The room at the back, looking into the garden, on the opposite side of the passage to Neal's pantry, was the most charming apartment in all the house. Not for its grandeur; it was small and very simple indeed, compared to the grand drawing-room upstairs: not for its orderly neatness, for it was usually in a litter; a fascinating, pleasant-looking litter; and perhaps that made its charm. It was called the garden-parlour. The great drawing-room was kept sacred by its presiding mistress, to whom you will soon have the honour of an introduction: sacred, and uncomfortably tidy. Not so much as a pocket-handkerchief must be laid for an instant on one of its handsome tables, its luxurious satin sofas and ottomans; not a footstool must be drawn from its appointed place, let tired legs be hanging down with weariness; not a hand-screen must be removed from the handsomely-furnished mantelpiece, were lovely cheeks being roasted to crimson. Methodically proper, everything in its appointed spot, must that room be kept: a book put down in the wrong place was treason; a speck of dust all but warning to Jessy, the unhappy housemaid. The dining-room was tidy, too; no extraneous things were allowed there, it must be kept free for the reception of the patients: the "Times" newspaper and the newest local journal lay daily on the large mahogany table, and there the litter ended. Perhaps, therefore, it was no wonder that that other room was not always in the order it might have been.
A charming room, nevertheless, on a sunny day. Watercoloured drawings and pencil sketches in plain frames lined the delicately-papered walls, loose music was strewed near the piano and harp, books lay anywhere, pretty little ornamental trifles met the eye, and fancy-work might be seen in more places than one. The glass doors at the window, large and high, stood open to the few wide steps that led to the green lawn--a lawn particularly grateful on a sultry summer's day.
For that lawn lay in the shade; the sun in the afternoon shone full on the front of the house, and the lawn was sheltered. The scent of the roses, the syringa, the heliotrope, and other powerfully-perfumed flowers, filled the air, and butterflies and bees flitted from blossom to blossom. It was quite a contrast to the other side of the house, with its busy street, its hot pavement, its jostling traversers, and its garish sunshine. Here lay the cool shade on the mossy lawn--the quiet and the repose of the tinted flowers.
Seated on the lawn, on a garden-bench, was a young lady reading. A graceful girl of middle height, with large hazel eyes quite luminous in their brightness, a well-formed gentle face, rather pale, and brown hair that took almost a golden tinge when the sun shone through it. There was no very great beauty to boast of in the face, but it was one of those that the eye likes to rest upon--and love. A far more beautiful face was that of another young girl, who was restlessly moving amidst the side clusters of shrubs and flowers, plucking the choicest. A face whose beauty could not be denied, with its dark violet eyes, its nearly black hair, and the damask complexion all too bright: these strangely brilliant complexions do not always go with the soundest of constitutions. She was little, fairy-like, somewhat pettish and wilful in her movements. A stranger would say they were sisters, and be puzzled to tell which of the two was the elder, which the younger. There was really no likeness between them, save in the dress--that was precisely similar: a thin gauzy silken material, cool but rich, and no doubt expensive, with a good deal of delicate coloured trimming upon it, and open sleeves over white lace. Sisters they were not--only cousins.
Suddenly there was a scream from the midst of the flowers, and the young lady on the garden-bench raised her eyes to speak.
"What is it, Caroline?"
She came forth in her beauty, flinging down the flowers she had gathered, and holding out the back of her hand. A deep scratch lay right across it.
"Just look! I am always tearing myself with those wild-rose brambles!"
"Poor hand! Sit still, Carine; it is too hot for anything else today. What do you want with the flowers, that you need trouble yourself to get them?"
"I don't know what I want with them. Nothing. Picking them helped to pass away the time."
"Why are you so restless this afternoon!"
"Am I restless? One can't be always as quiet as you--read, read, read for ever."
An amused smile parted the reader's lips, bringing to view the pretty teeth, so white and regular. "I will retort in nearly your own words, Carine--am I quiet? I think not."
"Yes you are, except when the boys are at home. You are noisy enough then. I shall go and eat some fruit."
"Lend me your pencil first, Caroline."
Miss Caroline Davenal put her hand into her pocket and could not find her pencil. "I must have left it somewhere indoors," she said. "You'll see it if you look."
"I must mark a passage here."
"What will Mr. Oswald Cray say to your marking his book?"
"Mr. Oswald Cray asked me to mark anything that struck me. It is a delightful book."
