The Lost Heir Part 7

"JOHN SIMCOE: Any relatives of John Simcoe, who left England about the year 1830 or 1831, and is supposed to have been lost at sea in the Bay of Bengal, in the s.h.i.+p _Nepaul_, in December, 1832, are requested to communicate with J. W. Thompson & Co., Newspaper Agents, Fleet Street, when they will hear of something to their advantage."

Only one reply was received. It was dated "Myrtle Cottage, Stowmarket,"

and was as follows:

"SIR: A friend has shown me the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Ipswich paper, which must, I think, refer to my nephew, who left here twenty years ago. I received a letter from him dated December 2, 1832, from Calcutta, saying that he was about to sail for China in the _Nepaul_. I never heard from him again, but the Rector here kindly made some inquiries for me some months afterwards, and learned that the vessel had never been heard of after sailing, but was believed to have foundered with all hands in a great gale that took place a few days after she sailed. So far as I know I am his only relative. Awaiting a further communication from you,

"I remain, "Your obedient servant, "MARTHA SIMCOE."

Great was the excitement caused by the advertis.e.m.e.nt at Myrtle Cottage.

Miss Simcoe, who with a tiny servant was the sole inmate of the cottage, had called together all her female acquaintances, and consulted them as to what the advertis.e.m.e.nt could mean, and as to the way in which she should answer it.

"Do you think it would be safe to reply at all?" she inquired anxiously.

"You see, my nephew John was a very wild young fellow. I do not mean as to his conduct here; no one could say anything against that. He was a clerk in the bank, you know, and, I believe, was very well thought of; but when his father died, and he came into two thousand pounds, it seemed to turn his head. I know that he never liked the bank; he had always wanted to be either a soldier or a sailor, and directly he got the money he gave up his situation at the bank, and nothing would do but that he must travel. Everyone told him that it was madness; his Aunt Maria--poor soul, you all knew her--and I cried over it, but nothing would move him. A fine-looking fellow he was, as some of you will remember, standing six feet high, and, as everyone said, looking more like a soldier officer than a clerk at a bank.

"We asked him what he would do when his money was gone, but he laughed it off, and said that there were plenty of things for a man to do with a pair of strong arms. He said that he might enter the service of some Indian prince, or marry the daughter of a black king, or discover a diamond mine, and all sorts of nonsense of that sort. He bought such an outfit as you never did see--guns and pistols and all sorts of things; and as for clothes, why, a prince could not have wanted more. s.h.i.+rts by the dozen, my dear; and I should say eight or ten suits of white clothes, which I told him would make him look like a cricketer or a baker. Why, it took three big trunks to hold all his things. But I will say for him that he wrote regular, either to me or to my sister Maria.

Last time he wrote he said that he had been attacked by a tiger, but had got well again and was going to China, though what he wanted to go there for I am sure I don't know. He could not want to buy teacups and saucers; they would only get broken sending home. Well, his death was a great blow to us."

"I don't know whether I should answer the advertis.e.m.e.nt, Miss Simcoe,"

one of her friends said. "There is no saying what it might mean. Perhaps he got into debt in India, and the people think that they might get paid if they can find out his relations here."

The idea came like a douche of cold water upon the little gathering.

"But the advertis.e.m.e.nt says, 'will hear of something to their advantage,' Mrs. Maberley," Miss Simcoe urged timidly.

"Oh, that is nothing, my dear. That may be only a lawyer's trick; they are capable of anything, I have heard."

"But they could not make Miss Simcoe pay," another urged; "it seems to me much more likely that her nephew may have left some of his money in the hands of a banker at Calcutta, and now that it has been so many years unclaimed they are making inquiries to see who is his heir. That seems much more likely."

A murmur of a.s.sent ran round the circle, and after much discussion the answer was drafted, and Miss Simcoe, in a fever of anxiety, awaited the reply.

Two days later a tall, well-dressed man knocked at the door of Myrtle Cottage. It was a loud, authoritative knock, such as none of Miss Simcoe's usual visitors gave.

"It must be about the advertis.e.m.e.nt," she exclaimed.

The little servant had been enjoined to wear her Sunday clothes in case a visitor should come, and after a hasty glance to see if she was tidy, Miss Simcoe sat down in her little parlor, and tried to a.s.sume an appearance of calmness. The front door opened, and a man's voice inquired, "Is Miss Simcoe in?" Then the parlor door opened and the visitor entered, pus.h.i.+ng past the girl, who had been instructed how to announce him in proper form, and exclaiming, "My dear Aunt Martha,"

fairly lifted the astonished old lady from her seat and kissed her.

"Dear me! Dear me!" she gasped, as he put her on her feet again, "can it be that you are my nephew John?"

"Why, don't you know me, aunt? Twenty years of knocking about have changed me sadly, I am afraid, but surely you must remember me."

