The Inn by the Shore. A novel

Front matter

Uniform with "The Inn i;y the Shore," Crown Svo, Art Linen, Gilt Top, price 6/- each. THE INN BY THE SHORE. By Florence Warden, Author of " The House on the Marsh," "Pretty Miss Smith," "A Wilful Ward," "A Perfect Fool," etc. THE POWER OF THE DOG. By Rowland Grey, Author of " In Sunny Switzerland," "By Virtue of His Office," " Lindenblumen," " Chris." BLA CK DIAMONDS. (A uthorised Edition. ) By Maurus Jokai, Author of " Eyes like the Sea," "Dr. Dumany's Wife," "Midst the Wild Carpathians," " In Ijme with the Czarina." Translated into English by Frances A. Gerard, Author of " Some Irish Beauties," etc. JUDY, A JILT. By Mrs. Conney, Author of "A Lady Housebreaker," " Pegg's Perversity," " Gold for Dross 2' " A Line of her Own," etc. LADY JEAN'S SON. By Sarah Tytler, Author of " Lady Jean's Vagaries."

COLOUR SERGEANT No. i COi\IPANY. By Mrs. Leith Adams, Author of " Bonnie Kate," " Louis Dray cott," "The Peyton Romance," " Geoffrey Stirling," etc. London : Jarkold & Sons 10 and ii Warwick Lane E.C. And of all Booksellers. A NOVEL BY Florence Warden author of "Those Westerton Girls!" "A Spoilt Girl," "A Witch of the Hills," "Ralph Ryder of Brent," "The House on the Marsh," etc. etc. sans PEUR. ET SANS REPROCHr. LONDON: JARROLD & SONS IO AND II WARWICK LANE E.C. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED l897 CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. THE "BLUE LION" ... ... ... ... ■*. II. A NIGHT AT THE INN ... ... ... 22 III. WHOSE WAS THE HAND? ... ... ... 32 IV. A DISCOVERY... ... ... ... ... 42 V. NELL SEEKS COMFORT ... ... ... 57 VI. ANOTHER NIGHT ADVENTURE ... ... 68 VII. A CONSPIRATOR BAFFLED ... ... ... 8 1 VIII. THE MAN FROM LONDON ... ... ... 88 IX.

THE MARK ON THE HAND ... ... ... 104 X. JEM STICKELS BECOMES A PERSON OF IMPORTANCE ... ... ... ...113 XI. PROOFS ... ... .-. ... ... 128 XII. A DANGEROUS WITNESS 144 XIII. HOW THE NEWS REACHED SHINGLE END ... 1 54 XIV. THE INQUEST ... ... ... ... 1 69 XV. THE VERDICT ... .,. ... ... l8l CONTENTS. 6 CHAPTER PAGE XVI. hemming's IDEA 1 95 XVII. THE OLD PISTOL ... ... ... ... 204 XVIII. THE WRECK IN THE BAY ... ... ...215 XIX. THE POLICE COME FOR NELL ... ... 229 XX. A CLUE AT LAST ... ... ... ... 252 XXI. AN ESCAPE ... ... ... ... ... 258 XXII. NELL'S CONFESSION 272 XXIII. THE END 2S1

Chapter I. The

"BLUE LION." Prosperity and the sea had deserted Stroan altogether. As the waves receded, leaving a bare stretch of sand where once whole fleets had ridden at anchor, the once flourishing town had dwindled and sunk, in spite of valiant struggles to revive and retain her ancient supremacy. In the length and breadth of the land, no place could be found so sleepy, so much behind the times, so tortuous of street and so moss-grown of stone, as Stroan had become when, by happy chance, the game of golf came down from the north, and established itself as the fashion. Then somebody discovered that the bare and unproductive sands between Stroan and the sea made excellent " links." Visitors began to arrive, and to put up at a brand-new hotel, built expressly for their accommodation, and a little breath of active life began to stir once more in the narrow, winding streets.

