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- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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“Only think, mother,” she said, “of great big, stout, jolly old Captain Bream having a secret sorrow!”
“My dear,” said Mrs Dotropy in a reproachful tone, “you are too flippant in your references to stout old people. You should remember that even the stoutest of them may once have been thin. And it is not impossible that Captain Bream may still be suffering from unrequited affection, or—”
Again Ruth burst into silvery laughter, but checked it and apologised.
“I can’t help it mother. It does seem so funny to think of Captain Bream having ever been thin, or with hair on his head, or suffering from disappointed love. I wonder that it does not occur to Kate that the good man is perhaps suffering because of the sorrows of others. It would be much more like his generous and unselfish nature. But now, mother, may I write to Kate and tell her to expect us next week?”
“Yes, I think you may. But why are you in such haste, child?”
“Because I’m burning to clear up that little mystery that I told you of—if indeed it is a mystery, and not a mere fancy.”
Ruth sighed as if her spirit were slightly troubled. “Really, child, you have quite raised my curiosity about that mystery as you call it. Why will you not confide in me?”
“Because I may be all wrong, and when I find out that I’m right—if I find out that I’m right—then you shall know all about it.”
“And there’s that chest, too, that the captain sent here for us to take care of when he left town,” continued Mrs Dotropy, “you make quite a mystery about that too, for I see that you know something about it. If I had not perfect confidence in your heart, child, I should feel quite anxious, for it is the first time in your life that you have concealed anything from me.”
“Thank you, mother, for trusting my heart,” said Ruth, putting an arm round the dignified lady’s neck and kissing her.
“That’s all very well, Ruth, but I do not put so much trust in your head.”
“I’m sorry for that, Mother, but meantime my head says that while it would be wrong in me to keep any secret about myself from you, I have no right to reveal the secrets of others. But about this chest—has the banker sent for it yet?”
“No, not yet but I expect some one from the bank every minute, (she consulted a small jewelled watch), and it is probable that our young friend Mr Dalton himself may come.”
“Mr Dalton!” exclaimed Ruth, with a sudden flush that might have indicated pleasure or annoyance. Mrs Dotropy, however, did not observe the flush, but continued—
“The chest seems miraculously heavy. I told James to put it into the store-room, but he could not lift it, although he is a strong man, and had to get the butler’s assistance.”
At that moment the conversation was interrupted by the door being thrown open, and Mr Dalton was announced.
He was a young man of handsome face and figure, with dark eyes, short curly hair, and a pleasing address.
Apologising for not being more punctual in calling for the chest, he explained that pressing-business had detained him.
“Of course, of course,” said Mrs Dotropy, with the familiarity of an old friend—for such she was to the youth—“you men of business always carry about that cloak of pressing-business to cover your sins and shortcomings with.”
“Nay, you are unjust,” said the young man, “I appeal to Miss Ruth. Did I not say to Captain Bream that I might perhaps have difficulty in getting away at the hour named, as it was a business hour, and, the transaction being of a friendly and private nature—”
“My dear sir,” interrupted Mrs Dotropy, “if it is private, pray do not make it public.”
“Has not Miss Ruth, then, told you—”
He stopped and looked from one lady to the other.
“Miss Ruth,” said that young lady, flushing deeply, “is supposed to know nothing whatever about your transactions with Captain Bream. Shall I go and tell James to carry the box down-stairs, mother?”
Mrs Dotropy gave permission, and Ruth retired. A few minutes later, young Dalton drove away with the captain’s chest of gold.
A week after that the mother and daughter drove away from the same door to the railway station, and in process of time found themselves one pleasant afternoon at Yarmouth, in the little parlour with the window that commanded the gorgeous view of the sea, taking tea with the captain himself and his friends Jessie and Kate Seaward.
A lodging had been secured quite close to their own by the Dotropys.
“Now,” said Ruth to Jessie that evening in private, with flushed cheeks and eager eyes, “I shall be able to carry out my little plot, and see whether I am right, now that I have at last got Captain Bream down to Yarmouth.”
“What little plot?” asked Jessie.
“I may not tell you yet,” said Ruth with a laugh. “I shall let you know all about it soon.”
But Ruth was wrong. There was destined to be a slip ’twixt the cup and her sweet lip just then, for that same evening Captain Bream received a telegram from London, which induced him to leave Yarmouth hastily to see a friend, he said, and keep an old-standing engagement. He promised, however, to be back in two or three days at furthest.
To prevent the reader supposing that there is any deep-laid scheme or profound mystery with which we mean to torment him during the course of our tale, we may as well say at once that the little plot, which Ruth had in view, and which began to grow quite into a romance the longer she pondered it, was neither more nor less than to bring Captain Bream and Mrs David Bright face to face.
