers drawn, the pair. Miss Clifford, aged thirty-two, had married Bartley, aged thirty-seven. Each had got fixed habits, and they soon disagreed. In two years they parted, with plenty of bitterness, but no scandal. Bartley stood on his rights, and kept their one child, little Mary. He was very fond of her, and as the mother saw her whenever she liked, his love for his child rather tended to propitiate Mrs. Bartley, though nothing on earth would have induced her to live with him again. Little Mary was two months younger than Grace Hope, and, like her, had blue eyes and golden hair. But what a difference in her condition ! She had two nurses and every luxury ; dressed like a princess, and even when in bed smothered in lace; some woman's eye always upon her, a hand always ready to keep her from the smallest accident.

Yet all this care could not keep out sickness. The very day that Grace Hope began to cough and alarm her father, Mary Bartley flushed and paled, and showed some signs of feverishness. The older nurse, a vigilant person, told Mr. Bartley directly ; and the doctor was sent for post haste. He felt her pulse, and said there was some little fever, but no cause for anxiety. He administered syrup of poppies, and Httle Mary passed a tranquil night. Next day, about one in the afternoon, she be came very restless, and was repeatedly sick. The doctor was sent for, and combated the symptoms, but did not inquire closely into the cause. Sickness proceeds immediately from the stomach ; so he soothed the stomach with alkaline mucilages, and the sickness abated. But next day alarming sym ptoms accumulated — short breathing, inability to eat, flushed face, wild eyes.

Bartley telegraphed to a first-rate London physician. He came, and imme diately examined the girl's throat, and shook his head ; then he uttered a fatal word — Diphtheria. They had wasted four days squirting petty remedies at symptoms, instead of finding the cause and attacking it, and now he told them plainly he feared it was too late — the fatal membrane was forming, and, indeed, had half closed the air passages. Bartley in his rage and despair would have driven the local doctor out of the house, but this the London doctor would not allow. He even con sulted him on the situation, now it was declared, and, as often happens, they went in for heroic remedies since it was too late. But neither powerful stimulants nor biting draughts nor caustic applications could hinder the deadly parchment from growing and growing.

The breath reduced to a thread, no nourish ment possible except by baths of beef-tea, and similar enemas. Exhaustion inevitable. Death certain. Such was the hopeless condition of the rich man's child, surrounded by nurses and physicians, when the father of the poor man's child applied to the clerk Bolton for that employment which meant bread for his child, and perhaps life for her. William Hope returned to his little Grace with a loaf of bread he bought on the road with Bolton's shilling, and fresh milk in a soda-water bottle. He found her crying. She had contrived, after the manner of children, to have an accident. The room was almost bare of furniture, but my lady had found a wooden stool that could be mounted upon and tumbled off, and she had done both, her parent being away. She had bruised and sprained her little wrist, and was in the depths of despair. 'Ah,' said poor Hope, 'I was afraid something or other would happen if I left you.' He took her to the window, and set her on his knee, and comforted her.

He cut a narrow slip off his pocket-handkerchief, wetted it, and bound it lightly and deftly round her wrist, and poured consolation into her ear. But soon she interrupted that, and flung sorrow to the winds ; she uttered three screams of delight, and pointed eagerly through the window. ' Here they be again, the white swans ! ' Hope looked, and there were two vessels, a brig and a barque, creeping down the river toward the sea, with white sails bellying to a gentle breeze astern. It is experience that teaches proportion. The eye of childhood is wonderfully misled in that matter. Promise a little child the moon, and show him the ladder to be used, he sees nothing inade quate in the means ; so Grace Hope was delighted with her swans. But Hope, who made it his business to instruct her, and not deceive her, as some thoughtless pa rents do out of fun, the wretches ! told her, gently, they were not swans, but ships.

