The Stowaway Girl.

by Louis Tracy.

CHAPTER I

THE "ANDROMEDA"

"Marry Mr. Bulmer! That horrid old man! Uncle, what _are_ you saying?"

The girl sprang to her feet as if she were some timid creature of the wild aroused from sylvan broodings by knowledge of imminent danger. In her terror, she upset the three winegla.s.ses that formed part of the display beside each _couvert_ on the luncheon table. One, rose-tinted and ornate, crashed to the floor, and the noise seemed to irritate the owner of Linden House more than his niece's shrill terror.

"No need to bust up our best set of 'ock gla.s.ses just because I 'appen to mention owd d.i.c.key Bulmer," he growled.

The color startled so suddenly out of the girl's face began to return.

Her eyes lost their dilation of fear. Somehow, the comment on the broken gla.s.s seemed to deprive "owd d.i.c.key Bulmer's" personality of its real menace.

"I'm sorry," she said, and stooped to pick up the fragments scattered over the carpet.

"Leave that alone," came the sharp order. "So long as I've the bra.s.s to pay for 'em, there's plenty more where that kem from, an' in any case, it's the 'ousemaid's job. Leave it alone, I tell you! An' sit down. It's 'igh time you an' me 'ad a straight talk, an' I can't do wi' folk bouncin' about like an injia-rubber ball when I've got things to say to 'em."

He stretched a fat hand toward a mahogany cigar-box, affected to choose a cigar with deliberative crackling, hacked at the selection with a fruit knife, and dropped the severed end into an unused finger-bowl; then he struck a match, and puffed furiously until a rim of white ash tipped the brown. This achieved, he helped himself to the port.

Though he carefully avoided glancing at his companion, he knew quite well that she had drawn a chair to the opposite end of the table, and was looking at him intently; her chin was propped on her clenched hands; the skin on her white forehead was puckered into nervous lines; her lips, pressed close, had lost their Cupid's bow that seemed ever ready to bend into a smile. Meanwhile, the man who had caused these signs of distress gulped down some of the wine, held the gla.s.s up to the light as a tribute to the excellence of its contents, darted his tongue several times in and out between his teeth, smacked his lips, replaced the cigar in his mouth, and leaned back in his chair until it creaked.

Iris Yorke was accustomed to this ritual; she gave it the un.o.bservant tolerance good breeding extends to the commonplace. But to-day, for the first time during the two years that had sped so happily since she came back to Linden House from a Brussels _pension_, she found herself, even in her present trouble, wondering how it was possible that David Verity could be her mother's brother. This coa.r.s.e-mannered hog of a man, brother to the sweet-voiced, tender-hearted gentlewoman whose gracious wraith was left undimmed in the girl's memory by the lapse of years--it would be unbelievable if it were not true! He was so gross, so tubby, so manifestly over-fed, whereas her mother had ever been elegant and _bien soignee_. But he had shown kindness to her in his domineering way. He was not quite so illiterate as his accent and his general air of uncouthness seemed to imply. In his speech, the broad vowels of the Lancashire dialect were grafted on to the clipped staccato of a c.o.c.kney. He would scoff at anyone who told him that knives and forks had precise uses, or that table-napkins were not meant to be tucked under the chin. In England, especially in the provinces, some men of affairs cultivate these minor defects, deeming them tokens of bluff honesty, the hall-marks of the self-made; and David Verity thought, perhaps, that his pretty, well-spoken niece might be trusted to maintain the social level of his household without any special effort on his part.

Shocked, almost, at the disloyalty of her thoughts, Iris tried to close the rift that had opened so unexpectedly.

"It was stupid of me to take you seriously," she said. "You cannot really mean that Mr. Bulmer wishes to marry me?"

Verity screwed up his features into an amiable grin. He pressed the tips of his fingers together until the joints bent backward. When he spoke, the cigar waggled with each syllable.

"I meant it right enough, my la.s.s," he said.

"But, uncle dear----"

"Stop a bit. Listen to me first, an' say your say when I've finished.

Like everybody else, you think I'm a rich man. David Verity, Esquire, ship-owner, of Linden House an' Exchange Buildings--it looks all right, don't it--like one of them furrin apples with rosy peel an' a maggot inside. You're the first I've told about the maggot. Fact is, I'm broke. Ship-ownin' is rotten nowadays, unless you've lots of capital.

I've lost mine. Unless I get help, an' a thumpin' big slice of it, my name figures in the _Gazette_. I want fifty thousand pounds, an' oo's goin' to give it to me? Not the public. They're fed up on shippin'.

They're not so silly as they used to be. I put it to owd d.i.c.key yesterday, an' 'e said you couldn't raise money in Liverpool to-day to build a ferry-boat. But 'e said summat else. If you wed 'im, 'e makes you a partner in the firm of Verity, Bulmer an' Co. See? Wot's wrong with that? I've done everything for you up to date; now it's your turn. Simple, isn't it? P'raps I ought to have explained things differently, but it didn't occur to me you'd hobject to bein' the wife of a millionaire, even if 'e is a doddrin' owd idiot to talk of marryin' agin."

"Oh, uncle!"

With a wail of despair, the girl sank back and covered her face with her hands. Now that she believed the incredible, she could utter no protest. The sacrifice demanded was too great. In that bitter moment she would have welcomed poverty, prayed even for death, as the alternative to marriage with the man to whom she was being sold.

Verity leaned over the table again and finished the gla.s.s of port.

