CHAPTER IX.

THE STORY OF THE WRECK.

Max Van Duren was accepted on probation as a suitor for the hand of Miss Byrne.

Everything now depended on Miriam's ability to carry out the programme laid down for her by her father. The task thus set before her was repugnant to her feelings in many ways, and yet there was a strange sort of fascination in the thought that she alone had power enough over this man to draw from him a secret that he would reveal to no living soul else. But it was requisite that even she should go to work very carefully in the matter. It was requisite that not the slightest suspicion as to her motives should be aroused in Van Duren's naturally suspicious mind. Time and patience were essentially necessary. To have seemed anxious, or in a hurry, would have defeated everything.

Thus it fell out that, nearly every evening when he was in town, Max Van Duren was admitted for an hour to the society of the woman to whose love-spells he had fallen so easy a victim. It could have been no greater surprise to any one than it was to himself to find such toils woven so strongly about him--to find himself, at fifty years of age, and with all his hard worldly experience, as weak as any school boy before the foolish witchery of a pretty face.

Every day his infatuation, for it was nothing less, seemed to grow stronger. While coquetting with him, and leading him on to believe that she really did care a little for him in her heart, she was careful to restrain all lover-like familiarities within the smallest possible limits. She could not prevent his pressing her hand now and then, and she even schooled herself into letting him once and again, and as an immense favour, touch the tips of her fingers with his lips. But that was all. Never once was his arm allowed to insinuate itself round her waist. Never once would she sit alone in the room with him for even five minutes. Her father, infirm and deaf as he was, or appeared to be, was always there--a power to be appealed to should the necessity for such an appeal ever arise.

Van Duren growled a little occasionally at being so persistently forced to keep his distance; but Miriam was as obdurate as a flint.

"I don't believe you have a heart!" he said to her, rather savagely, one night, after she had refused to let him kiss even the tips of her fingers.

"I thought you told me only ten minutes ago that I was the happy possessor of yours," she said, demurely.

"Pshaw! You know well enough what I mean. In any case, you can't be possessed of much feeling."

"I pricked my finger this morning, and it seemed to me that my feelings were very acute indeed. But doubtless you know best."

"I wonder whether you have anything beyond the very vaguest idea of what it is to love."

"Are you not doing your best to teach me? And do you not find me an apt pupil?"

"On the contrary, you are uncommonly dull."

"My natural stupidity, doubtless. But then, you know, some people set up for being teachers who have no right to the name."

"In the present case the teacher's lessons are treated with contempt."

"The teacher expects his pupil to read before she has properly learned to spell; expects, too, to be paid for his services before he has earned his first quarter's salary."

Miriam's tongue had a readiness about it that Van Duren could not match, and in such encounters he was invariably worsted. He liked Miriam all the better in that she was ready of speech and quick of tongue. This bright, clever girl would be his own property before long, and it could not but redound to his credit that his wife should not only have the good looks which go so often without brains, but that she should be keen-witted into the bargain--a woman whom he could introduce to his friends with pride, and with the knowledge that they would envy him his new-found treasure.

Presently Mr. Van Duren's birthday came round, and nothing would satisfy him on this occasion but that he should drive Miriam and her father down to Greenwich, and that they should all dine together at the "Ship." As he wished, so it was agreed.

"It will be a good chance, Miriam dear, for getting out of him what we want to know," said the old man to his daughter when they were alone. "A good dinner, and a glass or two of champagne, will help to loosen his tongue and to keep his suspicions fast asleep. There could not be a better opportunity."

They drove to Greenwich in a close carriage, out of consideration for the delicate state of Mr. Byrne's health. But the old man freshened up wonderfully at the dinner-table, and proposed Mr. Van Duren's health in an eulogistic but somewhat rambling speech, he being evidently of opinion, once or twice, that quite a roomful of guests were listening to him. Miriam at last was obliged to force him gently down into his chair, and tempt him into silence with some grapes. When coffee was brought in he looked vacantly around.

"I feel just a little bit sleepy," he said "and if none of the company objects, I'll have forty winks in that pleasant-looking chair in the corner. But mind, if there's going to be any harmony, I'm your man, and 'Tom Bowling' 's the song that I'll sing."

Three minutes later he was snoring gently, with his bandana thrown over his head, although as yet there were no flies to trouble him.

"Is it too cool to sit out on the balcony?" asked Van Duren.

"I am afraid it is," answered Miriam; "but not perhaps too cold to sit by the open window." She did not want to get out of earshot of her father.

