I
Breakfast was on the table in Mr. Hamlyn's house in Bryanston Square,
and Mrs. Hamlyn waited, all impatience, for her lord and master. Not
in any particular impatience for the meal itself, but that she might
"have it out with him"--the phrase was hers, not mine, as you will see
presently--in regard to the perplexity existing in her mind connected
with the strange appearance of the damsel watching the house, in her
beauty and her pale golden hair.
Why had Philip Hamlyn turned sick and faint--to judge by his changing
countenance--when she had charged him at dinner, the previous evening,
with knowing something of this mysterious woman? Mysterious in her
actions, at all events; probably in herself. Mrs. Hamlyn wanted to
know that. No further opportunity had then been given for pursuing the
subject. Japhet had returned to the room, and before the dinner was at
an end, some acquaintance of Mr. Hamlyn had fetched him out for the
evening. And he came home with so fearful a headache that he had lain
groaning and turning all through the night. Mrs. Hamlyn was not a model
of patience, but in all her life she had never felt so impatient as
now.
He came into the room looking pale and shivery; a sure sign that he was
suffering; that it was not an invented excuse. Yes, the pain was better,
he said, in answer to his wife's question; and might be much better
after a strong cup of tea; he could not imagine what had brought it on.
_She_ could have told him, though, had she been gifted with the magical
power of reading minds, and have seen the nervous apprehension that was
making havoc with his.
Mrs. Hamlyn gave him his tea in silence, and buttered a dainty bit of
toast to tempt him to eat. But he shook his head.
"I cannot, Eliza. Nothing but tea this morning."
"I am sorry you are ill," she said, by-and-by. "I fear it hurts you to
talk; but I want to have it out with you."
"Have it out with me!" cried he, in real or feigned surprise. "Have what
out with me?"
"Oh, you know, Philip. About that woman who has been watching the house
these two days; evidently watching for you."
"But I told you I knew nothing about her: who she is, or what she is, or
what she wants. I really do not know."
Well, so far that was true. But all the while a sick fear lay on his
heart that he did know; or, rather, that he was destined to know very
shortly.
"When I told you her hair was like threads of fine, pale gold, you
seemed to start, Philip, as if you knew some girl or woman with such
hair, or had known her."
"I daresay I have known a score of women with such hair. My dear little
sister who died, for instance."
"Do not attempt to evade the subject," was the haughty reprimand.
"If----"
Mrs. Hamlyn's sharp speech was interrupted by the entrance of Japhet,
bringing in the morning letters. Only one letter, however, for they
were not as numerous in those days as they are in these.
"It seems to be important, ma'am," Japhet remarked, with the privilege
of an old servant, as he handed it to his mistress. She saw it was from
Leet Hall, in Mrs. Carradyne's handwriting, and bore the words: "In
haste," above the address.
Tearing it open Eliza Hamlyn read the short, sad news it contained.
Captain Monk had been taken suddenly ill with inward inflammation. Mr.
Speck feared the worst, and the Captain had asked for Eliza. Would she
come down at once?
"Oh, Philip, I must not lose a minute," she exclaimed, passing the
letter to him, and forgetting the pale gold hair and its owner. "Do
you know anything about the Worcestershire trains?"
"No," he answered. "The better plan will be to get to the station as
soon as possible, and then you will be ready for the first train that
starts."
"Will you go down with me, Philip?"
"I cannot. I will take you to the station."
"Why can't you?"
"Because I cannot just now leave London. My dear, you may believe me,
for it is the truth. _I cannot do so._ I wish I could."
And she saw it was true: for his tone was so earnest as to tell of pain.
Making what haste she could, kissing her boy a hundred times, and
recommending him to the special care of his nurse and of his father
during her absence, she drove with her husband to the station, and
was just in time for a train. Mr. Hamlyn watched it steam out of the
station, and then looked up at the clock.
"I suppose it's not too early to see him," he muttered. "I'll chance
it, at any rate. Hope he will be less suffering than he was yesterday,
and less crusty, too."
Dismissing his carriage, for he felt more inclined to walk than to
drive, he went through the park to Pimlico, and gained the house of
Major Pratt.
This was Friday. On the previous Wednesday evening a note had been
brought to Mr. Hamlyn by Major Pratt's servant, a sentence in which,
as the reader may remember, ran as follows:--
"_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?_"
This puzzled Philip Hamlyn: perhaps somewhat troubled him in a hazy kind
of way. For he could only suppose that the ship alluded to must be the
sailing-vessel in which his first wife, false and faithless, and his
little son of a twelvemonth old had been lost some five or six years
ago--the _Clipper of the Seas_. And the next day (Thursday) he had gone
to Major Pratt's, as requested, to carry the prescription for gout he
had asked for, and also to inquire of the Major what he meant.
But the visit was a fruitless one. Major Pratt was in bed with an attack
of gout, so ill and so "crusty" that nothing could be got out of him
excepting a few bad words and as many groans. Mr. Hamlyn then questioned
Saul--of whom he used to see a good deal in India, for he had been the
Major's servant for years and years.
"Do you happen to know, Saul, whether the Major wanted me for anything
in particular? He asked me to call here this morning."
Saul began to consider. He was a tall, thin, cautious, slow-speaking
man, honest as the day, and very much attached to his master.
"Well, sir, he got a letter yesterday morning that seemed to put him
out, for I found him swearing over it. And he said he'd like you to see
it."
"Who was the letter from? What was it about?"