She was a little disappointed at that, but in quired what they were doing. ' Darling,' said he, ' they are going to some other land, where honest, hard-working people cannot starve ; and, mark my words, darling,' said he — she pricked her little ears at that — ' you and I shall have to go with them, for we are poor.' ' Oh,' said little Grace, impressed by his manner as well as by his words, and nodded her pretty head with apparent wisdom, and seemed greatly impressed. Then her father fed her with bread and milk, and afterwards laid her on the bed, and asked her whether she loved him. ' Dearly, dearly,' said she. ' Then if you do,' said he, ' you will go to sleep like a good girl, and not stir off that bed till I come back.' ' No more I will,' said she. However, he waited until she was in an excellent condition for keeping her promise, being fast as a church.

Then he looked long at her beautiful face, wax like and even-tinted, but full of life after her meal, and prayed to Him who loved little children, and went with a beating heart to Mr. Bartley's office. But in the short time, little more than an hour and a half, which elapsed between Hope's first and second visit, some most unexpected and remarkable events took place. Bartley came in from his child's dying bed distracted with grief; but business to him was the air he breathed, and he went to work as usual, only in a hurried and bitter way unusual to him. He sent out his clerk Bolton with some bills, and told him sharply not to return without the money ; and whilst Bolton, so-called, was making his toilette in the lobby, his eye fell on his other clerk, Monckton. Monckton was poring over the ledger with his head down, the very picture of a faithful servant absorbed in his master's work.

But appearances are deceitful. He had a small book of his own nestled between the ledger and his stomach. It was filled with hieroglyphics, and was his own betting-book. As for his brown study, that was caused by his owing 1001. in the ring, and not knowing how to get it. To be sure, he could rob Mr. Bartley. He had done it again and again by false accounts, and even by abstraction of coin, for he had false keys to his employer's safe, cash-box, drawers, and desk. But, in his opinion, he had played this game often enough, and was afraid to venture it again so soon and on so large a scale. He was so absorbed in these thoughts that he did not hear Mr. Bartley come to him ; to be sure, he came softly, because of the other clerk, who was washing his hands and brushing his hair in the lobby. So Bartley's hand fell gently, but all in a moment, on Monckton's shoulder, and they say the shoulder is a sensitive part in conscious rogues.

Any way, Monckton started violently, and turned from pale to white, and instinctively clapped both hands over his betting-book. ' Monckton,' said his employer gravely, ' I have made a very ugly discovery.' Monckton began to shiver. ' Periodical errors in the balances, and the errors always against me.' Monckton began to perspire. Not knowing what to say, he faltered, and at last stammered out, ' Are you sure, sir ? ' ' Quite sure. I have long seen reason to suspect it, so last night I went through all the books, and now I am sure. Whoever the villain is, I will send him to prison if I can only catch him.' C Monckton winced and turned his head away, debating in his mind whether he should affect indignation and sympathy, and pretend to court inquiry, or should wait till lunch-time, and then empty the cash-box and bolt.

Whilst thus debating, these words fell unexpect edly upon his ear : ' And you must help me.' Then Monckton's eyes turned this way and that, in a manner that is common among thieves, and a sardonic smile curled his pale, thin lip. ' It is my duty,' said the sly rogue demurely. Then, after a pause, ' But how ? ' Then Mr. Bartley glanced at Bolton in the lobby, and not satisfied with speaking under his breath, drew this ill-chosen confidant to the other end of the office : 'Why, suspect everybody, and watch them. Now there's this clerk Bolton ; I know nothing about him ; I was taken by his looks. Have your eye on him.' ' I will, sir,' said Monckton eagerly. He drew a long breath of relief. For all that, he was glad when a voice in the little office announced a visitor. It was a clear, peremptory voice, short, sharp, incisive, and decisive.

The clerk called Bolton heard it in the lobby, and scuttled into the street with a rapidity that contrasted drolly enough with the composure and slowness with which he had been brushing his hair and titivating his nascent whiskers. A tall, stiff, military figure literally marched into the middle of the office, and there stood like a sentinel. Mr. Bartley could hardly believe his senses. ' Colonel Clifford ! ' said he roughly. ' You are surprised to see me here ? ' ' Of course I am. May I ask what brings you ? ' ' That which composes all quarrels and squares all accounts — Death.' Colonel Clifford said this solemnly, and with less asperity. He added, with a glance at Monckton, ' This is a very private matter.' Bartley took the hint, and asked Monckton to retire into the inner office. As soon as he and Colonel Clifford were alone, that warrior, still standing straight as a dart, delivered himself of certain short sentences, each of which seemed to be propelled, or indeed jerked out of him, by some foreign power seated in his breast. ' My sister, your injured wife, is no more.' ' Dead !