Ruth had what we may style a constructive mind. Give her a few rough materials, and straight-way she would build a castle with them. If she had not enough of material, she immediately invented more, and thus continued her castle-building. Being highly imaginative and romantic, her structures were sometimes amazing edifices, at which orthodox architects might have turned up their noses—and with some reason, too, for poor little Ruth’s castles were built frequently on bad foundations, and sometimes even in the air, so that they too often fell in splendid ruins at her feet!
It would not be just however, to say that none of Ruth’s buildings stood firm. Occasionally she built upon a good foundation. Now and then she made a straight shot and hit the mark. For instance, the little edifice of cuffs and comforters to the North Sea trawlers survived, and remains to the present day a monument of usefulness, (which few monuments are), and of well-placed philanthropy. It may not, perhaps, be just to say that Ruth actually laid the foundation—conceived the first idea—of that good work, but she was at all events among the first builders, became an active overseer, and did much of the work with her own hands. Still, as we have said, too many of Ruth’s castles came to the ground, and the poor thing was so well used to the sight of falling material that she had at last begun to be quite expert in detecting the first symptoms of dissolution, and often regarded them with despairing anxiety. It was so with her when Captain Bream was summoned so suddenly away from Yarmouth.
Eagerly, anxiously, had she planned to get him down to that town for the purpose of confronting him with Mrs David Bright—the reason being that, from various things the captain had said to her at different times, and from various remarks that Mrs Bright had made on sundry occasions, she felt convinced that the North Sea fisherman’s wife was none other than Captain Bream’s long-lost sister!
It would be well-nigh impossible, as well as useless, to investigate the process of reasoning and the chain of investigation by which she came to this conclusion, but having once laid the foundation, she began to build on it with her wonted enthusiasm, and with a hopefulness that partial failure could not destroy.
The captain’s departure, just when she hoped to put the copestone on her little edifice was a severe blow, for it compelled her to shut up her hopes and fears in her own breast, and, being of a sympathetic nature, that was difficult. But Ruth was a wise little woman as well as sympathetic. She had sense enough to know that it might be a tremendous disappointment to Captain Bream, if, after having had his hopes raised, it were discovered that Mrs Bright was not his sister. Ruth had therefore made up her mind not to give the slightest hint to him, or to any one else, about her hopes, until the matter could be settled by bringing the two together, when, of course, they would at once recognise each other.
Although damped somewhat by this unlooked-for interruption to her little schemes, she did not allow her efforts to flag.
“I see,” she said one day, on entering the theological library, where Jessie, having laid down a worsted cuff which she had been knitting, was deep in Leslie’s Short and Easy method with the Deists, and Kate, having dropped a worsted comforter, had lost herself in Chalmers’s Astronomical Discourses. “I see you are both busy, so I won’t disturb you. I only looked in to say that I’m going out for an hour or two.”
“We are never too busy, darling,” said Jessie, “to count your visits an interruption. Would you like us to walk with you?”
“N–no. Not just now. The fact is, I am going out on a little private expedition,” said Ruth, pursing her mouth till it resembled a cherry.
“Oh! about that little plot?” asked Jessie, laughing. Ruth nodded and joined in the laugh, but would not commit herself in words.
“Now, don’t work too hard, Kate,” she cried with an arch look as she turned to leave.
“It is harder work than you suppose, Miss Impudence,” said Kate; “what with cuffs and contradictions, comforters and confusion, worsted helmets and worse theology, my brain seems to be getting into what the captain calls a sort of semi-theological lop-scowse that quite unfits me for anything. Go away, you naughty girl, and carry out your dark plots, whatever they are.”
Ruth ran off laughing, and soon found herself at the door of Mrs Bright’s humble dwelling.
Now, Mrs Bright, although very fond of her fair young visitor, had begun, as we have seen, to grow rather puzzled and suspicious as to her frequent inquiries into her past history.
“You told me, I think, that your maiden name was Bream,” said Ruth, after a few remarks about the weather and the prospects of the Short Blue fleet, etcetera.
“Yes, Miss Ruth,” answered Mrs Bright; but the answer was so short and her tone so peculiar that poor scheming little Ruth was quelled at once. She did not even dare to say another word on the subject nearest her heart at the time, and hastily, if not awkwardly, changed the subject to little Billy.
Here indeed she had touched a theme in regard to which Mrs Bright was always ready to respond.
“Ah! he is a good boy, is Billy,” she said, “an uncommonly good boy—though he is not perfect by any means. And he’s a little too fond of fighting. But, after all, it’s not for its own sake he likes it, dear boy! It’s only when there’s a good reason for it that he takes to it. Did I ever tell you about his kicking a boy bigger than himself into the sea off the end of the pier?”
“No, you never told me that.”
“Well, this is how it was. There’s a small girl named Lilly Brass—a sweet little tot of four years old or thereabouts, and Billy’s very fond of her. Lilly has a brother named Tommy, who’s as full of mischief as an egg is full
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