Caroline Davenal went joyously down the garden, singing a snatch of a song, as she put her handkerchief over her head to guard it from the sun. The upper half of the long piece of ground was all pleasure and flowers; the lower half all usefulness, vegetables and fruit-trees. Her cousin, book in hand, went up the steps and in at the glass doors to find a pencil. She was bending over the centre table, searching for one, when Dr. Davanel entered the room.
"Is Caroline here?"
"She is in the garden, papa."
Dr. Davenal advanced to the window, and stood at it, ostensibly looking for Caroline. He could not see her; the fruit-trees in the distance had effectually hidden her, and the doctor appeared lost in thought. Presently he spoke, without looking round.
"Sara, did you know that--that--in short, have you ever observed that an attachment was arising between Mr. Cray and Caroline?"
Sara looked up, but did not at once reply. The question was one, put from a father to a daughter, that brought up the blushes on her cheeks in her maiden modesty.
"N--o," she replied, at length. But the no, in its hesitation, sounded almost as much like yes.
"My dear, I did not ask you to deceive me," was the grave answer; "I ask for the truth."
"O papa, you know--youknowI would not deceive you," she replied, quite in distress. And Dr. Davenal, pained by the tone, drew her to him and kissed her cheek. He knew how good, how loving, how dutiful, was this daughter of his.
"The real truth is this, papa. Very recently, only since a day or two, a faint suspicion has arisen in my mind that it might be so. Caroline has not spoken, and I have had nothing to guide me to it, except the fact that Mr. Cray is so much here. Indeed, I do not know whether it is so or not."
"I believe I have been a little blind," observed Dr. Davenal speaking quite as much to himself as to his daughter. "The fact is, Sara, I had a notion in my head that some one else had taken a fancy to Caroline; and I suppose I could see nothing beyond it. I speak of Mr. Oswald Cray."
It was well that Dr. Davenal's eyes were fixed on the garden, or he might have wondered at the startled change in his daughter's face. It had turned of one glowing crimson. She moved again to the table, and stood there with her back to the light.
"I suppose I was mistaken; that there was nothing in it, Sara?"
"Nothing, papa, I think; nothing whatever," came the low-toned answer.
"But Mr. Oswald Cray does come here a great deal when he is at Hallingham?" pursued the doctor, as if willing to debate the question.
The crimson grew deeper. Dr. Davenal did not seem to observe that there was no answer.
"How the idea came to arise, I do not understand. Heaven knows I should be the last man in the world to scheme and plan out marriages--for Caroline or for anybody else. Such matters are best left to come about of themselves. But, Sara, I wish one thing--that it had been Mr. Oswald Cray, instead of Mark."
"Do you, papa?" with the blushing face still turned from him.
"Ay, I do. I could havetrustedher to Oswald.Howcould she choose the other in preference to him?"
Sara lifted her face. Eager words were on her lips--to the effect that perhaps Mr. Oswald Cray might not have chosen Caroline. But they died away unspoken.
"I wish you would go and tell her I want her here, Sara."
Sara slipped by the doctor, passed over the cool lawn to the distant sunny paths, and met her cousin.
"Papa wants you, Carine."
Caroline recoiled in her self-conscious timidity. "What about?" she whispered. "Did he say what about?"
"I think," said Sara slowly, scarcely knowing whether she was doing right to speak or not, "that it is something about Mr. Cray."
For a moment Caroline made no rejoinder. She walked on and had nearly gained the lawn when she turned her head again. Sara had lingered behind.
"Sara! Sara! Did he seem angry?" she whispered.
"Not exactly angry. Vexed, I thought."
Dr. Davenal stood at the glass doors still. He put out his hand as she approached him.
"Did you want me, Uncle Richard?"
"Mr. Cray has been making an application to me concerning you. Caroline, were you cognisant of it?"
"Now, Uncle Richard! If you are going to be cross, I--I shall be so unhappy."
"When did you ever know me cross?" he gravely rejoined, and Caroline Davenal burst into tears.
"Caroline, my dear, we must put away this childishness. You are but affecting it, and this is a serious moment. I must talk to you very earnestly. Come in, Sara. It is cooler indoors than out."
Sara, who in her delicacy of feeling would have remained outside, went within the room and sat down to the table with her book. Caroline had dried her passing tears, and was stealing a glance at Dr. Davenal.
"Youareangry, Uncle Richard."
"If I am, Caroline, it is for your sake; a loving anger. My chief emotion, I believe, is surprise. I never gave a thought to this; not a suspicion of it crossed me."
"I fancied you must have guessed it," was the murmured answer.
