I
That oft-quoted French saying, a mauvais-quart-d'heure, is a pregnant
one, and may apply to small as well as to great worries of life: most of
us know it to our cost. But, rely upon it, one of the very worst is that
when a bride or bridegroom has to make a disagreeable confession to the
other, which ought to have been made before going to church.
Philip Hamlyn was finding it so. Standing over the fire, in their
sitting-room at the Old Ship Hotel at Brighton, his elbow on the
mantelpiece, his hand shading his eyes, he looked down at his wife
sitting opposite him, and disclosed his tale: that when he married her
fifteen days ago he had not been a bachelor, but a widower. There was
no especial reason for his not having told her, save that he hated and
abhorred that earlier period of his life and instinctively shunned its
remembrance.
Sent to India by his friends in the West Indies to make his way in
the world, he entered one of the most important mercantile houses in
Calcutta, purchasing a lucrative post in it. Mixing in the best society,
for his introductions were undeniable, he in course of time met with a
young lady named Pratt, who had come out from England to stay with her
elderly cousins, Captain Pratt and his sister. Philip Hamlyn was caught
by her pretty doll's face, and married her. They called her Dolly: and
a doll she was, by nature as well as by name.
"Marry in haste and repent at leisure," is as true a saying as the
French one. Philip Hamlyn found it so. Of all vain, frivolous, heartless
women, Mrs. Dolly Hamlyn turned out to be about the worst. Just a year
or two of uncomfortable bickering, of vain endeavours on his part, now
coaxing, now reproaching, to make her what she was not and never would
be--a reasonable woman, a sensible wife--and Dolly Hamlyn fled. She
decamped with a hair-brained lieutenant, the two taking sailing-ship
for England, and she carrying with her her little one-year-old boy.
I'll leave you to guess what Philip Hamlyn's sensations were. A calamity
such as that does not often fall upon man. While he was taking steps
to put his wife legally away for ever and to get back his child, and
Captain Pratt was aiding and abetting (and swearing frightfully at the
delinquent over the process), news reached them that Heaven's vengeance
had been more speedy than theirs. The ship, driven out of her way by
contrary winds and other disasters, went down off the coast of Spain,
and all the passengers on board perished. This was what Philip Hamlyn
had to confess now: and it was more than silly of him not to have done
it before.
He touched but lightly upon it now. His tones were low, his words when
he began somewhat confused: nevertheless his wife, gazing up at him with
her large dark eyes, gathered an inkling of his meaning.
"Don't tell it me!" she passionately interrupted. "Do not tell me that
I am only your second wife."
He went over to her, praying her to be calm, speaking of the bitter
feeling of shame which had ever since clung to him.
"Did you divorce her?"
"No, no; you do not understand me, Eliza. She died before anything could
be done; the ship was wrecked."
"Were there any children?" she asked in a hard whisper.
"One; a baby of a year old. He was drowned with his mother."
Mrs. Hamlyn folded her hands one over the other, and leaned back in her
chair. "Why did you deceive me?"
"My will was good to deceive you for ever," he confessed with emotion.
"I hate that past episode in my life; hate to think of it: I wish I
could blot it out of remembrance. But for Pratt I should not have told
you now."
"Oh, he said you ought to tell me?"
"He did: and blamed me for not having told you already."
"Have you any more secrets of the past that you are keeping from me?"
"None. Not one. You may take my honour upon it, Eliza. And now let
us----"
She had started forward in her chair; a red flush darkening her pale
cheeks. "Philip! Philip! am I legally married? Did you describe yourself
as a _bachelor_ in the license?"
"No, as a widower. I got the license in London, you know."
"And no one read it?"
"No one save he who married us: Robert Grame, and I don't suppose he
noticed it."
Robert Grame! The flush on Eliza's cheeks grew deeper.
"Did you _love_ her?"
"I suppose I thought so when I married her. It did not take long to
disenchant me," he added with a harsh laugh.
"What was her Christian name?"
"Dolly. Dora, I believe, by register. My dear wife, I have told you all.
In compassion to me let us drop the subject, now and for ever."
Was Eliza Hamlyn--sitting there with pale, compressed lips, sullen eyes,
and hands interlocked in pain--already beginning to reap the fruit she
had sown as Eliza Monk by her rebellious marriage? Perhaps so. But not
as she would have to reap it later on.
Mr. and Mrs. Hamlyn spent nearly all that year in travelling. In
September they came to Peacock's Range, taking it furnished for a term
of old Mr. and Mrs. Peveril, who had not yet come back to it. It stood
midway, as may be remembered, between Church Leet and Church Dykely, so
that Eliza was close to her old home. Late in October a little boy was
born: it would be hard to say which was the prouder of him, Philip
Hamlyn or his wife.
"What would you like his name to be?" Philip asked her one day.
"I should like it to be Walter," said Mrs. Hamlyn.
"_Walter!_"
"Yes. I like the name to begin with, but I once had a dear little
brother named Walter, just a year younger than I. He died before we came
home to England. Have you any objection to the name?"
"Oh, no, no objection," he slowly said. "I was only thinking whether you
would have any. It was the name given to my first child."
"That can make no possible difference--it was not my child," was her
haughty answer. So the baby was named Walter James; the latter name
also chosen by Eliza, because it had been old Mr. Monk's.
In the following spring Mr. Hamlyn had to go to the West Indies. Eliza
remained at home; and during this time she became reconciled to her
father.
Hubert brought it about. For Hubert lived yet. But he was a mere shadow
and had to take entirely to the house, and soon to his room. Eliza came
to see him, again and again; and finally over Hubert's sofa peace was
made--for Captain Monk loved her still, just as he had loved Katherine,
for all her rebellion.
Hubert lingered on to the summer. And then, on a calm evening, when one
of the glorious sunsets that he had so loved to look upon was illumining
the western sky, opening up to his dying view, as he had once said, the
very portals of Heaven, he passed peacefully away to his rest.