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, pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sengers 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 Ess.e.x. 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 pa.s.sengers, with her. "Master," said I, in answer, "had that ship not gone down and all her pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sengers 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 sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.senger 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 Ess.e.x, 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, a.s.senting 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.
II
The cold, clear afternoon air touching their healthy faces, and Jack Frost nipping their noses, raced Miss West and Kate Danc.o.x up and down the hawthorn walk. It had pleased that arbitrary young damsel, who was still very childish, to enter a protest against going beyond the grounds that fine winter"s day; she would be in the hawthorn walk, or nowhere; and she would run races there. As Miss West gave in to her whims for peace" sake in things not important, and as she was young enough herself not to dislike running, to the hawthorn walk they went.
Captain Monk was recovering rapidly. His sudden illness had been caused by drinking some cold cider when some out-door exercise had made him dangerously hot. The alarm and apprehension had now subsided; and Mrs.