This is very sudden. I am very, very sorry. I ' Colonel Clifford looked the word ' Humbug ! and continued to expel short sentences : ' On her death-bed she made me promise to give you my hand. There it is.' c His hand was propelled out, caught flying by Bartley, released, and drawn back again— all by machinery, it seemed. ' She leaves you 2O,OO0Z. in trust for the benefit of her child and yours— Mary Bartley.' ' Poor, dear Eliza ! ' The Colonel looked as less high-bred people do when they say 'Gammon!' but proceeded civilly though brusquely : ' In dealing with the funds you have a large discretion. Should the girl die before you, or unmarried, the money lapses to your nephew, my son, Walter Clifford. He is a scapegrace, and has run away from me; but I must protect his just interests. So, as a mere matter of form, I will ask you whether Mary Bartley is alive.' Bartley bowed his head.

Colonel Clifford had not heard she was ill, so he continued: 'In that case' — and then, inter rupting himself for a moment, turned away to Bartley's private table, and there emptied his pockets of certain documents, one of which he wanted to select. His back was not turned more than half a minute, yet a most expressive pantomime took place in that short interval. The nurse opened a door of communication, and stood with a ruth at the threshold ; indeed, she would have rushed in but for the stranger. She was very pale, and threw up her hands to Bartley. Her face and her gesture were more expressive than words. Then Bartley, clinging by mere desperate instinct to money he could not hope to keep, flew to her, drove her out by a frenzied movement of both hands, though he did not touch her, and spread eagled himself before the door, with his face and dilating eyes turned toward Colonel Clifford.

The Colonel turned and stepped toward him with the document he had selected at the table. Bartley went to meet him. The Colonel gave it to him, and said it was a copy of the will. Bartley took it, and Colonel Clifford expelled his last sentences : ' We have shaken hands. Let us forget our past quarrels, and respect the wishes of the dead.' With that he turned sharply on both heels, and faced the door of the little office before he moved ; then marched out in about seven steps, as he had marched in, and never looked behind him for two hundred miles. The moment he was out of sight, Bartley, with his wife's will in his hand and ice at his heart, went to his child's room. The nurse met him, crying, and said, 'A change' — mild but fatal words that from a nurse's lips end hope. He came to the bedside just in time to see the breath hovering on his child's lips, and then move them as the summer air stirs a leaf.

Soon all was still, and the rich man's child was clay. The unhappy father burst into a passion of grief, short but violent. Then he ordered the nurse to watch there, and let no one enter the room ; then he staggered back to his office, and flung himself down at his table and buried his head. To do him justice, he was all parental grief at first, for his child was his idol. The arms were stretched out across the table ; the head rested on it ; the man was utterly crushed. Whilst he was so, the little office door opened softly, and a pale, worn, haggard face looked in. It was the father of the poor man's child in mortal danger from privation and hereditary consumption. That haggard face was come to ask the favour of employment, and bread for his girl, from the rich man whose child was clay.

Chapter III. The Two Fathers

Hope looked wistfully at that crushed figure, and hesitated; it seemed neither kind nor politic to intrude business upon grief. But if the child was Bartley's idol, money was his god, and soon in his strange mind defeated avarice began to vie with nobler sorrow. His child dead ! his poor little flower withered ! and her death robbed him of 20,000^., and indeed of ten times that sum ; for he had now bought experience in trade and speculation, and had learned to make money out of money, a heap out of a handful. Stung by this vulgar torment in its turn, he started suddenly up, and dashed his wife's will down upon the floor in a fury, and paced the room excitedly. Hope still stood aghast, and hesitated to risk his application. But presently Bartley caught sight of him, and stared at him, but said nothing.