Among the visitors, one warm September, came down from London three friends, who tempered their devotion to golf by various other pursuits, each according to his inclination. Otto Conybeare, the eldest of the three, was a journalist, who had aspirations to literature of a less ephemeral sort ; he used his holiday by try ing his hand at both prose and poetry, on which his two companions offered trenchant if not discrimin ating criticism. He was a tall, thin, dark-skinned man, with clean-cut, aquiline features, and was looked upon by the two others as their champion and social leader. Willie Jordan, the youngest of the party, was short, and alas ! fat, with curly light hair and a huge tawny moustache, which he cultivated as the trade mark of his calling, which was that of an artist. Clifford King, the remaining member of the trio, was a barrister, to whom no one had as yet en trusted a brief.

He was a dark-haired, blue-eyed, good-humoured young fellow, whom everybody liked, and in whom all his friends believed with an enthusiasm which was not without excuse ; for Clifford had brains, and was only waiting for the opportunity which comes to all who can wait in the right way. They had been at Stroan five days, and the little god Cupid had already spoilt the harmony of the party. Willie was the victim, of course. It was always Willie who could not resist a pair of handsome eyes — black, blue, or grey ; so that when he became attached to the society of old Colonel Bostal, and would insist upon accompanying that uninteresting old gentleman from the links to his home, three miles away, Clifford and Otto exchanged winks ; and having found out that the Colonel had a daughter, at once believed that they had probed successfully into the mystery of Willie's civility.

So, justly incensed at Willie's duplicity, for that young man had spoken slightingly of Miss Bostal's attractions, Otto and Clifford determined upon tracking the traitor to his lair. This they did on a sunny afternoon, when the straight road over the reclaimed marsh between Stroan and Shingle End was thick in white dust. They knew the Colonel's house from the outside, having passed it on many a walk from Stroan to Courtstairs, the next town. It was about half-a mile beyond the " Blue Lion," a picturesque roadside inn, which was the half-way house between Court stairs and Stroan. Very poor the Colonel was, as he took care to inform everybody, and very poverty-stricken his dwelling looked to the observant eyes of the two young men, as they rang the bell and waited a long time before any one answered it.

Shingle End was a pretty, tumble-down house, which stood at the angle formed by two roads ; it had once been white, but neglect and hard weather had made it a mottled grey ; while cracked and dusty windows, rickety shutters, and untrimmed trees and bushes combined to give the place a dreary and unprosperous appearance. Behind the house was a garden, with a poultry run and a paddock ; and Otto had seen, as they passed, the Colonel reading his paper under an apple-tree, while the flutter of a petticoat in the background among the trees seemed to confirm their suspicions. " We've unearthed the rascal ! " smiled Otto, as they at last heard footsteps in the house, in answer to their second ring. But when the door was opened their hearts sank ; for there stood before them a woman of forty at least, small, lean, dowdy, precise of manner and slow of speech, wearing a pair of gardening gloves and a sun-bonnet, who looked at them in some surprise, and asked them stiffly what they wanted.

Otto, who was acute enough to perceive that this must be the Colonel's daughter, apologized for disturbing her, and said they had brought a letter for their friend Jordan, who they understood was spending the afternoon with Colonel Bostal. They would not have intruded, but that they believed the letter was very important, as it was marked on the envelope, " Please deliver immediately." And the plotter drew from his pocket, with ostentatious care, a missive which he and Clifford had prepared together, and which, with great in genuity, had been made to look as if it had passed through the post. But Miss Bostal glanced at the letter and shook her head. " There is no one with my father," she said, " and I don't know any one of that name ; but if you will come into the drawing-room I will ask him."

" Oh no, not for the world. We could not think of intruding. We must have made a mistake," stammered Otto, while Clifford hurriedly passed out by the little wooden gate into the road. In the meantime, however, Colonel Bostal, having heard the voices, had come through the narrow passage from the garden, to learn the meaning of this unusual sound. The matter was explained to him by his daughter, amidst further apologies from Otto. The Colonel — a withered-looking, grey-faced man of about sixty-five, in a threadbare and patched coat and a battered Panama hat — remembered the name at once. " Jordan — Jordan ; yes, of course I know him," said he at once. "A little fellow, with a long moustache. Yes, he often walks home with me as far as the bridge, but there he always turns back, and excuses himself from coming any further."