"Ye--es," she said doubtfully, "yes, I think that I remember you. But, you see, we all thought that you were dead; and I have only got that likeness of you that was cut out in black paper by a man who came round when you were only eighteen, and somehow I have always thought of you as like that."

"Yes, I remember," he laughed. "Well, aunt, I have changed since then, there is no doubt. So you see I was not drowned, after all. I was picked up by a pa.s.sing s.h.i.+p, clinging to a spar, but I lost all my money in the wreck of the _Nepaul_. I s.h.i.+pped before the mast. We traded among the islands for some months, then I had a row with the captain and ran away, and threw in my lot with the natives, and I have been knocking about in the East ever since, and have come back with enough to live on comfortably, and to help you, if you need it."

"Poor Maria died four years ago," she said tearfully. "It would have been a happiness to her indeed, poor creature, if you had come back before."

"I am sorry indeed to hear that," he replied. "Then you are living here all alone, aunt?"

"Yes, except for my little maid. You see, John, Maria and I laid out the money our father left us in life annuities, and as long as we lived together we did very comfortably. Since then, of course, I have had to draw in a little, but I manage very nicely."

"Well, well, aunt, there will be no occasion for you to stint yourself any more. As I said, I have come home with my purse warmly lined, and I shall make you an allowance of fifty pounds a year. You were always very kind to me as a boy, and I can very well afford it, and I dare say it will make all the difference to you."

"My dear John, I could not think of taking such a sum from you."

"Pooh, pooh, aunt! What is the use of money if one cannot use it to make one's friends comfortable? So that is settled, and I won't have anything more said about it."

The old lady wiped her eyes. "It is good of you, John, and it will indeed make all the difference to me. It will almost double my income, and I shan't have to look at every halfpenny before I spend it."

"That is all right, aunt; now let us sit down comfortably to chat about old times. You don't mind my smoking, I hope?"

Miss Simcoe, for almost the first time in her life, told a lie. "Not at all, John; not at all. Now, how was it that you did not come down yourself instead of putting in an advertis.e.m.e.nt, which I should never have seen if my friend Mrs. Maberley had not happened to notice it in the paper which she takes in regularly, and brought it in to show me?"

"Well, I could not bring myself to come down, aunt. Twenty years make great changes, and it would have been horrible to have come down here and found that you had all gone, and that I was friendless in the place where I had been brought up as a boy. I thought that, by my putting it into a local paper, someone who had known me would be sure to see it.

Now let me hear about all the people that I knew."

John Simcoe stayed for three days quietly at the cottage. The news of his return spread rapidly, and soon many of the friends that had known him came to welcome him. His aunt had told her own circle of her nephew's wealth and liberality, and through them the news that John Simcoe had returned home a wealthy man was imparted to all their acquaintances. Some of his old friends declared that they should have known him anywhere; others said frankly that now they knew who he was they saw the likeness, but that if they had met him anywhere else they did not think they should have recognized him.

John Simcoe's memory had been greatly refreshed by his aunt's incessant talk about his early days and doings, and as his visitors were more anxious to hear of his adventures abroad than to talk of the days long past, he had no difficulty whatever in satisfying all as to his ident.i.ty, even had not the question been settled by his liberality to his aunt, from whom no return whatever could possibly be expected. When he left he handed her fifty pounds in gold.

"I may as well give you a year's money at once," he said; "I am a careless man, and might forget to send it quarterly."

"Where can I write to you, John?" she asked.

"I cannot give you an address at present," he said; "I have only been stopping at a hotel until I could find chambers to suit me. Directly I do so I will drop you a line. I shall always be glad to hear of you, and will run down occasionally to see you and have a chat again with some of my old friends."

The return of John Simcoe served Stowmarket as a subject for conversation for some time. He had spent his money generously while there, and had given a dinner at the princ.i.p.al hotel to a score of those with whom he had been most intimate when a boy. Champagne had flowed in unstinted abundance, and it was generally voted that he was a capital fellow, and well deserved the good fortune that had attended him. In the quiet Suffolk town the tales of the adventures that he had gone through created quite a sensation, and when repeated by their fathers set half the boys of the place wild with a desire to imitate his example, and to embark in a life which was at once delightful, and ended in acquiring untold wealth. On leaving he pressed several of them, especially one who had been a fellow-clerk with him at the bank, and was now its manager, to pay him a visit whenever they came to town.

"I expect to be in diggings of my own in a week or two," he said, "and shall make a point of having a spare bed, to put up a friend at any time."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "YOU DON'T REMEMBER ME, GENERAL?"--_Page 65._]

CHAPTER VI.

JOHN SIMCOE.

General Mathieson was on the point of going out for a drive with his niece, who was b.u.t.toning her glove, when a servant entered the drawing room and said that a gentleman wished to speak to him.

"Who is he? Did he give you his name or say what was his business?"

"No, sir. I have not seen him before. He merely asked me to give you his message."

"I suppose I had better see him, Hilda."