Then the poor fellow saw it was no use waiting for a better opportunity, so he came forward and carried out Bolton's instructions ; he put on a tolerably jaunty air, and said cheerfully, ' I beg your pardon, sir; can I claim your attention for a moment ? ' ' What do you want ? ' asked Bartley, but like a man whose mind was elsewhere. 'Only employment for my talent, sir. I hear you have a vacancy for a manager.' ' Nothing of the sort. 1 am manager.' Hope drew back despondent, and his haggard countenance fell at such prompt repulse. But he summoned courage, and once more acting genial confidence, returned to the attack. ' But you don't know, sir, in how many ways I can be useful to you. A grand and complicated business like yours needs various acquirements in those who have the honour to serve you.

For instance, I saw a small engine at work in your yard ; now, I am a mechanic, and I can double the power of that engine by merely introducing an extra band and a couple of cogs.' ' It will do as it is,' said Bartley languidly, ' and I can do without a manager.' Bartley's manner was not irritated but absorbed. He seemed in all his replies to Hope to be brushing away a fly mechanically and languidly. The poor fly felt sick at heart, and crept away disconsolate. But at the very door he turned, and for his child's sake made another attempt : ' Have you an opening for a clerk ? I can write business letters in French, German, and Dutch, and keep books by double entry.' ' No vacancy for a clerk,' was the weary reply. 'Well, then, a foreman in the yard. I have studied the economy of industry, and will undertake to get you the greatest amount of labour out of the smallest number of men.' ' I have a foreman already,' said Bartley, turning his back on him peevishly for the first time, and pacing the room, absorbed in his own disappointment.

Hope was in despair, and put on his hat to go. But he turned at the window and said, ' You have vans and carts. I understand horses thoroughly. I am a veterinary surgeon, and I can drive four-in hand. I offer myself as carman, or even hostler.' ' I do not want a hostler, and I have a carman.' Bartley, when he had said this, sat down like a man who had finally disposed of the application. Hope went to the very door, and leaned against it. His jaw dropped. He looked ten years older. Then, with a piteous attempt at cheerfulness, he came nearer, and said, 'A messenger, then. I'm young and very active, and never waste my employer's time.' Even this humble proposal was declined, though Hope's cheeks burned with shame as he made it. He groaned aloud, and his head dropped on his breast. His eye fell on the will lying on the ground ; he went and picked it up, and handed it respectfully to Bartley.

Bartley stared, took it, and bowed his head an inch or two in acknowledgment ofthe civility. This gave the poor daunted father courage again. Now that Bartley's face was turned to him by this move ment, he took advantage of it, and said persuasively: 'Give me some kind of employment, sir. You will never repent it.' Then he began to warm with conscious power. ' I've intelligence, practicability, knowledge ; and in this age of science knowledge is wealth. Example : I saw a swell march out of this place that owns all the parish I was born in. I knew him in a moment — Colonel Clifford. Well, that old soldier draws his rents when he can get them, and never looks deeper than the roots of the grass his cattle crop. But / tell you he never takes a walk about his grounds but he marches upon millions — coal ! sir, coal ! and near the surface.

I know the signs. But I am impotent : only fools possess the gold that wise men can coin into miracles. Try me, sir ; honour me with your sympathy. You are a father — you have a sweet little girl, I hear ' — Bartley winced at that — ' well, so have I, and the hole my poverty makes me pig in, is not good for her, sir. She needs the sea air, the scent of flowers, and, bless her little heart, she does enjoy them so! Give them to her, and I will give you zeal, energy, brains, and a million of money.' This, for the first time in the interview, arrested Mr. Bartley's attention : ' I see you are a superior man,' said he, ' but I have no way to utilise your services.' ' You can give me no hope, sir ? ' asked the poor fellow, still lingering. ' None — and I am sorry for it.' This one gracious speech affected poor Hope so that he could not speak for a moment.