Otto looked perplexed at this information, but over Miss Bostal's thin, pinched face there came a little pale smile. " Try the ' Blue Lion,' " said she rather primly. Otto grew stiff. " My friend is no frequenter of taverns," said he. "Try the ' Blue Lion,'" said Miss Bostal again. Her father burst into a dry laugh. " The ' Blue Lion ' has a good many frequenters who are not frequenters of other taverns," said he. " Nell Claris, the niece of the man who keeps it, is a protegee of my daughter's, and the prettiest girl in the place." A light broke over Otto's face, but Miss Bostal looked grave. " I shall have to speak to her very seriously," said she with a little frown. " She encourages half the young men of Stroan to waste their time out here." But the Colonel smiled, and shook his head doubtfully.

" It's of no use speaking to a pretty girl," said he with decision. "You will only get told to mind your own business. And there's no harm in Nell." " I know that," retorted his daughter, not spite fully, but with a spinster's stern solicitude. " I shouldn't be so much interested in her if I didn't know that she's a good little thing. But she's giddy and thoughtless. I shall really have to advise her uncle to send her back to school again." " She won't go," said the Colonel. " And if she would, old Claris wouldn't part with her. We must rely on the effect of your sermons, Theodora." Father and daughter had carried on this dia logue without including the visitor in the conversation ; so that Otto, who prided himself on being an acute observer, had an opportunity of peeping into the rooms on each side of the passage, as the doors were open, without moving from where he stood.

He was much struck by what he saw — by the carpets worn so threadbare that there was no trace of pattern to be seen on them ; by the carefully darned table-covers, the worn-out furniture. All was neatly kept and spotlessly clean — all showed a pinched poverty which there was no attempt to hide. He withdrew with more apologies as soon as the short discussion between father and daughter was ended, and rejoined his friend outside. " Well ? " said Clifford, as Otto turned towards Stroan in silence, " and what kept you so long talking to the severe-looking lady ? " " I wasn't talking, I was listening," answered Otto, " and working out in my mind a romance — a pitiful kind of romance, of the kind that is not showy enough for people to care to hear about." " What ! do you mean to say that Jordan's fallen in love with that mature and lean spinster ?

" asked Clifford in astonishment. "Oh dear, no. He's fallen in love, I've found that out ; but it is with the usual maid of the inn, nobody half so interesting as Miss Bostal." " Interesting ! " " Yes. I have an idea that the lean spinster is a heroine. Not the sort of heroine one troubles oneself about, of course. But while they were talking about a certain ' Nell,' who is evidently the object just now of Jordan's priceless but transient affections, I looked into their rooms, the poor little dining-room, the bare, long drawing-room, and I saw such a history of pinched lives and sordid struggles as made me long for pen and paper." Clifford groaned. "It doesn't take much to make you do that ! " he grumbled. "And I don't think your subject a very interesting one." "Of course you would not. It is not obvious, or commonplace, or highly-coloured enough for you," retorted Otto.

"But to my mind there is some thing infinitely pathetic in the tattered old coat of this dignified and distinguished-looking old man, and in the darns which the daughter must have lost the brightness of her eyes over." " Decidedly, my dear boy, you must do it in poetry, not prose," said Clifford mockingly. Otto would have retorted, but that they had now reached the little bridge over the river Fleet, and were within a few yards of the half-way house. " This is the place where Jordan spends his afternoons," said Otto, leading the way to the little inn. " Let's have him out." The " Blue Lion " was a very unpretending establishment ; old, but without any pretension to historical or archæological interest, small, incon venient, and weather-beaten. Standing as it did midway between sleepy Stroan and democratic Courtstairs, it was the house of call for the carriers, farmers, and cattle-drovers all the year round ; while in the months of July and August its little bar was thronged with the denizens of the Mile End Road, who take their pleasure in brakes, with concertinas and howls and discordant songs.

