"Yes, it went off well; there was no hitch anywhere," replied Hubert.
"But, Aunt Emma, I have brought a friend home with me. Guess who it is."
"Some lady or other who came to see the wedding," she returned. "I can"t guess."
"You never would, though I were to give you ten guesses; no, though je vous donne en mille, as the French have it. What should you say to a young man come all the way over seas from India? There, that"s as good as telling you, Aunt Emma. Guess now."
"Oh, Hubert!" clasping her trembling hands. "It cannot be Harry! What is wrong?"
Harry brought his bright face into the room and was clasped in his mother"s arms. She could not understand it one bit, and fears a.s.sailed her. Come home in _this_ unexpected manner! Had he left the army? What had he done? _What_ had he done? Hubert laughed and told her then.
"He has done nothing wrong; everything that"s good. He has sold out at my father"s request and left with honours--and is come home the heir of Leet Hall. I said all along it was a shame to keep you out of the plot, Aunt Emma."
Well, it was glorious news for her. But, as if to tarnish its delight, like an envious sprite of evil, deep down in her mind lay that other news, just read--the ambiguous remark of old Mrs. Peveril"s.
IV
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-gla.s.sed young men, dandified and supercilious, who appeared to have more money than brains--and the jaundiced man went into a gaping fit of la.s.situde.
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 a.s.sure 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 b.u.t.ter 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 appet.i.te--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 pa.s.sionate 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 bouchee 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.
THE SILENT CHIMES
IV.--NOT HEARD
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.