John Squire's Secret. A novel

Front matter

A NOVEL. BY C. J. WILLS, Author of " The Lana of the Lion and the Sun," " The Pit Town Coronet" drv. LONDON: LAWRENCE & BULLEN, 16, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 1893- PRINTED AT THE ATHENÆUM WORKS, REDHILI.. TO MY DEAR WIFE IN MEMORY OF THE PLEASANT FOUR YEARS WE SPENT TOGETHER IN PERSIA. Nov. 1st, 1890. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. — Jack's Family and Parentage 9 II. — Parkyn to the Rescue 21 III. — The Diary Deciphered 35 IV. — How Damon met Pythias 50 V. — Hadji Brittles at home at Luti-puti Lodge 57 VI. — Lady Parkyn's " Small-and-Early " 75 VII. — Violet and her History S6 VIII. — A Blow at Brighton 97 IX. — Young America no X. — Mr. Skinner takes a Ticket 122 XL — The Junior Nesselrode 135 XII. — Aboard Ship 150 XIII.— The Voyage Out 167 XIV. — Eastern Hospitality 176 XV. — More Eastern Hospitality 1S8 XVI.— Rosa at Home 203 XVII. — A Council of War 214 XVIII.— The Start 228 XIX.— At the Toad-Stool Club 241 XX.— My Name is Romeo 253 XXI. — On the Road 266 XXII.— At Dr. Rasper's 279 XXIII.— On Post-Horses 3°° XXIV.— The Search 308 XXV.— The Secret of the Grave 322 XXVI.— They Fall among Thieves 333 XXVII.— A Strange Meeting 346 XXVIII.— Jack's Promotion 354 XXIX.— The Fourth of June 363 XXX.— A Triple Wedding

Chapter I

jack's family and parentage. I suppose we must begin with our hero's birth, family, and education. It's a trifle old-fashioned, I know ; but the great novelists did it, Smollett, Fielding, Thackeray, and Dickens. We shall come to the sensational and the love making in due course ; and, dear reader, I will try and limit myself in the matter of what publishers call " descriptive stuff" — there is a good deal of unconscious truth about this term, I fancy; but "descriptive stuff" fills up a wonderful amount of space, and makes a book thicker and heavier in every sense of the word, in fact it completes the tale of bricks. Jack Cumberbatch, then, was four-and-twenty ; he was the son of Lionel Cumberbatch, second son of Sir Hamo Cumberbatch, Baronet, of the Moat, in the county of Nor folk, and Alicia his wife.

But Jack Cumberbatch was only a clerk in the Post Office, a Government official, mind ; and he drew just one hundred and twenty pounds a year pay. And Jack Cumberbatch was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, or as good. For pretty Alicia Fen wick, a clergyman's daughter and a lady, was the only daughter of a poor curate ; and when Lionel Cumberbatch ran away with her, she was seventeen, and he but twenty one. They were married, fast as the Church can bind ; and for four years the home was a very happy one. The marriage had been secret. By Lionel Cumberbatch's wish, the husband and wife lived under a feigned name, in pretty apartments in Mayfair. And in Mayfair Jack was born, within a year of the marriage ; and within the fourth year his sister Lucia came into the world. After the fourth year, Lionel Cumberbatch had an inter view with his father, the baronet.

" I hear, sir," said the prudent father, " that you have made a fool of yourself with Parson Fenwick's daughter. Is it a fact ? Answer me, sir." Not one word did Lionel Cumberbatch speak ; he hung his head and was silent. I suppose he acted a lie, though he spoke no word. " Now listen to me, Lionel," continued the baronet. " If you dare to marry this girl, I'll disinherit you. It's bad enough to begin as you have begun. You're a rascal, sir ! But if you dare to make an ass of yourself, I'll never forgive you, and I'll alter my will. And, damme, sir, I mean it." Sir Hamo was a man of his word. Now Lionel Cumberbatch was entirely dependent on his father. The eldest son took the entailed estates. Sir Hamo had saved money, and could of course will it as he pleased; and Lionel, if he didn't cross Sir Hamo would come into the old man's accumulations.