A few late visitors of this sort were in the little bar when Clifford and Otto entered, but there was no sign of Jordan. Both the young men looked with curiosity at the girl who was serving behind the bar, a portly young woman with a ready tongue, who in her sturdy build and large coarse hands, as well as in the weather-beaten look of her complexion, betrayed that she was accus tomed to fill up her time, when work was slack inside the house, with outdoor labour of the roughest kind. When the two friends came out they looked at each other in disgust. " She isn't even young ! " cried Otto. " Nearer thirty-five than twenty-five, I'll swear!" " And her voice ! And her detestable Kentish accent ! " added Clifford. " And those high cheek bones, and that sort of cut-off nose ! It's a type I loathe — the type of the common shrew."

" I shouldn't have thought it of Jordan ! " murmured Otto in pity tempered with indignation. " But where is the ruffian himself? " asked Clifford, stopping short. " Do you think we're on the wrong scent after all ? " " If it were anybody but Jordan I should say yes," said Otto deliberately. " But his suscepti bility is so colossal that I see no reason to doubt even this." Nevertheless he followed Clifford, when the latter turned back towards the little bridge. " There's a cottage," said the more humane King, " a little cottage by the roadside. Let us see if we can discern a petticoat in the neighbourhood of that. We may be doing the poor chap an injustice after all." But before they reached the cottage the attention of the two young men was arrested by the sound of a girl's voice on the left, just before they came to the bridge.

It was a voice so bright, so sweet, with such a suggestion of bubbling laughter in its tones, that they both stopped short and looked at each other with faces full of remorse. " That's Nell ! " said Otto. " We have done him a cruel wrong," murmured Clifford. And with one accord they bent their steps in the direction of the voice ; and after getting over a wooden paling by the roadside, scattering a colony of fowls on the other side, and making their way over the rough grass beside the river, where the boats were drawn up which carried excursionists to Fleet Castle, they came upon a wooden shed, and a strong smell of pitch, and two human figures. The one was Jordan, coatless, with his straw hat tilted to the back of his head, a tar-brush in one hand and a tin can in the other, engaged in the humble but useful task of covering the cowshed with a new coat of pitch.

But his two friends scarcely glanced at him ; it was the other figure that absorbed all their powers of vision. A slender girl in a print frock, with a white cotton blouse and an enormous straw-hat, — this was the Nell who wasted the time of half the young men of Stroan, and who would have wasted the time of half the young men of London if they had only once seen her. A beauty of pure Saxon type she was, with the opaque white skin which the sun does not scorch or redden, with rose-pink cheeks, a child's pouting mouth, and big blue eyes that made a young man hold his breath. Her hair had turned since childhood from flaxen to a deeper tint, and was now a light bronze colour. There was about her an air of refinement as well as modesty which could not fail to astonish a stranger who found her in these strange circumstances.

She saw the new-comers long before poor Jordan did, and she watched them approach while the unfortunate artist toiled on at his inglorious task. Perhaps the girl had seen the three young men together; perhaps it was only feminine quickness of wits which made her jump to a right conclusion. " I think there are some friends of yours coming this way, Mr. Jordan," she said in a voice as refined as were her appearance and manner. Poor Willie started back, stumbling over the rough ground, and presented a very red, moist face to their view. But they took no notice of him. Stepping genially over the rough mounds, looking beautifully cool, and clean, and smart, and well dressed beside the besmirched and perspiring Willie, they threw back their heads, half-closed their eyes, and proceeded to criticize the work before them with as much care and conscientious ness as if it had been a painting on the walls of the New Gallery.