"Guessed that! No, child. But the blindness was my own, I believe. When we ourselves place one view deliberately before us, it tends to shut out others. I had got it into my head, Carine, that it was to your score we were indebted for the frequent visits of Mr. Oswald Cray."
Caroline lifted her face, and Dr. Davenal observed how genuine was the surprise depicted on it. "Uncle Richard!"
"I see. I see now, child, that the idea was void of foundation. But, Caroline," he gravely added, "I would rather it had been Oswald than Mark. All the world must respect Oswald Cray."
"I should think itwasvoid of foundation!" indignantly returned Caroline, resenting the disparagement cast on Mark. "Why, Uncle Richard, Oswald Cray likes Sara a thousand times better than he likes me! But not with that sort of liking," she hastened to add, lest a construction should be put upon the words which most certainly she never meant to put. "General liking, I mean. Oswald Cray's heart is buried in his ambition, in his busy life; he gives little thought to aught else. Uncle Richard, I would not many Oswald Cray if he were worth his weight in gold. He would find fault with me all day long."
"Well, well; let us drop Oswald Cray, and return to the point, Caroline. If"----
"Lady Oswald, sir."
The interruption came from Neal. They had not heard him open the door, and the announcement was the first intimation of his presence. Of course all private conversation was at an end, and the doctor half groaned as he turned to Lady Oswald. She came in, her warm cashmere scarf drawn round her, and her purple gown held up gracefully on the right side, after the style of walking in the fashionable world in the days when Lady Oswald was young.
Lady Oswald was one of those imaginary invalids who give more trouble to their medical attendants than a whole score of patients with real maladies. Fussy and fidgety, she exacted constant attendance from Dr. Davenal. She paid him well; but she worried him nearly out of his life. On his leisure days, when he could really afford the visit to her, and the quarter-of-an-hour's chat spent in condoling with her upon her array of ailments and in giving her the gossip of Hallingham, he spared the time with a good grace; but in a season of pressure he did chafe at having to pay this daily visit, when dying men were waiting for him. He had been with her that morning between ten and eleven: Neal had said she called while he was out; and now here she was again! Once or twice latterly he had sent Mr. Cray in his stead, and she had not seemed to object to it. But she had come for a different object now.
"Only two minutes' conversation with you, doctor," she said, in a voice naturally feeble. "You must spare it me, though it is Tuesday afternoon, and I see your dining-room's getting full. Neal said you were here, so I came in straight, not to be confounded with the patients. Only look at this letter which was delivered to me this morning, and see what it must have been to my nerves. Parkins has been giving me red lavender ever since."
"But you know, Lady Oswald, that I object to your taking red lavender."
"What am I to do when a shock like that comes to me? Do read it, doctor."
Dr. Davenal, feeling that he had no time for letters or nerves just then, was yet compelled in good manners to accede. He opened the note, which was a very short one, and ran his eyes over the contents; once and then again; the first time he did not quite master them.
It was written to Lady Oswald by her landlord, a gentleman of the name of Low. It appeared that Mr. Low had some little time back received an intimation from the railway company that they should require to take a small portion of the grounds attached to the residence occupied by Lady Oswald, for the purpose of erecting certain sheds necessary at that bend of the line. This note was to inform her that he had given his consent, and it ended with a polite hope and belief that neither the sheds nor the process of their erection would prove any annoyance to her.
Dr. Davenal folded the letter when read. Lady Oswald looked at him. "What would you advise me to do?" she asked in a fretful tone.
"Indeed, Lady Oswald, I do not see what you can do," he thoughtfully answered, "except submit to it."
"Submit to it! submit to their erecting railway sheds in my very garden!" she ejaculated in astonishment.
"From the very first hour that I knew they were carrying that new line of rail close to your grounds, I felt sure it would prove an annoyance to you in some shape or other," observed Dr. Davenal, speaking more to himself than to Lady Oswald. "It is a great pity, but we all have to submit occasionally to these untoward things, Lady Oswald, as we go through life."
"I shall not submit to this," she resolutely returned. "They have no more right to erect sheds on my grounds, than they have to erect them upon me. I shall forbid it."
"But the power to do so does not lie with you," objected Dr. Davenal. "You are but a tenant on lease. In point of fact, I do not suppose such power lies with any one, not even with Low himself. The railway companies seem to do pretty much as they please in the kingdom. Mr. Low will be sure to get well paid, and his consent, according to the tenor of this note, is already given."
