Some time rolled on, calling for no particular record. Mr. Hamlyn's West
Indian property, which was large and lucrative, had been giving him
trouble of late; at least, those who had the care of it gave it, and he
was obliged to go over occasionally to see after it in person. Between
times he stayed with his wife at Peacock's Range; or else she joined him
in London. Their town residence was in Bryanston Square; a pretty house,
but not large.
It had been an unfavourable autumn; cold and wet. Snow had fallen in
November, and the weather continued persistently dull and dreary. One
gloomy afternoon towards the close of the year, Mrs. Hamlyn, shivering
over her drawing-room fire, rang impatiently for more coal to be piled
upon it.
"Has Master Walter come in yet?" she asked of the footman.
"No, ma'am. I saw him just now playing in front there."
She went to the window. Yes, running about the paths of the Square
garden was the child, attended by his nurse. He was a sturdy little
fellow. His mother, wishing to make him hardy, sent him out in all
weathers, and the boy throve upon it. He was three years old now, but
looked older; and he was as clever and precocious as some children are
at five or six. Her heart thrilled with a strange joy only at the sight
of him: he was her chief happiness in life, her idol. Whether he would
succeed to Leet Hall she knew not; since that one occasion, Captain Monk
had said no more upon the subject, for or against it.
Why need she have longed for it so fervently? to the setting at naught
the express wishes of her deceased uncle and to the detriment of Harry
Carradyne? It was simply covetousness. As his father's eldest son (there
were no younger ones yet) the boy would inherit a fine property, a large
income; but his doting mother must give him Leet Hall as well.
Her whole heart went out to the child as she watched him playing there.
A few snowflakes were beginning to fall, and twilight would soon be
drawing on, but she would not call him in. Standing thus at the window,
it gradually grew upon her to notice that something was standing back
against the opposite rails, looking fixedly at the houses. A young, fair
woman apparently, with a profusion of light hair; she was draped in a
close dark cloak which served to conceal her figure, just as the thick
veil she wore concealed her face.
"I believe it is _this_ house she is gazing at so attentively--and at
_me_," thought Mrs. Hamlyn. "What can she possibly want?"
The woman did not move away and Mrs. Hamlyn did not move; they remained
staring at one another. Presently Walter burst into the room, laughing
in glee at having distanced his nurse. His mother turned, caught him
in her arms and kissed him passionately. Wilful though he was by
disposition, and showing it at times, he was a lovable, generous child,
and very pretty: great brown eyes and auburn curls. His life was all
sunshine, like a butterfly's on a summer's day; his path as yet one of
roses without their thorns.
"Mamma, I've got a picture-book; come and look at it," cried the eager
little voice, as he dragged his mother to the hearthrug and opened the
picture-book in the light of the blaze. "Penelope bought it for me."
She sat down on a footstool, the book on her lap and one arm round him,
her treasure. Penelope waited to take off his hat and pelisse, and was
told to come for him in five minutes.
"It's not my tea-time yet," cried he defiantly.
"Indeed, then, Master Walter, it is long past it," said the nurse. "I
couldn't get him in before, ma'am," she added to her mistress. "Every
minute I kept expecting you'd be sending one of the servants after us."
"In five minutes," repeated Mrs. Hamlyn. "And what's _this_ picture
about, Walter? Is it a little girl with a doll?"
"Oh, dat bootiful," said the eager little lad, who was not yet as
advanced in speech as he was in ideas. "It says she----dere's papa!"
In came Philip Hamlyn, tall, handsome, genial. Walter ran to him and was
caught in his arms. He and his wife were just a pair for adoring the
child.
But nurse, inexorable, appeared again at the five minutes' end, and
Master Walter was carried off.
"You came home in a cab, Philip, did you not? I thought I heard one
stop."
"Yes; it is a miserable evening. Raining fast now."
"Raining!" she repeated, rather wondering to hear it was not snowing.
She went to the window to look out, and the first object her eyes caught
sight of was the woman; leaning in the old place against the railings,
in the growing twilight.