" I say, old chap, it really is quite the best thing you've ever done ! " began Otto, with kindly admiration. "By Jove, Jordan, I never thought you could paint before ! " added Clifford. " There's a broad touch and, at the same time, a nice feeling for effect which shows an immense advance on your previous i: work. You seem, so to speak, to have put all your strength into it. It does you immense credit, it really does, old chap." " Some meaning in it too ! And that's the point where you always failed before." To the immense disgust of Willie, pretty Nell was evidently much amused by these remarks; and although a feeling of condescending gratitude to her abject admirer made her try to control her enjoyment, Clifford saw in her blue eyes a merri ment none the less keen that she subdued its outward manifestation.

" It's easy to chaff," grumbled Willie hotly. " Perhaps you'd like to try the work yourselves ! " " No, old chap, we should never get that depth of colour," said Otto, calmly surveying the artist's heated, crimson face. " It wants a natural aptitude for that sort of thing," added Clifford. " Well, you can take yourselves off, if you have nothing better to do than to find fault with what you haven't the pluck to do yourselves," said Willie sharply. " We're not finding fault ; we are expressing admiration," said Otto. " And we are quite ready to try our hand our selves," said Clifford, as, with a sudden burst of energy, born of his desire to linger in the neighbourhood of Nell, he threw off his own coat and struggled for possession of the tar-brush. But Willie resisted, and there was danger of their both suffering from the nature of the prize, when the object of so much singular loyalty interposed.

"If you really are so full of energy that you want some vent for it," said she, in a voice which was full of suggestions of demure merriment, " you might help to pull up those boats." And she glanced at two of the small pleasure-craft in the river, both of which had evidently suffered some injury, as their water-logged condition bore witness. Clifford set about the task with enthusiasm, and, not without difficulty, succeeded in bringing the boats up on the slimy bank. It was warm work, and as Otto Conybeare made no offer to assist him, it was a long time before he managed, first by baling the water out of the boats with an old pail, and then by turning them a little on one side and emptying them, to finish his task. When he at last raised his head with a great sigh of satisfaction, he saw in the river below a weatherbeaten old punt, in which sat a young fisherman of the realistic, not the operatic kind, wearing a hard felt hat, a stained jersey, and a huge pair of sea-boots, who regarded him with an air of mingled pity and contempt.

" She always get moogs to do her dirty work, she do ! " he observed, with a jerk of the head in the direction of the fair Nell. "And the better dressed they are the more she likes it. Oh, she's a rare 'un, she be ! " Now it is not in human nature to like to be classed among the "moogs"; and Clifford, who could hardly flush a deeper crimson than he had already done with his exertions, tried to assume an air of philosophic indifference in vain. " I'm afraid you're not chivalrous, my man," said he, thrusting his arms into his coat, and feeling that he would like a plunge into the river. " I don't care to pull the 'eart out of my body and get no thanks for it," rejoined the fisherman. Clifford, in spite of his assumed stoicism, began to feel like a fool. He looked towards the spot where Nell had been standing beside the shed, and saw that she, as well as his two friends, had disappeared.

The fisherman grinned, and stuck the end of an old pipe in his mouth with an air of satisfaction. " I wasn't fashionable enough for her, I wasn't, an' I thank my stars for it ; it's saved my back many a good load." Then Clifford felt satisfied that it was pique at having his own advances rejected which caused the young fisherman to be so contemptuous. So he said without irritation — " I should have thought no man would mind doing a man's work to save a woman's hands." The fisherman puffed away at his dirty little pipe for a few moments in silence. " Them's fine words," said he at last. " An' maybe I'd say the same of some women. But not for a little light-fingered hussy like yon." And he jerked his head viciously in the direction of the "Blue Lion." " Light-fingered ! " exclaimed Clifford, with some indignation.

" Do you know what you mean by that ? " " Sh'd just think I did ! Why, you ask the folks about here what sort o' character the " Blue Lion's " had since young Miss was about. Ask if it's a honest house to stay the night in if you've money on yer ! Just you ask that, an' put two and two together, like what I do, an' like everybody does as knows what the place was afore she came, an' what it is now ! " Clifford shivered under the hot sun of the September afternoon, as he listened to this torrent of accusation, and saw by the passion in the young fisherman's face that he was in earnest. Before he could answer, Nell's sweet voice addressing himself, startled him.