This evening she felt more nervous than she had ever felt before. It was the consciousness of what she was expected to do that affected her thus. She looked a little paler than ordinary, and, by consequence, a little more refined; and as she sat there in her black silk dress, with a little ruffle made of tulle and pink ribbon round her throat, Van Duren vowed to himself that he had never seen her look more thoroughly charming.

"I shall not feel satisfied unless you smoke," she said, as they sat down near the open window. "I have heard you say that you always like to smoke a couple of cigars after dinner."

"But that is a bachelor's vile habit, and one which I am going to learn to give up."

"It will be time enough to give it up when you are no longer a bachelor. Confess, now: did you not smuggle two or three cigars into your pocket before you left home?"

Van Duren laughed. "You must be a witch," he said, as he pulled a cigar-case out of his pocket.

"I am no witch," said Miriam. "I have only found out one of your little weaknesses."

"I wish you could discover my virtues as readily."

"A man's virtues--when he has any--don't require much discovery; he is generally quite ready to proclaim their existence himself. We women know what your sex like. We maintain our empire over you not by flattering you about your virtues, but by studying your weaknesses. But now, smoke."

Miriam struck a fusee, and Van Duren bit the end off a cigar and lighted it. A little table was between them, on which stood a bottle of sparkling hock and two glasses. The evening was closing in, but the sun had not yet set, and the broad bosom of the river lay fair and clear before them, with its steamers, and lighters, and pleasure-boats, and incoming or outgoing ships, passing to and fro unceasingly--a never-ending panorama, abounding with life, colour, and variety.

"I wonder whether you will always be as indulgent to me as you are to-day," said Van Duren, as he exhaled a long curl of fragrant smoke.

"That would depend upon whether you were always as good as you have been to-day."

"I want you, this afternoon," he said, "to tell me where you would like us to spend our honeymoon."

"As we have not yet agreed that there is to be a honeymoon, the question where we shall spend it seems to me slightly premature."

"Let us be like children for once, and make believe. Let us make believe that you and I are going to be married in a month from now, and that I have asked you where you would like to spend the honeymoon."

Miriam did not answer for a few moments, but sat with one finger pressed to her lips, a pretty embodiment of perplexity. "Really, I don't know," she said--"I don't know where I should like to go. So long as I got away to some strange place, I don't think I should care much where it was."

"How would Paris suit you?"

"Yes--yes!" cried Miriam, clapping her hands. "I should like to go to Paris above all places in the world. To see the shops, and the toilettes, and the gay crowds, and--and the hundreds of other attractions: that would suit me exactly."

"Many ladies, at such times, prefer some quiet nook either in the country or at the seaside."

"Yes, prefer to bury themselves alive, in fact. But that would not suit me, however much I might like my husband. In such a case, I am quite certain that by the end of the first week I should begin to think him a great stupid, and I am equally sure that he would already have discovered with what a shallow-pated individual he had mated himself for life. The experiment would be far too dangerous a one for me."

"A very neatly-framed excuse for preferring Paris to Bognor or Bowness," said Van Duren, with a smile.

"How cleverly you unravel my motives! But I think I told you before that I was shallow. Be warned in time!"

"I have never heeded warnings all my life. I have always preferred keeping my own headstrong course."

"In other words, you are obstinate."

"Some of my friends call me pig-headed--but that is sheer malice."

"How beautiful the river looks this afternoon!" said Miriam, a moment or two later. "I never look on an outward-bound ship without feeling a sort of vague longing to be on board her, sailing away into that strange world of which I know so little."

"The chances are that before you had been on board a dozen hours you would wish with all your heart that you were on shore again--especially if there happened to be a capful of wind."

"Oh, I quite believe that. Being a woman, it only stands to reason that I should be both ill and frightened. Men are never either one or the other." Then, in a little while, she added: "Still, nonsense apart, I believe that I should very much like to go a long voyage."

"Unless you chanced to have very pleasant companions, you would soon grow weary of the everlasting monotony of sea and sky: sky and sea."

"I'm not quite so sure on that point. I cannot conceive that either the sky or the sea is ever really monotonous. And yet you, who have travelled so much, ought to know far better than I," she added, a minute later, as if correcting herself. "You have travelled much in the course of your life, Mr. Van Duren, have you not?"

"Not so much, perhaps, as you imagine. Still, I have seen something of the world."

"And yet you never talk to me about your travels! You have never told me a single one of your adventures."

"I am not aware that I have any adventures to tell you about," said Van Duren, with an amused expression. "How can a man meet with adventures in these days of railroads and steamboats?"

"Still, you must have encountered something, or seen something, that would be worth telling about."

"Really, my life has been a most prosaic one."

"Have you never shot a lion or a tiger?"

"Certainly not."

"Perhaps you have hunted a wild boar?"