"I'm not sorry to see the rain; we shall have it warmer now," remarked
Mr. Hamlyn, who had drawn a chair to the fire. "In fact, it's much
warmer already than it was this morning."
"Philip, step here a minute."
His wife's tone had dropped to a half-whisper, sounding rather
mysterious, and he went at once.
"Just look, Philip--opposite. Do you see a woman standing there?"
"A woman--where?" cried he, looking of course in every direction but
the right one.
"Just facing us. She has her back against the railings."
"Oh, ay, I see now; a lady in a cloak. She must be waiting for some
one."
"Why do you call her a lady?"
"She looks like one--as far as I can see in the gloom. Does she not?
Her hair does, any way."
"She has been there I cannot tell you how long, Philip; half-an-hour,
I'm sure; and it seems to me that she is _watching_ this house. A lady
would hardly do that."
"This house? Oh, then, Eliza, perhaps she's watching for one of the
servants. She might come in, poor thing, instead of standing there in
the rain."
"Poor thing, indeed!--what business has any woman to watch a house in
this marked manner?" retorted Eliza. "The neighbourhood will be taking
her for a female detective."
"Nonsense!"
"She has given me a creepy feeling; I can tell you that, Philip."
"But why?" he exclaimed.
"I can't tell you why; I don't know why; it is so. Do not laugh at me
for confessing it."
Philip Hamlyn did laugh; heartily. "Creepy feelings" and his
imperiously strong-minded wife could have but little affinity with one
another.
"We'll have the curtains drawn, and the lights, and shut her out," said
he cheerily. "Come and sit down, Eliza; I want to show you a letter I've
had to-day."
But the woman waiting outside there seemed to possess for Eliza Hamlyn
somewhat of the fascination of the basilisk; for she never stirred from
the window until the curtains were drawn.
"It is from Peveril," said Mr. Hamlyn, producing the letter he had
spoken of from his pocket. "The lease he took of Peacock's Range is not
yet out, but he can resign it now if he pleases, and he would be glad to
do so. He and his wife would rather remain abroad, it seems, than return
home."
"Yes. Well?"
"Well, he writes to me to ask whether he can resign it; or whether I
must hold him to the promise he made me--that I should rent the house
to the end of the term. I mean the end of the lease; the term he holds
it for."
"Why does he want to resign it? Why can't things go on as at present?"
"I gather from an allusion he makes, though he does not explicitly state
it, that Mr. Carradyne wishes to have the place in his own hands. What
am I to say to Peveril, Eliza?"
"Say! Why, that you must hold him to his promise; that we cannot give
up the house yet. A pretty thing if I had no place to go down to at
will in my own county!"
"So far as I am concerned, Eliza, I would prefer to stay away from the
county--if your father is to continue to treat me in the way he does.
Remember what it was in the summer. I think we are very well here."
"Now, Philip, I have _said_. I do not intend to release our hold on
Peacock's Range. My father will be reconciled to you in time as he is
to me."
"I wonder what Harry Carradyne can want it for?" mused Philip Hamlyn,
bowing to the imperative decision of his better half.
"To live in it, I should say. He would like to show his resentment to
papa by turning his back on Leet Hall. It can't be for anything else."
"What cause for resentment has he? He sent for him home and made him his
heir."
"_That_ is the cause. Papa has come to his senses and changed his mind.
It is our darling little Walter who is to be the heir of Leet Hall,
Philip--and papa has so informed Harry Carradyne."
Philip Hamlyn gazed at his wife in doubt. He had never heard a word of
this; instinct had kept her silent.
"I hope not," he emphatically said, breaking the silence.
"_You hope not?_"
"Walter shall never inherit Leet Hall with my consent, Eliza. Harry
Carradyne is the right and proper heir, and no child of mine, as I hope,
must or shall displace him."
Mrs. Hamlyn treated her husband to one of her worst looks, telling of
contempt as well as of power; but she did not speak.