Chapter II

A NIGHT AT THE INN. " I'm so much obliged to you — so very much obliged to you." Clifford looked round, and saw pretty Nell Claris standing beside the two boats, which he had pulled up on the bank by her direction. " I'm afraid it must have given you a great deal of trouble. One of them was nearly full of water, I know." " Why yes, it wasn't too easy to get them up, because the bank slopes, and the earth is so slimy just here. But I'm very glad to have been able to do you the little service." "It wasn't a little service, it was a great one," said Nell, with a look which Clifford felt to be intoxicating. At that moment he heard a sound like a short mocking laugh, and turning, with a sudden flush, towards the river, he saw the fisherman, with a face full of scornful amusement, punting away slowly up-stream towards Fleet Castle.

Clifford, though he felt a little uneasy, was glad the man had gone. " Your friends have gone back to Stroan," said Nell, who had blushed a little, on her side, when she heard the fisherman's contemptuous laugh. " Is that a hint for me to follow their example ? " " Oh no, indeed. My uncle said, when I told him what you were doing for us, that I was to ask you to come in and have a cup of tea with us. If you would condescend to accept the invitation from an innkeeper and his niece ! " Nell smiled a little as she added these words ; and the manner in which she uttered them showed so keen a perception of social distinctions, that Clifford was confirmed in his belief that the girl was ridiculously out of her proper element in this wayside inn. He followed her into a tiny sitting-room at the back of the inn, where they were joined by her uncle, a burly, jovial man with a round, red, honest face, who was evidently very fond of his niece, although every word each uttered seemed to em phasize the strange difference in manners and speech which existed between them.

" Proud to know you, sir," said George Claris, when Clifford held out his hand. " Proud to know anybody my Nell thinks worth knowing. She's mighty particular is Nell. Lor', what wouldn't your friend Mr. Jordan there have given for an invite to tea in here like this ! Eh, Nell ? " Nell blushed, and turned her uncle's attention to his tea ; while Clifford, in some surprise, enjoyed the knowledge that he had cut Jordan out without even a struggle. Nell herself explained this presently, when her uncle had been called away by press of business in the bar, and the two young people were left sitting together, looking through the open glass door into the garden behind the inn. " I'm afraid you will think I didn't treat your friend very well, after setting him to work to pitch that shed for us," she said with a pretty blush in her cheeks, as she looked down at the tablecloth, and thus enabled Clifford to see that her long, curled golden-brown eyelashes were the prettiest he had ever seen.

" I'm afraid he will think so," said Clifford, with affected solemnity. " I think myself that, after such heavy work as that, he did deserve a cup of tea." Nell looked up in some distress, her blue eyes brighter with excitement, and her voice quite tremulous in its earnestness. "Ah, you don't know!" she said quickly. " I'm not ungrateful, but I am in a very difficult position, and I have to be careful how I treat people. Don't you know yourself that a great many men, gentle men too — or they call themselves so — think they have a right to treat a girl who lives at an inn differently from other girls ? Surely you must know that?" Clifford grew red, conscious that the girl had penetrated a weak spot in Willie's social armour. "Well, but " Oh, you needn't say ' but,' " interrupted Nell. " You know it is true.

Now I don't want to say anything against your friend ; he is very nice, and very good-natured, but " " You have to keep him in order ? " said Clifford. "Yes. I treat him as I treat a lot of these young men who come out from Stroan just to idle about the place — as I treated you to begin with." And she gave him a pretty little shy glance and smile, which set Clifford's heart beating faster. " I set them all to work. It does them no harm, and it does my uncle a great deal of good. Since I have been here," and she raised her head triumph antly, " he's been able to do without a man to look after things." Clifford could not help laughing. " Why, you're a Mascotte ; you bring luck wherever you go," said he. "Indeed I like to think that I have brought it to Uncle George," said the girl. " I may tell you — for everybody knows it — that just before I came back to him he was on the verge of bankruptcy.