"I have never even seen such an animal."

"Have you ever quarrelled with a man, and then fought a duel with him?"

"I have quarrelled with many men, but have never fought a duel."

"Have you ever been up in a balloon or down a coal-mine?"

"Neither one nor the other."

"Have you ever been pursued by Red Indians, or by wolves, or had a fight with a bear?"

"I have never been so fortunate. I wish, for your sake, that I had."

"Have you ever been shipwrecked?" Van Duren gave a little start, but did not immediately answer.

He slowly exhaled the smoke, in a long, thin curl, from between his lips before he spoke. "Yes--I have been shipwrecked," he said, at last.

Miriam's merry laugh rang out, and she clapped her hands for glee. "Every man knows some adventure worth telling," she said. "Yours is a shipwreck. I knew that I should find out what it was at last.--And now you will tell me all about it, won't you?" She looked at him with a pretty air of entreaty, and moved her chair a little closer to his.

"There was really nothing about the affair that is worth telling," he said. He was intent, just now, on choosing another cigar out of his case, smelling at and nipping first one and then another. "It was a very trifling piece of business, I assure you."

"Still, it was a shipwreck, and you were in it," urged Miriam. "Of course, if you do not choose to tell me anything about it, I have nothing further to say in the matter."

"You are a little too hasty," said Van Duren, deprecatingly. "If I really thought it would interest you----" and then he stopped.

"I suppose I ought not to feel interested in such trifles--but I do," said Miriam, with a pout. "After all, it is not so many years since I was a child, and I daresay I have not yet got rid of all my childish tastes. I always did love to read and hear about shipwrecks."

"Then you shall hear about mine," said Van Duren, with more heartiness of tone than he had yet used. He was flattered by her evident interest in himself and his fortunes. There could be no possible harm in telling her the story of the shipwreck: it was only that the telling of it would rouse into morbid activity a snake's nest of terrible recollections, that he would fain have let sleep for ever.

The cloud that had begun to lower over Miriam's face vanished in a moment. "That is really very nice of you," she said. And then she struck another fusee and held it while he lighted his cigar. Van Duren did not speak till he had swallowed a couple of glasses of hock, one immediately after the other.

"As I said before, this shipwreck-story of mine is hardly worth telling. It is true that it seemed serious enough to me at the time, but it is associated with no thrilling adventures or hair-breadth escapes. Altogether, it was a very commonplace affair."

"Still, it was a shipwreck, and there never was a shipwreck yet that wasn't worth hearing about. So now begin, please, and remember that you must tell me all the details, and make a nice, long story of it."

Poor old Byrne, with his handkerchief thrown over his head, and his hands crossed comfortably over his stomach, was still in the middle of his forty winks, and happily oblivious of all terrestrial troubles.

"What I am about to tell you happened many years ago," said Van Duren.

"How many?--a dozen? I like people to be precise in their dates."

"Oh, more than a dozen. Nearly two dozen."

"Shall we put it down, then, that it was about twenty years ago?"

"Yes, that is near enough." There was a perceptible shade of annoyance in his tone as he spoke.

"Now, if you are going to be petulant, I won't speak to you again all the evening. If you knew more about young ladies, and their whims and ways, you would feel flattered by the interest I am taking in your narrative."

"I do feel flattered by your interest," said Van Duren. "But I did not know that you would care for such minute details."

"Little things always interest our sex--our lives are made up of petty details. And now, if you will make a fresh start, I will try not to interrupt you again."

"Well, then, about twenty years ago, more or less, I made up my mind that I would leave England for ever and try my fortune in the New World. A legacy had come to me from an unexpected quarter, and it seemed to me that I could invest my money better in America than in England, and that my chances of making a fortune were greater there than here. I went down to Liverpool with the view of selecting a ship in which to sail. Whilst staying at the hotel there, I fell in with a countryman of my own, whom I had known some years previously, and to whom I had once done some small service. He was now in the shipping-trade, and when he found that I was going to America he offered me a free passage in a vessel, of which he was part owner, that was to sail in a few days for Halifax, Nova Scotia. The offer was too good a one to be refused, and on a certain Saturday morning I found myself, and all my belongings, on board the _Albatross_, dropping gently down with the tide. We had hardly got beyond the mouth of the Mersey, when it began to blow heavily, and by midnight we were in the midst of a terrific gale. The _Albatross_ was laden with a general cargo, and I was the only passenger on board. I shall never forget the magnificent sight that met my gaze when I went on deck next morning. Such a scene I never saw before, and I never want to behold again. The wind was still very high, but the sun shone brightly, and the atmosphere was so clear that the Welsh hills, although, in reality, several miles away, appeared quite close at hand. Presently the captain came up, looking very serious. 'I am sorry to tell you that we sprang a leak in the night,' he said, 'and I am afraid we shall have to put back to Liverpool, in order to have it stopped. An hour later he came to me again. The water is gaining on us so fast,' he said, 'that I shall have to make for Marhyddoc Bay, which is the nearest place I know of. I am afraid she would founder before I could get her back to Liverpool.' He then gave orders for the ship's head to be put about, and we made at once for the Welsh coast."