Lady Oswald pushed her grey hair nervously from her brow. "Dr. Davenal, I don'tbelievethat the law has power so to annoy innocent people and drive them from their homes. Do you know how long I have lived in that house?"
"A great many years now. Ever since the death of Sir John."
"I have lived in it fourteen years, and I will not be driven forth at their pleasure. I expected to die in it, and I will die in it. If they attempt to touch my grounds, I shall have them warned off as trespassers, and I will keep a couple of policemen on the watch day and night."
Dr. Davenal did not then dispute the policy of the avowed plan with her, or point out its futility. In her present mood he knew it would be useless, even if he had the time, to attempt it.
"Because I am a widow woman they think that they can put upon me with impunity," she resumed; "but they will find their mistake. I have telegraphed for Mr. Oswald Cray, and expect him down by night-time."
"You have telegraphed for him?" cried Dr. Davenal.
"Of course I have. Who else is there to take my part, doctor, save him or you? That letter was delivered just after you left me this morning, and I seat to the telegraph at once. Oswald can fight them; and he has influence: they will be clever to overreachhim."
Dr. Davenal opened his mouth to speak, but suppressed the impulsive words upon his tongue. To what end recall to Lady Oswald's attention the fact that Mr. Oswald Cray, as one of the engineers to the line, must necessarily be against her, if she had not the sense to remember it? He said a few words to the effect that hemustgo to his patients, gave Lady Oswald a half promise to see her that night, and left her to be entertained by his daughter.
"My dear, why need Miss Carine have run away from me the moment I came in?"
Sara smiled. "Not from you, Lady Oswald; I think she wanted to run from us all. And perhaps she thought your visit was only to papa."
"How is Miss Davenal?"
"Quite well. Will you see her? She is in the drawing-room."
Lady Oswald hesitated.
"My dear, of course I should be glad to see her; I wish to pay her every respect; but--you know it is so great a trial to me--with my little weak voice. However, I will go up, as I am here.Isher deafness better?"
"Not at all," was Sara's answer. "I don't suppose it ever will be better. It gets worse, we think, as she grows old."
"Grows what?" cried Lady Oswald.
Sara had quick perceptions, and she felt that the word old, as applied to her aunt, had offended Lady Oswald's ear. How changed do our ideas of age become as our own years change! To Sara Davenal, with her twenty years, her aunt, verging on fifty, was old; to Lady Oswald, who would count seventy-one her next birthday Miss Davenal seemed but as a youngish woman!
Lady Oswald stepped slowly up the wide staircase, one foot at a time. Sara followed her, and threw open the door of the handsome drawing-room. A large square room, beautiful as a show place; and to keep it beautiful was the hobby of Miss Bettina Davenal.
Miss Davenal sat in her usual seat near the window, her straight figure bolt upright, her knitting needles plying fast their work, the small inlaid table at her right hand holding the open pearl basket of wool. How many stockings, socks, sleeves, and chest-protectors, were knitted by Miss Davenal in the course of the year, the poor alone could tell--for they were the recipients. Hallingham surmised that she must spend half her income upon wool. There's no doubt she was a charitable well-meaning woman at heart, but she did not always show it in her manner.
A beautiful woman in her day must have been Bettina Davenal, with her pure complexion and her classical features. But the grey eyes had a cold hard look in them now; and the nose, across the high bridge of which the delicate skin was drawn so tightly, was almost painfully thin. The name Bettina had been bestowed on her at the request of a godmother, a lady of Italian origin; not an ugly name, but somewhat long for the everyday use of English tongues, and those familiar with her occasionally shortened it into "Miss Bett," a liberty that was resented by Miss Davenal. She laboured under that troublesome defect, intense deafness, and also under the no less troublesome conviction (not unfrequently accompanying it) that she was not deaf at all. Her hair of a pale flaxen, soft and abundant still, was worn in smooth braids, and was surmounted by a rich lace head-dress, very high.
She need not have added to her height; she was tall enough without it; as was seen when she rose to receive Lady Oswald. A straight-down, thin, upright figure, without crinolines or cordings, her grey damask dress falling in wrapt folds around her as she held forth her mittened hand.
"I hope I see you better, Lady Oswald."
The tone was unnaturally high: you may have noticed that it is so sometimes in deaf people. Lady Oswald, with her weak nerves, would have put her hands to her ears had she done as she liked.
"I am not well today. I am worse than usual. I have had a most unpleasant shock, Miss Davenal; an upset."
"A what?" cried Miss Davenal, putting her hand to her ear.
"An upset."