He, Lionel, had actually received ten thousand pounds under his mother's will; but ten thousand pounds don't go far in Mayfair, when you are a member of three clubs, have a young and pretty wife, and no idea of economy. Lionel Cumberbatch was now very nearly at the end of his tether ; he had lost money on the Derby and at Ascot, and he had had to pay, which was worse ; he won on the Oaks, but his bets were all made with one man, who didn't pay, which was worse still. If Lionel Cumberbatch had only confessed his marriage to his father, all might have been well. The baronet would have been very angry, he would have sworn a good deal, and then Lionel Cumberbatch would probably have been forgiven. As it was, he acted the lie, he denied his wife ; and Sir Hamo did what most fathers would have done : he put his son out of the way of temptation.

He got him an appointment as unpaid attache at Pekin, where he would be under the watchful eye of Sir John Pelican, K.C.B., who was Sir Hamo Cumberbatch's bosom friend. Now Lionel Cumberbatch saw that he would have to go to Pekin, he saw that he couldn't take his wife Alicia and her babies there. European children die in China like sheep ; so do European ladies, and if they don't die they dry up and grow ugly, which is perhaps worse. Lionel Cumberbatch learnt this, and remember, reader, that he had married Alicia Fenwick for her beaux yeux. If he had only made a clean breast of the whole matter to his wife, if he had only made a clean breast of it ! But he didn't, he simply informed her that he was going to travel ; and he announced to her that he should allow her two hundred a year during his absence, and that she would have to make it do.

Then Alicia Cumberbatch grew angry, and she asked her husband if he meant to desert her and the children. Then she wept. Then she begged him to make their marriage public. This, he told her, would be worse than ruin. Then they quarrelled, and then they parted in bitter anger ; and then Lionel Cumberbatch went to Pekin. Then Mrs. Lorrimer, for they were known in the Mayfair apartments as Mr. and Mrs. Lorrimer, went to live at Tonbridge. And in Tonbridge she took her rightful name of Cumberbatch, and the two hundred a year was paid regularly ; but from Lionel Cumberbatch, her husband, she heard no word, and her pride kept her silent ; and she asked no news of him, for she looked upon herself as a wronged and injured woman, and so she was ; — but she kept the secret of her absent husband all the same.

And she said that she was a widow, which she tvas, in one sense, and she wore widow's weeds at Tonbridge ; and several eligible partis made her offers, but she declined these propositions, and she lived with care on the two hundred a year which was secured to her as an annuity on her own and her children's lives ; and she educated the little Lucia herself, and in due time Jack Cumberbatch went to the Grammar School, and fought his way up with his fists, and became a prime favourite, and captain of the school eleven ; but Jack didn't get a scholarship. And when he was seventeen, Mrs. Cumberbatch moved to London, and she took a little house on Haverstock Hill quite a little bandbox of a place ; and Jack was lucky enough to get a berth in the General Post Office. And at the time we are speaking of he was just four-and-twenty, and he had curling chestnut hair and laughing blue eyes, and a set of teeth that was perfect, and the envy of his acquaint ances; and he was as strong as a horse, and he belonged to a rowing club, and knew how to use his fists.

And withal he was a quiet youth, who spent a good deal of time in reading, and though he was so very young, he was a biblio maniac ; not in the ordinary sense though. He didn't care for Grolier bindings, margins, and vanities of that sort, perhaps because he couldn't afford them ; but he did care very much indeed for the matter ; and he was omnivorous, and devoured fowl, fish, flesh, and didn't turn up his nose at good red herring. Anything strange, curious, or out-of the-way was certain to catch young Jack Cumberbatch of the General Post Office. This seeker after knowledge used to buy books out of the box marked " All at 6d." ; he bought them, read them, and re-sold them for half-price. And Lucia Cumberbatch, his sister, was just of age. She was so pretty, that if I were strong at that sort of thing, reader, you would get pages of delicious description of her brilliant blonde beauty.