"What a dreadful disappointment for you!" said Miriam. "How annoyed I should have been, had I been in your place."

"My feelings were very bitter ones, I assure you," said Van Duren. "But there was no room for anger: in fact, it was becoming a question whether we should even succeed in saving our lives. Near to the coast as we were, it was doubtful whether the ship would not go down before we could reach it, and the sea was such that it would have been next to impossible for any boat to have lived in it."

"How very dreadful!" exclaimed Miriam, with a shudder.

"Those were moments of intense anxiety for all of us. One of the boats had been stove in during the night; the two remaining ones were got ready for lowering at a moment's notice. The water in the hold kept rising steadily, and at last the men refused to work at the pumps any longer. We laboured slowly on towards the land, but with every minute the ship seemed to become more unmanageable, and to be sinking deeper in the trough of the sea. We had weathered the corner of a promontory, and were within a quarter of a mile of shore, and in somewhat smoother water, when the captain gave the order to lower the boats. The ship's last moment was evidently at hand, and if we did not want to go down with her, we must hurry into the boats as quickly as possible. 'With close packing they will hold us,' said the captain; 'but it's a precious good job that, we haven't far to go.'"

"I was not overburdened with personal luggage, but one article I had that I was particularly desirous of saving. It was a small silver-clamped box, and was full of the most valuable property. In fact, I may tell you that inside that box were my whole worldly possessions. I had brought it up from my cabin and placed it on deck ready to be lowered into the boat. 'You can't take that thing with you,' said the mate, sternly, 'and if you don't look sharp, you'll be left behind yourself.' 'But I must take it,' I said; 'it holds everything I have in the world.' 'Can't help that. I tell you, it can't go. Boys, over with him.' And before I knew what had happened, I found myself dropped over the ship's side into the boat, and the remainder of the crew scrambling after me one by one. The captain and the rest of the crew were in the other boat, and had already cast themselves loose from the ship. 'Two hundred--five hundred pounds,' I cried, 'to any one who will bring that box safely ashore!' 'Hold your tongue, you fool!' cried the mate, 'or else we'll send you to fish for your confounded box at the bottom of the sea;' and with that he pushed away from the sinking ship. I said no more, but sat in dumb despair, hardly caring whether I reached the shore or not. The boat was laden to the water's edge, and I could hardly wonder at the mate's refusal to take my box. 'There she goes!' cried one of the men a few moments later. 'Farewell to the dear old _Albatross!_' cried a second. I lifted up my eyes. Ship and box had disappeared for ever. A quarter of an hour later I landed at Marhyddoc--a ruined man."

"Gracious me! what a dreadful misfortune!" cried Miriam. "So you did not go to America, after all?"

"I did not. It seemed to me that as I had to begin the world afresh, it would be better to do so among friends and acquaintances than among strangers. I did begin it afresh, and the result has proved far more satisfactory than I should have dared to hope."

"Your narrative has interested me very much, Mr. Van Duren," said Miriam. "It will be something for me to think about when I am sitting alone at my work. I shall think of you far oftener than I should have done had you never told me the story of the _Albatross_."

"Then I am indeed repaid," said Van Duren, with fervour. "To live in your thoughts is my highest ambition."

"How papa is sleeping," cried Miriam, suddenly. "He will be awake half the night if I don't rouse him."

The waiter came in with lights, and Miriam shook her father by the shoulder.

He awoke querulous and shivering with cold: so, after a hurried cup of tea, they started at once for home, Van Duren sat for a great part of the way with one of Miriam's hands pressed tightly in his. Miriam's soul shrank within her at his touch, but she was obliged to submit. She consoled herself with the thought that only for a very short time longer would the necessity for submitting to his hateful attentions exist. She had wormed out of him the great secret that he had hidden so carefully for twenty long years. The next question was whether any practical use could be made of the knowledge.

"Did you hear what passed this afternoon?" asked Miriam of her father as soon as they were alone together in their own room.

"Every syllable of it, my dear, and very cleverly you managed it."

"And now that you have got all this information, what step do you intend to take next?"

"The next step I intend to take is to advertise in the second column of the _Times_."