Fenton Ash

A Hidden Enemy

Warsaw 2022

Contents

I. THE TWO FRIENDS

II. WILLIAM GRAINGER'S WARNING

III. THE REV. OWEN METCALF

IV. MR. RALPH HEDLEY, FINANCIER

V. GATHERING TROUBLES

VI. "HELD IN TRUST."

VII. MR. WILBERFORCE'S ADVICE

VIII. SIR COLIN MEEDHAM

IX. PHILIP ASKS VIOLET'S ADVICE

X. VAIN REGRETS

XI. MR. ALEC RIDLER, DETECTIVE

XII. SETTING THE TRAP

XIII. EVELYN TELLS HER TROUBLES

XIV. THE BLOW FALLS

XV. SUSPENSE

XVI. MR. METCALF'S APPEAL

XVII. ADJOURNED

XVIII. LADY EDITH

XIX. PHILIP STANVILLE'S LETTER

XX. "THE PAPERS HAVE BEEN STOLEN."

XXI. DISMAY

XXII. MR. WILBERFORCE'S "DIPLOMACY."

XXIII. FOILED

XXIV. A FRESH START

XXV. "PAGAN LONDON."

XXVI. WHAT MR. GRETTON HAD TO TELL

XXVII. ERNEST ASKS EVELYN A QUESTION

XXVIII. EVIL TIDINGS

XXIX. THE SEARCH FOR PHILIP

XXX. MR. MORRISON IS UPSET

XXXI. HOPES AND FEARS

XXXII. EVELYN MISSING!

XXXIII. HOW MR. METCALF LOST HIS TRAIN

XXXIV. HEDLEY AND HIS PRISONER

XXXV. HEDLEY'S AVOWAL

XXXVI. RETROSPECTIVE

I. THE TWO FRIENDS

“YOUR brother coming back to England, Evelyn! Back again so soon! That is somewhat strange, is it not?”

“So strange, dear Violet, in the greatest trouble and distress about it. I have had no particulars sent to me–merely the plain, bald fact that he is on his way home–will be here in a few days. And coming, as it does, after so many disappointments and–and–failures, it is all the harder to bear. I did think that this time Philip had found something that would–”

“Would give his talents a chance, dear. Yes, I know what you mean. I–all his friends and yours–hoped so, too.”

“All our friends! Alas! where are they to-day? You and your father, and–and–one or two others, are all that are left of the shoals who used to crowd our house in the days when we had money. How terribly far off those times now seem! What a contrast with today! How different, how cruel and hard, the whole world seems when you have no longer money to keep up a position with!”

The speakers were two girls, Violet Metcalf and Evelyn Stanville, two young people who had been friends all their lives, having been playmates as children and afterwards schoolfellows. Trouble, however, heavier than usually falls upon the young, and bringing with it many strange and unexpected changes, had already visited them both though it had come upon them in different ways.

Violet Metcalf, a charming, fair-haired, blue-eyed maiden of scarcely twenty years, vivacious and sweet-tempered, was the only daughter of the Rev. Owen Metcalf, formerly for many years a curate at Somerdale, a village in the West of England, but now a Mission Worker in the East End of London.

At the time this story opens he was living in a shabby house in a narrow, dirty street close to one of the great docks–so close that the strip of “garden” at the back was shut in, at the further end, by the high dock wall.

Violet’s mother had died some two or three years before, and then had followed closely two other misfortunes–Mr Metcalf had lost the post he had held for so long at Somerdale, and almost simultaneously an undertaking in which he had invested his meagre savings had failed. Since then he had felt the pinch of poverty cruelly, and had been unable to provide the money required for the ordination of his son Ernest, pending which the young man was perforce at home with nothing to do save assisting his father–employment which, however added little or nothing to the family income.