Then he fought for manly dignity, and said, with a lamentable mixture of sham sprightliness and real anguish, ' Thank you, sir ; I only trust that you will always find servants as devoted to your interest as my grati tude would have made me. Good-morning, sir.' He clapped his hat on with a sprightly, ghastly air, and marched off resolutely. But ere he reached the door, Nature overpowered the father's heart ; away went Bolton's instructions ; away went fictitious deportment and feigned cheer fulness. The poor wretch uttered a cry, indeed a scream, of anguish, that would have thrilled ten thousand hearts had they heard it ; he dashed his hat on the ground, and rushed toward Bartley, with both hands out — ' For God's sake don't send me AWAY — MY CHILD IS STARVING ! ' Even Bartley was moved. ' Your child ! ' said he with some little feeling.

This slight encourage ment was enough for a father. His love gushed forth : ' A little, golden-haired, blue-eyed angel, who is all the world to me. We have walked here from Liverpool, where I had just buried her mother. God help me ! God help us both ! Many a weary mile, sir, and never sure of supper or bed. The birds of the air have nests, the beasts of the field a shelter, the fox a hole, but my beautiful and fragile girl, only four years old, sir, is houseless and home less. Her mother died of consumption, sir, and I live in mortal fear; for now she is beginning to cough, and I cannot give her proper nourishment. Often on this fatal journey I have felt her shiver, and then I have taken off my coat and wrapped it round her, and her beautiful eyes have looked up in mine, and seemed to plead for the warmth and food I'd sell my soul to give her.' ' Poor fellow ! ' said Bartley ; ' I suppose I ought to pity you.

But how can I ? Man — man — your child is alive, and while there is life there is hope ; but mine is dead — dead ! ' he almost shrieked. ' Dead ! ' said Hope, horrified. ' Dead ! ' cried Bartley. ' Cut off at four years old, the very age of yours. There — go and judge for yourself. You are a father. I can't look upon my blasted hopes, and my withered flower. Go and see my blue-eyed, fair-eyed darling— clay, hastening to the tomb ; and you will trouble me no more with your imaginary griefs.' He flung himself down with his head on his desk. Hope, following the direction of his hand, opened the door of the house and went softly forward till he met the nurse. He told her Mr. Bartley wished him to see the deceased. The nurse hesitated, but looked at him. His sad face inspired confidence, and she ushered him into the chamber of mourning.

There, laid out in state, was a little figure that, seen in the dim light, drew a cry of dismay from Hope. He had left his own girl sleeping, and looking like tinted wax. Here lay a little face the very image of hers, only this was pale wax. Had he looked more closely, the chin was unlike his own girl's, and there were other differences. But the first glance revealed a thrilling resemblance. Hope hurried away from the room, and entered the office pale and disturbed : ' Oh, sir ! the very image of my own. It fills me with forebodings. I pity you, sir, with all my heart. That sad sight recon ciles me to my lot. God help you ! ' and he was going away ; for now he felt an unreasoning terror lest his own child should have turned from coloured wax to pale. Mr. Bartley stopped him. ' Are they so very like ? ' said he. ' Wonderfully like.' And again he was going, but Bartley, who had received him so coldly, seemed now unwilling to part with him. ' Stay,' said he, ' and let me think.' The truth is, a daring idea had just flashed through that brain of his ; and he wanted to think it out.

He walked to and fro in silent agitation, ' and his face was as a book in which you may read strange matter.' At last he made up his mind, but the matter was one he did not dare to approach too bluntly, so he went about a little : 'Stay — you don't know all my misfortunes. I am ambitious — like you. I believe in science and knowledge — like you. And, if my child had lived, you should have been my adviser and my right hand : I want such a man as you.' Hope threw up his hands. ' My usual luck ! ' said he ; ' always a day too late.' Bartley resumed : ' But my child's death robs me of the money to work with, and I can't help you nor help myself.' Hope groaned. Bartley hesitated. But after a moment he said timidly, ' Unless ' and then stopped. ' Unless what ? ' asked Hope eagerly. ' I am not likely to raise objections; my child's life is at stake.' ' Well, then, unless you are really the superior man you see'm to be : a man of ability and — courage.' ' Courage ! ' thought Hope, and began to be puzzled.