"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 Peac.o.c.k"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 Peac.o.c.k"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, pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sengers 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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."