"Listen, Eliza. I cannot bear injustice, and I do not believe it ever
prospers in the long run. Were your father to bequeath--my dear, I beg
of you to listen to me!--to bequeath his estates to little Walter, to
the exclusion of the true heir, rely upon it the bequest would _never
bring him good_. In some way or other it would not serve him. Money
diverted by injustice from its natural and just channel does not carry
a blessing with it. I have noted this over and over again in going
through life."
"Anything more?" she contemptuously asked.
"And Walter will not need it," he continued persuasively, passing her
question as unheard. "As my son, he will be amply provided for."
A very commonplace interruption occurred, and the subject was dropped.
Nothing more than a servant bringing in a letter for his master, just
come by hand.
"Why, it is from old Richard Pratt!" exclaimed Mr. Hamlyn, as he turned
to the light.
"I thought Major Pratt never wrote letters," she remarked. "I once heard
you say he must have forgotten how to write."
He did not answer. He was reading the note, which appeared to be a short
one. She watched him. After reading it through he began it again, a
puzzled look upon his face. Then she saw it flush all over, and he
crushed the note into his pocket.
"What is it about, Philip?"
"Pratt wants a prescription for gout that I told him of. I'm sure I
don't know whether I can find it."
He had answered in a dreamy tone with thoughts preoccupied, and quitted
the room hastily, as if in search of it.
Eliza wondered why he should flush up at being asked for a prescription,
and why he should have suddenly lost himself in a reverie. But she had
not much curiosity as to anything that concerned old Major Pratt--who
was at present staying in lodgings in London.
Downstairs went Mr. Hamlyn to the little room he called his library,
seated himself at the table under the lamp, and opened the note again.
It ran as follows:--
"DEAR PHILIP HAMLYN,--The other day, when calling here, you spoke
of some infallible prescription to cure gout that had been given
you. I've symptoms of it flying about me--and be hanged to it!
Bring it to me yourself to-morrow; I want to see you. _I suppose
there was no mistake in the report that that ship did go
down?_--and that none of the passengers were saved from it?
"Truly yours,
"RICHARD PRATT."
"What can he possibly mean?" muttered Philip Hamlyn.
But there was no one to answer the question, and he sat buried in
thought, trying to answer it himself. Starting up from the useless task,
he looked in his desk, found the infallible prescription, and then
snatched his watch from his pocket.
"Too late," he decided impatiently; "Pratt would be gone to bed. He goes
at all kinds of unearthly hours when out of sorts." So he went upstairs
to his wife again, the prescription displayed in his hand.
Morning came, bringing the daily routine of duties in its train. Mrs.
Hamlyn had made an engagement to go with some friends to Blackheath, to
take luncheon with a lady living there. It was damp and raw in the early
portion of the day, but promised to be clear later on.
"And then my little darling can go out to play again," she said, hugging
the child to her. "In the afternoon, nurse; it will be drier then; it is
really too damp this morning."
Parting from him with fifty kisses, she went down to her comfortable and
handsome carriage, her husband placing her in.
"I wish you were coming with me, Philip! But, you see, it is only ladies
to-day. Six of us."
Philip Hamlyn laughed. "I don't wish it at all," he answered; "they
would be fighting for me. Besides, I must take old Pratt his
prescription. Only picture his storm of anger if I did not."
Mrs. Hamlyn was not back until just before dinner: her husband, she
heard, had been out all day, and was not yet in. Waiting for him in the
drawing-room listlessly enough, she walked to the window to look out.
And there she saw with a sort of shock the same woman standing in the
same place as the previous evening. Not once all day long had she
thought of her.
"This is a strange thing!" she exclaimed. "I am _sure_ it is this house
that she is watching."
On the impulse of the moment she rang the bell and called the man who
answered it to the window. He was a faithful, attached servant, had
lived with them ever since they were married, and previously to that in
Mr. Hamlyn's family in the West Indies.
"Japhet," said his mistress, "do you see that woman opposite? Do you
know why she stands there?"
Japhet's answer told nothing. They had all seen her downstairs,
yesterday evening as well as this, and wondered what she could be
watching the house for.
