by Ellen Wood
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.
V. — SILENT FOR EVER
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 t
his 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 Cl
ipper 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.”