"It looked like Miss Caroline's writing, sir, and the postmark was
Essex. As to what it was about--well, the Major didn't directly tell me,
but I gathered that it might be about----"
"About what?" questioned Mr. Hamlyn, for the man had come to a dead
standstill. "Speak out, Saul."
"Then, sir," said Saul, slowly rubbing the top of his head, and the few
grey hairs left on it, "I thought--as you tell me to speak--it must be
something concerning that ship you know of; she that went down on her
voyage home, Mr. Philip."
"The _Clipper of the Seas_?"
"Just so, sir; the _Clipper of the Seas_. I thought it by this," added
Saul: "that pretty nigh all day afterwards he talked of nothing but that
ship, asking me if I should suppose it possible that the ship had not
gone down and every soul on board, leastways of her passengers, with
her. 'Master,' said I, in answer, 'had that ship not gone down and all
her passengers with her, rely upon it, they'd have turned up long before
this.' 'Ay, ay,' stormed he, 'and Caroline's a fool.'--Which of course
meant his sister, you know, sir."
Philip Hamlyn could not make much of this. So many years had elapsed now
since news came out to the world that the unfortunate ship, _Clipper of
the Seas_, went down off the coast of Spain on her homeward voyage, and
all her passengers with her, as to be a fact of the past. Never a doubt
had been cast upon any part of the tidings, so far as he knew.
With an uneasy feeling at his heart, he went off to the city, to call
upon the brokers, or agents, of the ship: remembering quite well who
they were, and that they lived in Fenchurch Street. An elderly man,
clerk in the house for many years, and now a partner, received him.
"The _Clipper of the Seas_?" repeated the old gentleman, after listening
to what Mr. Hamlyn had to say. "No, sir, we don't know that any of her
passengers were saved; always supposed they were not. But lately we have
had some little cause to doubt whether one or two might not have been."
Philip Hamlyn's heart beat faster.
"Will you tell me why you think this?"
"It isn't that we think it; at best 'tis but a doubt," was the reply.
"One of our own ships, getting in last month from Madras, had a sailor
on board who chanced to remark to me, when he was up here getting his
pay, that it was not the first time he had served in our employ: he had
been in that ship that was lost, the _Clipper of the Seas_. And he went
on to say, in answer to a remark of mine about all the passengers having
been lost, that that was not quite correct, for that one of them had
certainly been saved--a lady or a nurse, he didn't know which, and also
a little child that she was in charge of. He was positive about it, he
added, upon my expressing my doubts, for they got to shore in the same
small boat that he did."
"Is it true, think you?" gasped Mr. Hamlyn.
"Sir, we are inclined to think it is not true," emphatically spoke the
old gentleman. "Upon inquiring about this man's character, we found that
he is given to drinking, so that what he says cannot always be relied
upon. Again, it seems next to an impossibility that if any passenger
were saved we should not have heard of it. Altogether we feel inclined
to judge that the man, though evidently believing he spoke truth, was
but labouring under an hallucination."
"Can you tell me where I can find the man?" asked Mr. Hamlyn, after a
pause.
"Not anywhere at present, sir. He has sailed again."
So that ended it for the day. Philip Hamlyn went home and sat down to
dinner with his wife, as already spoken of. And when she told him that
the mysterious lady waiting outside must be waiting for him--probably
some acquaintance of his of the years gone by--it set his brain working
and his pulses throbbing, for he suddenly connected her with what he had
that day heard. No wonder his head ached!
To-day, after seeing his wife off by train, he went to find Major Pratt.
The Major was better, and could talk, swearing a great deal over the
gout, and the letter.
"It was from Caroline," he said, alluding to his sister, Miss Pratt, who
had been with him in India. "She lives in Essex, you know, Philip."
"Oh, yes, I know," answered Philip Hamlyn. "But what is it that Caroline
says in her letter?"
"You shall hear," said the Major, producing his sister's letter and
opening it. "Listen. Here it is. 'The strangest thing has happened,
brother! Susan went to London yesterday to get my fronts recurled at the
hairdresser's, and she was waiting in the shop, when a lady came out of
the back room, having been in there to get a little boy's hair cut.
Susan was quite struck dumb when she saw her: _she thinks it was poor
erring Dolly_; never saw such a likeness before, she says; could almost
swear to her by the lovely pale gold hair. The lady pulled her veil over
her face when she saw Susan staring at her, and went away with great
speed. Susan asked the hairdresser's people if they knew the lady's
name, or who she was, but they told her she was a stranger to them; had
never been in the shop before. Dear Richard, this is troubling me; I
could not sleep all last night for thinking of it. Do you suppose it
is possible that Dolly and the boy were not drowned? Your affectionate
sister, Caroline.' Now, did you ever read such a letter?" stormed the
Major. "If that Susan went home and said she'd seen St. Paul's blown up,
Caroline would believe it. Who's Susan, d'ye say? Why, you've lost your
memory, Philip. Susan was the English maid we had with us in Calcutta."
"It cannot possibly be true," cried Mr. Hamlyn with quivering lips.
"True, no! of course it can't be, hang it! Or else what would you do?"
That might be logical though not satisfactory reasoning. And Mr. Hamlyn
thought of the woman said to be watching for him, and her pale gold
hair.
"She was a cunning jade, if ever there was one, mark you, Philip Hamlyn;
that false wife of yours and kin of mine; came of a cunning family on
the mother's side. Put it that she _was_ saved: if it suited her to let
us suppose she was drowned, why, she'd do it. _I_ know Dolly."
And poor Philip Hamlyn, assenting to the truth of this with all his
heart, went out to face the battle that might be coming upon him,
lacking the courage for it.