I should tell you that she was like the best-looking of Shakespeare's heroines ; I should rave about her complexion ; I should devote an entire paragraph to her blue eyes ; and I should say that her ripe red lips were arched like Cupid's bow ; and I should devote another whole paragraph to her chin and its dimple ; and another to the two dear little dimples that appeared on her peachy cheeks when she laughed ; and I should rave also about the wealth of her silky golden hair, and tell how it curled naturally, and how its quantity troubled Lucia ex ceedingly ; and I should wind up by saying that she was a dear, delightful little Dresden-shepherdess sort of girl, mignonne, piquantc, and all the rest of it and it would be all true ! Lucia was pretty then, intelligent too ; she loved her mother, she idolised her brother, she took an interest in his work and his amusements, and she shared his joys and sorrows.

The two young people read, played, and worked together, and couldn't have loved each other more if they'd been twins of the same sex — which is saying a good deal. Boy and girl both loved their mother, and they were good and dutiful children. Now a Government servant gets away pretty early, and Jack Cumberbatch at 6 p.m. got down from the Hampstead omnibus at the little house on Haverstock Hill, and Lucia, his sister, let him in ; though they did keep a little maid, for they had, as you have seen, a united income of three hundred and twenty pounds a year. As soon as Jack Cumberbatch had kissed his sister in the hall, he hung up his hat and coat — they were a good deal worn, were Jack's hat and coat — and then he whispered mysteriously in his sister's ear, " I've got such a prize, Loo ! Just wait till mother goes to bed, and you shall see it.

Such a prize ! I've been horribly extravagant ! And though I've been longing for it, I don't want the mum to see it yet, Loo," said the spendthrift Jack. "Oh, Jack, dear, isn't it wicked? Another book, I know," said Lucia Cumberbatch with a little pout, which dissolved into a smile, and then the dimples broke out, all three of them. " It's a speculation, dear," said Jack, " a very serious speculation ; but it's a prize, Loo, all the same," and then these two innocent dissemblers entered the little sitting room, and Jack Cumberbatch did more than justice to the humble meal. He had a most unromantic appetite, this young fellow ; but then we must remember that he had dined on a chop, and that he had walked all the way to the General Post Office from Haverstock Hill. After tea Jack Cumberbatch played a rubber of back gammon with his mother ; and when Mrs. Cumberbatch retired to rest, the young fellow produced the brown paper parcel from its hiding-place in the hall, and laid it upon the table with an air of triumph.

" Don't open it, Lucia," he said ; " don't open it, dear, till I've told you all about it. I feel horribly guilty, and I shouldn't have done it, but for the excitement of the thing." His sister looked alarmed. " You frighten me, Jack," she said. " What can it be ? " "Oh, it's only a book, Lucia, for the matter of that," said her brother ; " but I'm not quite sure that I have any business with it " "You don't mean to say you found it, Jack," burst in the girl, " or — or that " and she blushed violently. " I didn't steal it, if that's what you mean," said Jack Cumberbatch with a laugh ; " but I paid thirty shillings for it, Loo, and perhaps I had no right to. I don't mind con fessing that I bought it because it was cheap ; I thought it was a bargain." " Oh, Jack," said his sister, " thirty shillings !

" " 1 don't think that the thirty shillings need worry you, Lucia, it'll fetch that any day. And now I'll tell you the history of the thing. I was reading the catalogue of the books on view at S 's yesterday, here it is. There was one lot that struck me particularly. There you are," and he pointed to a pencil-cross in the catalogue which he had produced from his pocket. " Now just listen to this," said the young fellow, and he read aloud from the catalogue with an air of triumph. "' Lot 193. A curious old manuscript volume bound in painted boards, being the diary of John Squire, Master- Mariner, giving an account of his journeyings in Persia and other Eastern countries. Without date. Supposed to have been written in the early part of the seventeenth century. Many passages in the Persian character are totally unintelligible, there being no key to the cipher used.

Considerably damaged by water.' " I went in, and I had a good look at the book. It pleased, and at the same time puzzled me. Here are, I thought, the actual experiences of one of the early pioneers of civilisation. It's bound to interest me, and if I can only make out the meaning of the unintelligible writing, it may prove a tremendous find after all. I might, perhaps, I thought, burst like a meteor upon the literary horizon, as the discoverer of a second Pepys's Diary ; and the more I looked at it the better I liked it. And then I had a little talk with 'Robert.' Now 'Robert' is one of the porters at S 's, and Robert is an uncommonly clever fellow. Robert can give you the straight tip as to the price that any book under the sun will fetch at the hammer. He's very seldom wrong, is Robert, so I asked him what he thought Lot 193 would go for. ' Ah,' he said with a grin, 'it's a fancy article, you see, sir ; it 'ud cost you a tenner at Quaritch's, and I expect any of the big dealers 'ud give you a pound for it, sir. That's about as near as I can go, I think.