"Bless my heart!" cried Miss Davenal; "did your carriage run away?"
"Tell her, Sara," groaned Lady Oswald. "I shall be hoarse for two days if I call out like this."
"Lady Oswald has had some unpleasant news, aunt. She has received notice that they are going to run the railway through her grounds."
Miss Davenal caught a word or so, and looked terrified. "Received notice that they are going to run a railway through her! What do you mean?"
"Not through her," said Sara, putting her lips close to the deaf ears. "Through her grounds."
"But I'd not let them," cried Miss Davenal, hearing now. "I'd not let them, Lady Oswald."
"I won't," screamed Lady Oswald at the top of her voice. "I have sent for Mr. Oswald Cray."
Miss Davenal was dubious. "What good will that do? Is it to pelt upon them? I hate those wicked railways."
"Is what to pelt upon them?"
"The clay. Didn't you say you had sent for some clay?"
"Oh dear! Sara, do make her understand."
Poor Sara had to do her best. "Not clay, Aunt Bettina; Mr. Oswald Cray."
Aunt Bettina nodded her stately head. "I like Mr. Oswald Cray. He is a favourite of mine, Lady Oswald."
"As he is of everybody's, Miss Davenal," returned Lady Oswald. "I'd have remembered him in my will but for offending the Oswald family. They are dreadfully prejudiced."
"Pinched!" echoed Miss Davenal. "Where's he pinched?"
"Prejudiced, Aunt Bettina. Lady Oswald says the Oswald family are prejudiced."
"You need not roar out in that way, Sara; I can hear, I hope. I am not so deaf as all that comes to. What's he prejudiced at?--the railway? He ought not to be, he is one of its engineers."
"Not Mr. Oswald Cray, aunt. The Oswald family. They are prejudiced against him."
"If you speak to me again in that manner, Sara I shall complain to your papa. One would think you were calling out to somebody at the top of the chimney. As if I and Lady Oswald did not know that the Oswald family are prejudiced against Oswald Cray? We don't want you to tell it us from a speaking-trumpet; we knew it before you were born. I don't think he cares for their prejudices, Lady Oswald," Miss Davenal added, turning to her.
"He would be very foolish if he did.Idon't. They are prejudiced, you know, against me."
"I think the world must be coming to an end, with all these rails and stations and sheds," fretfully spoke Miss Davenal.
"The news has made me ill," said Lady Oswald, who liked nothing half so well as to speak of her own ailments. "I was getting better, as Dr. Davenal can tell you, but this will throw me back for weeks. My maid has been giving me red lavender ever since."
Miss Davenal looked at her with a puzzled stare.
"That is poison, is it not?"
"What is poison?"
"Red lead."
"I said red lavender," cried Lady Oswald. "It is very good for the spirits: a few drops taken on a lump of sugar. Red lav-en-der."
Miss Davenal resolutely shook her head. "Nasty stuff!" she cried. "Red lavender never did anybody good yet, Lady Oswald. Leave it off; leave it off."
"I don't touch it once in a month in an ordinary way," screamed Lady Oswald. "Only when anything beyond common arises to flurry me."
Miss Bettina stared at her. "What common is flooded? It is dry weather."
Lady Oswald cast a helpless look at Sara. "Flurried, Aunt Bettina," said the young lady. "Lady Oswald said when she was flurried."
Miss Bettina was not in the least grateful for the assistance. She pushed away her niece with her elbow. It was in fact next to high treason for Sara to attempt to assist Miss Davenal's deafness. "I should not allow things to flurry me, Lady Oswald. I never was flurried in my life."
"Temperaments are constituted differently," returned Lady Oswald.
"Temper!" cried Miss Davenal, as angrily as politeness would allow her, "what has temper to do with it? Who accuses me of temper?"
"Tem-per-a-ment," corrected Lady Oswald, cracking her voice. "Sara, Imustgo."
She rose quickly; she could not stand the interview any longer; but in spite of the misapprehensions they took leave of each other cordially. The same scene occurred every time they met: as it did whenever conversation was attempted with Miss Davenal. It cannot be denied that she heard better at times than at others, occasionally tolerably well; and hence perhaps the source, or partially so, of her own belief that her deafness was but of a slight nature. When alone with the familiar family voices, and in quiet times, she could hear; but in moments of surprise and excitement, in paying or receiving visits, the ears were nearly hopeless.