Evelyn Stanville, who had just entered her twenty-second year, could also boast of personal charms far above average, though her beauty was of a different style to that of her friend. She was tall, slender, and dark, and in manner somewhat reserved. She had been brought up in the very lap of luxury and had seemed, up to her seventeenth year, to be Fortune’s favourite spoiled child. Then, her mother and father had both died within a short time of each other, leaving her alone in the world save for an elder brother, who succeeded to the family estates. The loss of their parents proved to be but the beginning of troubles that came rushing upon the two like the letting out of water. Somehow–no one seemed exactly to know how–in a surprisingly short time, Philip Stanville managed to run through his fortune. In three short years he lost all his money, his estates, and their old home, Somerdale Hall, that fine ancestral mansion close to Somerdale. Then, after a vain struggle to save something out of the wreck, the brother and sister had found themselves turned adrift in an unsympathetic world–moneyless, homeless, and almost helpless.

Since then Philip’s history had been little else than a record of those dismal failures and disillusions such as too often await the young man used to wealth and luxury when he falls upon evil times. Having had no special training, he could not turn his hand to anything in the way of money making occupation, and “to beg he was ashamed.”

His sister had been compelled to take a position as a governess, and out of her scanty savings she had, from time to time, sent many a sovereign to help her brother. Then someone had obtained for him a post under the Governor of one of our smaller colonies; and it was hopefully thought that he would be provided for, for a time at least. But now he was on his way back again, though he had only been out in the colony a bare three months.

The news had come to Evelyn just as she had received notice to leave her situation–the third she had tried since their troubles began–and it is not much to be wondered at, therefore, that it should have fallen upon her with almost crushing effect. She felt disheartened and despondent, and began to despair both for herself and for her brother.

While she was hesitating as to her next step, she received a letter from her friend Violet, saying she wanted particularly to see her, and inviting her to come and stay with her in London while she was out of a place. This offer she had at once gladly accepted, and sending only a few brief lines of acquiescence, followed the note up in person the following day.

Thus it came about that the two friends, brought up in a sunny Western country on the borders of Wales, in the midst of beautiful scenery, and in such different circumstances and surroundings, were now met together in one of the least attractive corners of the great wilderness of bricks and mortar called London.

It was a winter’s afternoon, and Evelyn, gazing through the window almost shuddered as she noted the squalid, cheerless outlook. On either side were long strings of linen hanging out to dry in the sooty atmosphere; at the ends of the “gardens” were grimy tumble-down outhouses propped precariously against the massive dock wall. Everything around was dirty, sordid, smoke- dried, uninviting.

Yet above the bare-looking frowning wall of the dock there was a glimpse of something which carried the mind far away to very different scenes. The sky was alight with a warm orange glow from the setting sun, and sharply defined against it could be seen the graceful, towering masts and the clear-cut lines of the rigging of some of the great ships that sail to and fro upon the deep waters.

The sight of these, and the hoarse, roaring scream of a “siren,” which told that some mighty leviathan was about to start upon a new voyage, seemed just then curiously in touch with Evelyn Stanville’s thoughts. They reminded her afresh of her brother, who was then on the sea, and might be gazing up at just such masts and listening to just such a signal.

But Violet had become used to all these sights and sounds, and she now took no notice of them. Her thoughts had run into a different groove, and she said suddenly:

“Father meets with queer people sometimes in the course of his rounds, especially in the docks. And, do you know, he generally happens upon something or somebody out of the way when he has lost himself, or got into the wrong train or omnibus. Poor daddy! He will never get used to London! I fear. He is constantly losing his way and finding himself where he has no wish to be. And the funny thing is that when that occurs, it nearly always seems to result in some little adventure–in his meeting with somebody, or seeing something strange and altogether unexpected. It has become quite a saying with us now,” she continued jokingly, “if you want daddy to help you in anything, you should first induce him to get himself lost; something is pretty sure to come of it.”

Evelyn looked at her friend enquiringly, and a little wearily. Her mind was filled with anxious and gloomy thoughts, and this talk, which might have amused her at another time, seemed just then neither amusing nor relevant. But Violet proceeded to explain:

“Thus much by way of preface, Evelyn dear, before I explain what it was I wanted so particularly to see you about. Do you remember the old woman down at Somerdale we used to call Gipsy Jane?”

“Very well, indeed; I have cause to. She seemed to have a particular spite against me and mine, and used to delight in croaking out all sorts of dismal predictions a very bird of evil omen! The worst of it is that most of her evil auguries have come true.”

“Yes, I remember.”

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