You see, sir, there's nothing particularly interesting in to-morrow's sale, and it'll be a slack day. I expect many of our " regulars " won't attend at all, and to-morrow's a Jews' holiday too, so lots of the little dealers '11 be away ; and if it happens to rain as well, sir, it'll go cheap. It'll be on about two.' I thanked Robert, and rewarded him with sixpence ; and then he made a spiteful and sarcastic remark. He bit the sixpence. ' Thank yer, sir,' he said ; ' I know your face puffickly well, sir. I should like to see something knocked down to you for once, sir.' Robert evidently didn't think much of me and my sixpence. And then I had another good look at Lot 193 — a last look. If I hadn't been due at the Office at two, I could willingly have spent the whole afternoon with the old Master-Mariner.

And then I went back to the Office. You noticed that I was preoccupied last night, Lucia ; the fact was that John Squire had got hold of me. And this afternoon I took my place in Wellington Street among the little crowd around the long table at S 's. There was a very sparse attendance. I was standing behind the great Mr. Van Dorn, and he actually spoke to me. ' I wish you'd take your knees out of my back, young man,' was all he said : but it's something to be spoken to by so great a personage as Van Dorn. I excused myself, and, as I looked over his catalogue P. involuntarily, I saw that he had written mysterious hierogly phics in its margin opposite Lot 193, and then I felt that I hadn't much chance of getting John Squire's Diary ; but I hadn't very much time for reflection. ' What shall we say for Lot 193?' said the auctioneer. 'A most interesting lot this.

Ten pounds? Five pounds? Well, gentlemen, shall we say a guinea?' 'A pound.' said Mr. Van Dorn in a loud voice, and he glared around him upon the assembled throng, and then he took a great pinch of snuff. I nodded three or four times in my inexperience, and I believe the next four bids, of half a crown each, were all mine. Luckily for me, just then Mr. Van Dorn's snuff went the wrong way. ' For thirty shillings,' cried the auctioneer, and the hammer fell. The book was mine ; but Mr. Van Dorn held out his hand for my prize. ' Gentleman in the white hat,' said the auctioneer. I thought Mr. Van Dorn in his anger would have had a fit. 'Name, sir?' said Robert. ' Money,' I replied triumphantly, and stretching out my hand over the head of the eminent literary lion, I handed Robert the thirty shillings, and clapping John Squire's Diary under my arm I fled.

There, that's the history of the book, Lucia : and now you may take a good look at it." Miss Cumberbatch availed herself of the permission, cut the string with her scissors — a woman, however nice, never has the patience to untie a parcel — and carefully removed the brown paper. "Oh, Jack," she said in a disappointed tone, "what an ugly little book ! and why does it smell like a ready-made clothes' shop 3 " And then she opened the book, turned over a few pages, and placed it on the table with a sigh. " You'll never be able to make it out, Jack," she said. " It shan't be for want of trying then, Lucia," replied her brother. " Why who knows, my dear, that John Squire may not have been some mighty pirate, one of those grand old adventurers who flew the Jolly Roger, as they called the black flag in those wicked old days, and perhaps committed unheard-of atrocities, and even accumulated countless trea sures ?

He must have had something to hide, you know, dear. Why it may be as interesting as Captain Singleton, or the adventures of Blackbeard himself." " I wonder, Jack," said Lucia meditatively, "whether the Diary of John Squire is fact or fiction ? " " By Jove, I never thought of it ! " replied her brother. " But I don't suppose that even if it does turn out to be fiction, it will be any the less a prize. You see, Lucia, there's no date to the book, it may be even anterior to Defoe himself ; and Defoe, you know, until now has been authoritatively declared to be the first English novelist who painted men and manners as they were, who called a spade a spade, and didn't deal in the mystic, or the chivalrous, or the obscure ; nor did he affect quaint euphuisms like Greene and Thomas Lodge. You see Bunyan's books, Lucia, were tracts.