Neal attended Lady Oswald to her carriage, waiting there at the gate with its powdered coachman and footman, to the gratification of the juvenile street Arabs of Hallingham; the same ever-assiduous, superior servant, quite dignified in his respectability. Lady Oswald believed him perfection--that there was not another such servant in the world.
"Your mistress grows more distressingly deaf than ever, Neal," she remarked, as he put her dress straight in the carriage, her own footman resigning the office to him with almost the same submission that he might have resigned it to Mr. Cray, had the young surgeon been at hand to assist her in, as he had been to assist her out.
"She does, my lady. It is a great affliction. Home," loftily added Neal to the servants: and he bowed low as the carriage drove away.
The house of Lady Oswald was an old-fashioned red brick mansion of moderate size, two storeys in height only, and with gable-ends. It was exceedingly comfortable inside, and was surrounded by rather extensive grounds. At the opposite end of the town to the station, it might have been thought that that vulgar innovation, the railroad, so especially obnoxious to Lady Oswald, would at least have spared it offensive contact; but that was not to be. There was no accounting for the curves and tracks taken by those lines of the junction, and one of them had gone off at a tangent to skirt the very boundary of her land.
Seated in the front drawing-room, the one chiefly used by Lady Oswald, was a woman of some forty years, attired in a neat green-coloured gown, and cap with white ribbons. This was Parkins, Lady Oswald's maid, recently promoted to be somewhat of a companion, for Lady Oswald began to dislike being much alone. A well-meaning faithful woman, with weak eyes and weak will, and given to tears on very slight occasions. Parkins had also been lately made housekeeper as well as companion, and the weekly accounts connected with that department threatened to be the bane of Parkins's life. Add them up she could not; make them come right she could not: and she could get neither mercy nor assistance from Lady Oswald, who had always been her own account-keeper, and never found any trouble in it. Two tradesmen's books were before Parkins now, and she was bending over them in despair, during her lady's absence.
"I can't as much as read the figures," she groaned; "how, then, am I to add 'em up? Last week there was an overcharge of ten shillings in this very butcher's book, and my lady found it out, and hasn't done talking to me for it yet. Itisn'tmy fault; all folks are not born with a head for figures. And why can't tradespeople make their figures plain?"
Had she not been so absorbed by the book and its complications she might have seen the approach of a visitor. A tall and very gentlemanly man of some eight-and-twenty years, with a countenance that would have been remarkably frank and pleasing but for the expression of pride pervading it: nay, thatwasfrank and pleasing in spite of the pride. He could not help the pride; it was innate, born with him; he did not make his own face, and the lines of pride were inherent in it. The pale features were regular, the hair dark, the eyes dark blue, and lying rather deep in the head, good and honest eyes they were, searching and truthful: and when he smiled, as he was smiling now, it made full amends for deficiencies, obliterating every trace of pride, and imparting a singular charm to the face.
His approach had been discerned by one of the maid-servants, and she had come to the hall-door and was holding it open. It was at her he had smiled, for in manner he was exceedingly affable. Perhaps the very consciousness of the pride that clung to him, and was his besetting sin, rendered him resolute that in manner at least he should not offend.
"How are you, Susan? Is Lady Oswald within?"
"No, sir, my lady's out," was the girl's reply, as she dropped a curtsey. "Parkins is in the drawing-room, sir, I think: I daresay she can tell whether my lady will be long."
He laid on the hall-table a small roll of paper or parchment that he carried, threw off a dusty light overcoat, and took up the roll again. Susan opened the drawing-room door.
"Mr. Oswald Cray."
Parkins gave a scream. Parkins was somewhat addicted to giving screams when startled or surprised. Starting up from her chair and her perplexing books, she stood staring at him, as if unable to take in the fact of his presence. Parkins believed in marvels, and thought one had been enacted then.
"Oh, sir! howdidyou come? You must have travelled surely on the telegraph wires?"
"Not I," answered Mr. Oswald Cray, smiling at her astonishment, but not understanding its cause. "I left London by rail this morning, Parkins."
"A telegraph message went up for you an hour or two ago, sir," continued Parkins. "My lady has had bad news, sir, and she sent for you."
"I had no message. I must have left London previously. What bad news has she had?"
"It's them railway people, sir," explained Parkins. "They have been writing a letter to my lady--leastways the landlord has--saying that they are going to take these grounds and build upon them. I haven't seen her so upset for a long while, sir. When, she got a bit better from the shock and had sent to the telegraph, she ordered the carriage, and set off to tell Dr. Davenal."
"Do you expect her to be long?" he asked, thinking that if so, he might go about some business he had to do, and come back again.