This time there was no lip-smacking, or other aping of the connoisseur.

He was angry, almost alarmed. Resistance, even of this pa.s.sive sort, raised the savage in him. Hitherto, Iris had been ready to obey his slightest whim.

"There's no use cryin' 'Oh, uncle,' an' kicking up a fuss," he snapped viciously. "Where would you 'ave bin, I'd like to know, if it wasn't for me? In the gutter--that's where your precious fool of a father left your mother an' you. You're the best dressed, an' best lookin', an' best eddicated girl i' Bootle to-day--thanks to me. When your mother kem 'ere ten year ago, an' said her lit'rary gent of a 'usband was dead, neither of you 'ad 'ad a square meal for weeks--remember that, will you? It isn't my fault you've got to marry Bulmer. It's just a bit of infernal bad luck--the same for both of us, if it comes to that. An' why shouldn't you 'ave some of the sours after I've given you all the sweets? You'll 'ave money to burn; I'm not axin' you to give up some nice young feller for 'im. If you play your cards well, you can 'ave all the fun you want----"

The girl staggered to her feet. She could endure the man's coa.r.s.eness but not his innuendoes.

"I will do what you ask," she murmured, though there was a pitiful quivering at the corners of her mouth that bespoke an agony beyond the relief of tears. "But please don't say any more, and never again allude to my dear father in that way, or I may--I may forget what I owe you."

She was unconscious of the contempt in her eyes, the scornful ring in her voice, and Verity had the good sense to restrain the wrath that bubbled up in him until the door closed, and he was alone. He grabbed the decanter and refilled his gla.s.s.

"Nice thing!" he growled. "I offer 'er a fortune an' a bald-'eaded owd devil for a 'usband, 'oo ought to die in a year or two an' leave 'er everything; yet she ain't satisfied. D--n 'er eyes, if I'd keep 'er as scullery-maid she'd 'ave different notions."

With the taste of the wine, however, came the consoling reflection that Iris as a scullery-maid might not tickle the fancy of the dotard who had undertaken to provide fifty thousand pounds for the new partnership. And she had promised--that was everything. His lack of diplomacy was obvious even to himself, but he had won where a man of finer temperament might have failed. Now, he must rush the wedding.

d.i.c.key Bulmer's Lancashire canniness might stipulate for cash on delivery as the essence of the marriage contract. Not a penny would the old miser part with until he was sure of the girl.

So David Verity, having much to occupy his mind, lingered over the second gla.s.s of port, for this was a Sunday dinner, served at mid-day.

At last he closed his eyes for his customary nap; but sleep was not to be wooed just then; instead of dozing, he felt exceedingly wide awake.

Indeed, certain disquieting calculations were running through his brain, and he yielded forthwith to their insistence. Taking a small notebook from his pocket, he jotted down an array of figures. He was so absorbed in their a.n.a.lysis that he did not see Iris walk listlessly across the lawn that spread its summer greenery in front of the dining-room windows. And that was an ill thing for David. The sight of the girl at that instant meant a great deal to him.

He did happen to look out, a second too late.

Even then, he might have caught a glimpse of Iris's pink muslin skirt disappearing behind a clump of rhododendrons, were not his shifty eyes screwed up in calculation--or perchance, the G.o.ds blinded him in behalf of one who was named after Juno's bright messenger.

"Yes, that's it," he was thinking. "I must wheedle d.i.c.key into the bank to-morrow. A word from 'im, an' they'll all grovel, d--n 'em!"

The door opened.

"Captain c.o.ke to see you, sir," said a servant.

"Send 'im in; bring 'im in 'ere."

The memorandum book disappeared; Verity's hearty greeting was that of a man who had not a care in the world. His visitor's description was writ large on him by the sea. No one could possibly mistake Captain c.o.ke for any other species of captain than that of master mariner. He was built on the lines of a capstan, short and squat and powerful.

Though the weather was hot, he wore a suit of thick navy-blue serge that would have served his needs within the Arctic Circle. It clung tightly to his rounded contours; there was a purple line on his red brows that marked the exceeding tightness of the bowler hat he was carrying; and the shining protuberances on his black boots showed that they were tight, too. It was manifestly out of the question that he should be able to walk any distance. Though he had driven in a cab to the shipowner's house, he was already breathless with exertion, and he rolled so heavily in his gait that his shoulders. .h.i.t both sides of the doorway while entering the room. Yet he was nimble withal, a man capable of swift and sure movement within a limited area, therein resembling a bull, or a hippopotamus.

The hospitable Verity pushed forward the mahogany box and the decanter.

"Glad to see you, Jimmie, my boy. Sit yourself down. 'Ave a cigar an'

a gla.s.s o' port. I didn't expect you quite so soon, but you're just as welcome now as later."

Captain c.o.ke placed his hat on top of a malacca cane, and balanced both against the back of a chair.

"I'll take a smoke but no wine, thankee, Mr. Verity," said he. "I kem along now' 'coss I want to be aboard afore it's dark. We're moored in an awkward place."

"Poor owd _Andromeeda_! Just 'er usual luck, eh, Jimmie?"

"Well, she ain't wot you might call one of fortune's fav'rits, but she's afloat, an' that's more'n you can say for a good many daisy-cutters I've known."

Verity chuckled.

"Some ships are worth less afloat than ash.o.r.e, an' she's one of 'em,"

he grinned. "You want a match. 'Ere you are!"