Why, this strange-looking little volume" — and the voung fellow in his enthusiasm slapped the painted wooden cover of the little book, making the dust fly out of it — •• may be actually written by a predecessor, or even Defoe himself." " Hardly that, Jack," said his sister ; " for I never heard that the author of Robinson Crusoe could write the Persian B character. That must be a pretty rare accomplishment, even now. You may depend upon it, Jack, that John Squire was no myth." " I'm not quite so sure. Couldn't we both have sworn, when we read Robinson Crusoe for the first time, that he had really lived ? " " Don't let's discuss the matter, Jack," said the girl eagerly. " I'm dying to hear what John Squire has to say for himself. Let's take turn and turn about to read what we can make out of his narrative ; and you may depend upon it, dear, that if it is fiction, unless it's Defoe's fiction, between us we shall find him out."

" You are right, Lucia," said her brother, " we'll put the prisoner to the bar at once. I wish he didn't write such a confoundedly crabbed hand though," said Jack Cumber batch, as he turned the pages over ; " and then his spelling, why it's simply atrocious." " That's what makes it so much more like fact than fiction," said Lucia Cumberbatch with enthusiasm. " Women always rush to conclusions," replied her brother. "And in the end, Jack, they are generally right." "They think so," was the answer. "The catalogue said," he went on, " that the book is considerably damaged by water. Why there are some places, Lucia, where the disgustingly pale ink that the writer used is almost washed out, but it's distinctly legible nevertheless. Now then Lucia dear, attention ! Let us attempt to solve the mystery." And then the young fellow began to read aloud.

Chapter II

parkyn to the rescue. As they sat in the warm and cosy little room, both brother and sister were full of enthusiasm. At first the reading progressed but slowly, the handwriting being not only crabbed but almost archaic, the spelling too was obsolete and strange ; but there was one thing that Jack Cumber batch noted in the language of the Diary, rough, plain, and homely as it was — the greater part of it was almost abso lutely pure Anglo-Saxon. As to style, there was none ; the writer was evidently no reader of books, and the Diary was assuredly originally intended only for its author's own eye. Brother and sister took turn and turn about, but there were many words that baffled them at first, either because they were almost illegible from damp, or on account of their eccentric spelling. " I tell you what it is, Lucia," said Jack Cumberbatch, " it's a regular labour of Hercules.

When we've got to the end of it — if we ever do get to the end of it — Dr. Ginsburg will be a fool to us." " But how are you going to make out the Persian part, Jack ? Why you'll have to learn the language, and that'll take you a year at the very least." " Ah," said the till now sanguine Jack, rather blankly, " I never thought of that ; but I can get a bit translated at all events. There's our old friend Horace Parkyn of the Foreign Office, he's a swell, you know — they are all swells at the Foreign Office — and he's got the Persian language at his fingers' ends ; he's a member of the Asiatic Society, a pundit, and all that sort of thing, you know. But it's all very well, Lucia," said her brother, " we've muddled out two whole pages, all except the Persian of course, and now I come to look back at the beginning, it seems just as awful and difficult to understand it as it did at first.

There's nothing like being systematic, Lucia ; let's divide the work. I will do my best to make out the awful handwriting, and then I will dictate it to you ; in fact you shall be my secretary. When I come to a regular eye-opener, I'll call you in in consultation, as the doctors say ; and then gradually we shall get a fair copy of the whole Diary ; not that we will follow his eccentric spelling, we'll modernise that. We'll leave spaces for the mysterious Persian writing, and then we shall at all events be able to get a good grip of this shadowy John Squire and his adventures." " We shall ' collaborate ' then," said Lucia with a laugh. " Yes," replied her brother, " that sounds more dignified. I know two men at the Post Office who ' collaborate ' — Brown and Tompkins ; they fight like tigers, I hope we shan't do that.