"I expect her every minute, sir; she has been gone a great deal longer than I thought she'd be away."
He walked to the window, unrolled the parchment, and began to look at it. It seemed a sort of map, drawn with ink. Parkins, who, whatever might be the companionship she was admitted to by her mistress, knew her place better than to remain in the presence of Mr. Oswald Cray, gathered up her account-book and her pen and ink, and prepared to quit the room.
"Shall I order you any refreshment, sir?" she stopped to ask.
"Not any, thank you."
She closed the door, leaving him deep in his parchment. Another minute, and the carriage was seen bowling quickly up. He went out to meet it: and Lady Oswald gave a scream as Parkins had done, and wanted to know how he had got there.
"I came down on my own account, Lady Oswald," he said, as he gave her his arm to lead her in. "My visit is a purposed one to you."
"I'm sure you are very good, Oswald! It is not often that you honour me with a visit. When you are staying in the neighbourhood for days and days, a simple call of ceremony is about all I get."
His lips parted with that peculiar smile which made his face at these moments so attractive. "When I am in the neighbourhood, Lady Oswald, business nearly overwhelms me. I have not much time to call my own."
Lady Oswald untied her bonnet, and threw herself into a chair: only the drive to Dr. Davenal's and back had tired her. Parkins came into the room to take her things, but she waved her hand sharply, impatient at the interruption. "Presently, presently,"--and Parkins left them alone again.
"Oswald, do you know what a cruel letter I have had this morning? They want to bring that wretched railway through my grounds."
"Not the railway," he said, correcting her. "They are proposing to build some sheds upon the boundaries of them."
"You know about it, then?"
"Yes; I came down to acquaint you, and I am sorry you should have heard of it from any one else first. I could have spared you one-half the alarm and annoyance it seems to have caused. Look here. This is the plan."
He spread the paper out before her. He pointed out the very small portion of the grounds, and in the remotest part of them, not in sight of the house or the parts ever walked in by herself, that was proposed to be taken: he assured her that the projected sheds were but small sheds, for barrows, trucks, and such things to stand under; that they would, in point of fact, be no annoyance to her, that she never need see or hear them. All in vain. Lady Oswald had set her mind bitterly against the innovation; she could neither be persuaded nor soothed, and she felt vexed with Mr. Oswald Cray that he should attempt it.
"It is very well for you to praise it," she resentfully said. "Your interest lies in the line, not in me. Perhaps they have bribed you to say all this."
For a single moment his face grew dark, and its haughty pride shone out quite repellently; the next he was smiling his sweet smile. None knew better than Oswald Cray how rebelliously false the tongue is apt to be in moments of irritation.
"Dear Lady Oswald, you know that it is foreign to my nature to cause needless pain. When this news reached my ears a week ago, for the plan did not originate with me, I bestirred myself to see whether it might not be relinquished; whether, in short, the sheds could not be erected on any other portion of the line. But I find that there is no other portion available so close to the station."
"There's that piece of waste ground midway between this and the station," she answered. "Why can they not take that?"
"Another station is to be made there. One for goods."
"Another station! Do they think to bring all the world to Hallingham?"
"They are bringing a great many lines of rails to it."
"But they need not disturb my possessions to make room for them!" she quickly retorted. "Surely your interest might get this spared to me!"
In vain Mr. Oswald Cray strove to convince her that on this point he had no influence whatever. Nay, he confessed to her, in his candid truth, that as one of the engineers to the line, he could only acquiesce in the expediency of that part being used for the sheds, that there was no other spot so available.
"I drew this plan out myself," he said, "partly from our charts of the line, partly from my personal recollection of your grounds. I wished to demonstrate to you how very little a portion of them is, in fact, required. Will you put on your bonnet again, Lady Oswald, and walk with me to the spot? I will show you the exact measure they intend to take."
"No, I won't," said Lady Oswald angrily. "And you ought not to turn against me, Oswald. It is the principle of the thing I go upon; the resistance that, in my opinion, should be universally made to these intrusive railways, which are cutting up the country and ruining it. If they wanted to take but one foot of my ground; if they only wanted that dry ditch that skirts it, they should never have it by my consent, and I will hold out against it to the last. Now you know."
She sat nervously unpinning her cashmere scarf, her hands trembling so that she could scarcely hold the gold pins as she took them out. Oswald Cray slowly rolled up the parchment. He had come down from town at a very busy moment, when he could ill spare the time, with the sole hope of soothing the news to her, of putting her in good humour with what must inevitably be. He had received many little kindnesses from her in his life, especially in his boyhood; and he was one to treasure up the remembrance of kindness shown, and repay it if he could.