"She is not waiting for any of the servants, then; not an acquaintance
of theirs?"
"No, ma'am, that I'm sure she's not. She is a stranger to us all."
"Then, Japhet, I think you shall go over and question her," spoke his
mistress impulsively. "Ask her who she is and what she wants. And tell
her that a gentleman's house cannot be watched with impunity in this
country--and she will do well to move away before the police are called
to her."
Japhet looked at his mistress and hesitated; he was an elderly man and
cautious. "I beg your pardon, madam," he began, "for venturing to say as
much, but I think it might be best to let her alone. She'll grow tired
of stopping there. And if her motive is to attract pity, and get alms
sent out, why the fact of speaking to her might make her bold enough to
ask for them. If she comes there to-morrow again, it might be best for
the master to take it up himself."
For once in her life Mrs. Hamlyn condescended to listen to the opinion
of an inferior, and Japhet was dismissed without orders. Close upon
that, a cab came rattling down the square, and stopped at the door. Her
husband leaped out of it, tossed the driver his fare--he always paid
liberally--and let himself in with his latch-key. To Mrs. Hamlyn's
astonishment she had seen the woman dart from her standing-place to the
middle of the road, evidently to look at or to accost Mr. Hamlyn. But
his movements were too quick: he was within in a moment and had closed
the outer door. She then walked rapidly away, and disappeared.
Eliza Hamlyn stood there lost in thought. The nurse came in to take the
child; Mr. Hamlyn had gone to his room to dress for dinner.
"Have you seen the woman who has been standing out there yesterday
evening and this, Penelope?" she asked of the nurse, speaking upon
impulse.
"Oh, yes, ma'am. She has been there all the blessed afternoon. She came
into the garden to talk to us."
"Came into the garden to talk to you?" repeated Mrs. Hamlyn. "What did
she talk about?"
"Chiefly about Master Walter, ma'am. She seemed to be much taken with
him; clasped him in her arms and kissed him, and said how old was he,
and was he difficult to manage, and that he had his father's beautiful
brown eyes----"
Penelope stopped abruptly. Mistaking the hard stare her mistress was
unconsciously giving her for one of displeasure, she hastened to excuse
herself. The fact was, Mrs. Hamlyn's imagination was beginning to run
riot.
"I couldn't help her speaking to me, ma'am, or her kissing the child;
she took me by surprise. That was all she said--except that she asked
whether you were likely to be going into the country soon, away from the
house here. She didn't stay five minutes with us, but went back to stand
by the railings again."
"Did she speak as a lady or as a common person?" quite fiercely demanded
Mrs. Hamlyn. "Is she young?--good-looking?"
"Oh, I think she is a lady," replied the girl, her accent decisive. "And
she's young, as far as I could see, but she had a thick veil over her
face. Her hair is lovely, just like threads of pale gold," concluded
Penelope, as Mr. Hamlyn's step was heard.
He took his wife into the dining-room, apologising for being late. She,
giving full range to the fancies she had called up, heard him in silence
with a hardening haughty face.
"Philip, you know who that woman is," she suddenly exclaimed during a
temporary absence of Japhet from the dining-room. "What is it that she
wants with you?"
"I!" he returned, in a surprise very well feigned if not real. "What
woman? Do you mean the one who was standing out there yesterday?"
"You know I do. She has been there again--all the blessed afternoon,
as Penelope expresses it. Asking questions of the girl about you--and
me--and Walter; and saying the child has your beautiful brown eyes.
_I ask you who is she?_"
Mr. Hamlyn laid down his knife and fork to gaze at his wife. He looked
quite at sea.
"Eliza, I assure you I know nothing about it. Or about her."
"Indeed! Don't you think it may be some acquaintance, old or new?
Possibly someone you knew in the days gone by--come over seas to see
whether you are yet in the land of the living? She has wonderful hair,
which looks like spun gold."
All in a moment, as the half-mocking words left her lips, some idea
seemed to flash across Philip Hamlyn, bringing with it distress and
fear. His face turned to a burning red and then grew white as the hue
of the grave.