They are the two most dismal men I know, but they write farces and that sort of thing, and adapt from the French. I said to Tompkins the other day, ' You must have frightful rows over the division of the profits, old man ? ' His answer surprised me. ' We shouldn't quarrel over that, my boy, even if we had the chance ; but we haven't had the chance as yet, you see. No, Cumberbatch,' he went on, ' it isn't the profits we fight over, it's the work. Brown's always wanting to " cut " my good things, and there's nothing comic about Brown, as you know, except his stupidity ; but he's a capital fellow to work.' Now the funny part of it is, Lucia, that Brown made a very similar remark about his collaborator. ' There's nothing original about Tompkins,' he said, 'and he has a nasty way of appropriating my jokes ; but he writes a wonderfully clear hand, and he's not a bad fellow is Tompkins.' They are notoriously the two most melancholy men at St. Martin's le-Grand, and yet they write farces.

Tompkins was nearly kicked out, you know, for writing an official memorandum in blank verse ; and when called upon for an explanation, he swore that he couldn't help it, and declared that it was quite unintentional ; in fact, as he put it, that ' he lisped in numbers, and the numbers came.' So Boodler, who's the head of the room, laughed, and passed the matter over. I went to see their last farce, and I roared ; and when I congratulated Tompkins on it, he remarked that it was ' full of fat.' I didn't understand what he meant, but the idea seemed to give him intense pleasure, and he actually smiled." And then Lucia Cumberbatch produced a quire of lined foolscap, and set to work at once to reproduce John Squire's Diary from her brother's dictation. The brother and sister worked till long after midnight ; and they worked with enthusiasm, in the hope that the Diary of the old Master-Mariner might prove a great literary find.

Their labours were brought to a somewhat abrupt termination. A succession of loud knocks was heard upon the floor overhead, and then brother and sister gazed at each other in guilty astonishment. "Jack, dear, that's mother," cried Lucia. " Goodness me, Lucia ! " replied her fellow-criminal, " it's half-past one, and the fire's out. We will read through what we've done, and then we'll turn in at once. It's an awful nuisance, for I was just beginning to get into the swing of the thing, and the old fellow's handwriting is be coming easier to me." Jack opened the door and called up the little staircase — "It's all right, mother, I won't sit up more than a minute or two," he pleaded. "Now then, Lucia, read it slowly aloud, dear, and you may put in the stops according to your own fancy, as you go along ; for our deceased friend was guiltless of punctuation."

"There's one thing that has struck me, Jack," said Lucia meditatively : " we have transcribed, or translated, or muddled out — call it what you will — just one page and a quarter of what was intelligible of the commencement of John Squire's Diary. Now there are just four hundred pages of it, Jack, and at that rate, dear, we've got a year's work before us. And the most interesting part of it all. Jack, being probably what is hidden in the Oriental writing, may possibly remain for ever wholly unintelligible, unless you learn the language, Jack. Jack," said the girl, " I could cry ! " "Never mind crying, Lucia ; read away, there's a dear." Lucia Cumberbatch did as she was bid, and this is what she read aloud to her brother, verbatim et literatim : " J do verily believe that my being chosen by the Company of Bristol Adventurers as the master of this expedition is great good luck, and more than my deserts.

But thank God I have ever had clean hands, as they do well know, otherwise so great a venture would not have fallen to my lot ; and if 1 can but earn' it to a successful issue, without doubt it will be the making of me. Master Pulsford did darkly hint that I should leave no stone unturned to keep the secret, even were a man's life in question ; and as yet doth no man knenv whither 'we do sail. 'For,' said he to me, 'should you babble of your mission, it ivill be at the peril of your own life. So no man must know the thing, or talk of it, and if any man doth get wind of the real business, then must he be silenced.' " Here followed page after page giving the ship's bearings, which Jack passed over ; then several lines in the Oriental character ; and then John Squire continued : " My good ship the John and Mary is well found and pro visioned, but in this great heat our fresh water doth begin to stink, and the very smell of it doth breed disgust ; but none of the men do murmur, save fohn Summers ; who, though he is a right good seaman, is a mutinous rascal ; and J did this day disrate him from his office of boatswain' s-mate ; for he did come to me upon my own quarter-deck with a pot of the villainous ship's water in his hand, and did ask me to set my nose to it, and he did swear that it was not fit for honest sailors to drink.