The walk on the old pier was pleasant enough in the morning sun. Though
yet but the first month in the year, the days were bright, the blue
skies without a cloud. Mr. and Mrs. Hamlyn had enjoyed the fine weather
at Cheltenham for a week or two; from that pretty place they had now
come to Brighton, reaching it the previous night.
"Oh, it is delightful!" exclaimed Eliza, gazing at the waves. She had
not seen the sea since she crossed it, a little girl, from the West
Indies. Those were not yet the days when all people, gentle and simple,
told one another that an autumn tour was essential to existence. "Look
at the sunbeams sparkling on the ripples and on the white sails of the
little boats! Philip, I should like to spend a month here."
"All right," replied Mr. Hamlyn.
They were staying at the Old Ship, a fashionable hotel then for ladies
as well as gentlemen, and had come out after breakfast; and they had
the pier nearly to themselves at that early hour. A yellow, gouty
gentleman, who looked as if he had quarrelled with his liver in some
clime all fire and cayenne, stood at the end leaning on his stick,
alternately looking at the sea and listlessly watching any advancing
stragglers.
There came a sailor, swaying along, a rope in his hand; following him,
walked demurely three little girls in frocks and trousers, with their
French governess; then came two eye-glassed young men, dandified and
supercilious, who appeared to have more money than brains--and the
jaundiced man went into a gaping fit of lassitude.
Anyone else coming? Yes; a lady and gentleman arm-in-arm: quiet,
well-dressed, good-looking. As the invalid watched their approach, a
puzzled look of doubt and surprise rose to his countenance. Moving
forward a step or two on his gouty legs, he spoke.
"Can it be possible, Hamlyn, that we meet here?"
Even through his dark skin a red flush coursed into Mr. Hamlyn's face.
He was evidently very much surprised in his turn, if not startled.
"Captain Pratt!" he exclaimed.
"Major Pratt now," was the answer, as they shook hands. "That wretched
climate played the deuce with me, and they graciously gave me a step and
allowed me to retire upon it. The very deuce, I assure you, Philip. Beg
pardon, ma'am," he added, seeing the lady look at him.
"My wife, Mrs. Hamlyn," spoke her husband.
Major Pratt contrived to lift his hat, and bow: which feat, what with
his gouty hands and his helpless legs and his great invalid stick, was a
work of time. "I saw your marriage in the _Times_, Hamlyn, and wondered
whether it could be you, or not: I didn't know, you see, that you were
over here. Wish you luck; and you also, ma'am. Hope it will turn out
more fortunate for you, Philip, than----"
"Where are you staying?" broke in Mr. Hamlyn, as if something were
frightening him.
"At some lodgings over yonder, where they fleece me," replied the Major.
"You should see the bill they've brought me in for last week. They've
made me eat four pounds of butter and five joints of meat, besides
poultry and pickles and a fruit pie! Why, I live mostly upon dry toast;
hardly dare touch an ounce of meat in a day. When I had 'em up before
me, the harpies, they laid it upon my servant's appetite--old Saul, you
know. _He_ answered them."
Mrs. Hamlyn laughed. "There are two articles that are very convenient,
as I have heard, to some of the lodging-house keepers: their lodgers'
servant, and their own cat."
"By Jove, ma'am, yes!" said the Major. "But I've given warning to this
lot where I am."
Saying au revoir to Major Pratt, Mr. Hamlyn walked down the pier again
with his wife. "Who is he, Philip?" she asked. "You seem to know him
well."
"Very well. He is a sort of connection of mine, I believe," laughed
Mr. Hamlyn, "and I saw a good deal of him in India a few years back.
He is greatly changed. I hardly think I should have known him had he
not spoken. It's his liver, I suppose."
Leaving his wife at the hotel, Mr. Hamlyn went back again to Major
Pratt, much to the lonely Major's satisfaction, who was still leaning on
his substantial stick as he gazed at the water.
"The sight of you has brought back to my mind all that unhappy business,
Hamlyn," was his salutation. "I shall have a fit of the jaundice now, I
suppose! Here--let's sit down a bit."
"And the sight of you has brought it to mine," said Mr. Hamlyn, as he
complied. "I have been striving to drive it out of my remembrance."
"I know little about it," observed the Major. "She never wrote to me at
all afterwards, and you wrote me but two letters: the one announcing the
fact of her disgrace; the other, the calamity and the deaths."
"That is quite enough to know; don't ask me to go over the details to
you personally," said Mr. Hamlyn in a tone of passionate discomfort. "So
utterly repugnant to me is the remembrance altogether, that I have never
spoken of it--even to my present wife."
"Do you mean you've not told her you were once a married man?" cried
Major Pratt.
"No, I have not."
"Then you've shown a lack of judgment which I wouldn't have given you
credit for, my friend," declared the Major. "A man may whisper to his
girl any untoward news he pleases of his past life, and she'll forgive
and forget; aye, and worship him all the more for it, though it were
the having set fire to a church: but if he keeps it as a bonne bouchée
to drop out after marriage, when she has him fast and tight, she'll
curry-comb his hair for him in style. Believe that."
Mr. Hamlyn laughed.
"There never was a hidden skeleton between man and wife yet but it came
to light sooner or later," went on the Major. "If you are wise, you will
tell her at once, before somebody else does."
"What 'somebody?' Who is there here that knows it?"
"Why, as to 'here,' I know it, and nearly spoke of it before her, as you
must have heard; and my servant knows it. That's nothing, you'll say; we
can be quiet, now I have the cue: but you are always liable to meet with
people who knew you in those days, and who knew _her_. Take my advice,
Philip Hamlyn, and tell your wife. Go and do it now."
"I daresay you are right," said the younger man, awaking out of a
reverie. "Of the two evils it may be the lesser." And with lagging
steps, and eyes that seemed to have weights to them, he set out to walk
back to the Old Ship Hotel.