It may seem a very trifling thing, this project of erecting a few low, trumpery sheds; as may Lady Oswald's inveterate objection to it. But it is on trifles that the great events of life turn; and, but for this project of the sheds, this not-to-be-conquered refusal, the greater portion of this story need never have been written.
Of some note in the county, though poor for their rank, were the Oswalds of Thorndyke. Thorndyke, their country seat, was situated about five miles from Hallingham, and had been generally made the constant residence of the reigning baronet. It was a fine old place; the dyke surrounding it, or dike, as you may like to spell it--from which the place no doubt had partially taken its name--was of remarkable width. It was filled up in the time of Lady Oswald's husband, thethirdbaronet of his name; and fine pleasure-grounds might be seen now where unwholesome water had once stagnated. Possibly that water had been the remote and unsuspected cause of the dying off of so many of the house's children--as they had died in the old days.
Thesecondbaronet, Sir Oswald Oswald, lost five children in succession. Two daughters and a son alone lived to grow up: and perhaps it had been as well for the peace of Sir Oswald and his wife had those three likewise died in infancy; for pain they all brought home in one shape or other. They were self-willed and disobedient; preferring their own ways. The son wished to go into the army: his father had the greatest possible aversion to it; but he persisted, and went, in spite of remonstrance. The younger daughter, Frances, married an old man for his rank: Sir Oswald objected to it; the man's character was of startling notoriety; but Frances took her own will and married him. A few short months only, and she was back again at Thorndyke, driven to take refuge from her husband in her father's home. The elder daughter, Mary, married Mr. Cray, a gentleman of no account in comparison with the Oswalds of Thorndyke. To this the most strenuous objection of all was made by Sir Oswald and his lady--in their haughty pride they looked down with utter contempt upon Mr. Cray. Miss Oswald disputed the grounds of their objection, urging that Mr. Cray, though of no particular note, was at least of gentle blood and breeding, and though his means might be small,shedeemed them sufficient. It was of no use: she could make no impression on her father and mother, she could not shake their refusal of consent, and she married Mr. Cray without it. Public opinion on the matter was divided. Some took Miss Oswald's part. She was of an age to judge for herself, being, in fact, no longer very young; and there appeared no good reason, save that he was not wealthy, for objecting to Mr. Cray. But her family--father, mother, brother, sister--bitterly resented it, and said she had disgraced them.
Mr. Cray had about eight hundred a-year, derivable from money in the funds, and he lived in the Abbey at Hallingham. The Oswalds enjoyed some three or four thousand a-year, landed property, and they lived at Thorndyke, and were baronets, and very grand. Of course there was a great difference; but some thought the difference might have been got over by Sir Oswald. Some went so far as to say that Mr. Cray, with his fine manly person and good conduct, was a better man than that shrivelled old lord who was breaking the heart of his poor wife, the younger daughter. Sir Oswald and Lady Oswald could not be brought to see it; none of the Oswalds could see it; and, take them altogether--brothers, cousins, uncles and nephews--there was a large family of them.
Mary Oswald married Mr. Cray, and he brought her home to Hallingham Abbey, and her friends never saw her after; that is, they never would recognise her. Many a Tuesday, on which day the family from Thorndyke would drive into Hallingham in their carriage and four--as was the habit with some of the county people--did they pass her without notice. They would be in the large close carriage, the old baronet and my lady, and their daughter Frances--who had no home now but theirs--opposite to them, and they would see Mrs. Cray at the Abbey windows, alone or with her husband, as the case might be, for their road took them past it, and all the greeting they gave her was a stony stare. Time went on, and there appeared a baby at her side, a pretty little fellow in long petticoats, held in his nurse's arms. That baby was named Oswald Oswald, and was the Mr. Oswald Cray whom you have seen: but the stare from the baronet's carriage was not less stony than before.
A twelvemonth more, when Oswald could just begin to run about in his pretty white frocks, and get his sturdy legs into grief, his hands into mischief, another child was born, and died. Poor Mrs. Cray died herself a few weeks afterwards. People said she had grown weak, fretting after Thorndyke, after her father and mother, lamenting their hardness, regretting her own disobedience; but people are prone to talk, and often say things for which there's not a shadow of foundation. She died without having seen her friends--unreconciled; and when Mr. Cray wrote to Sir Oswald a very proper letter, not familiar, but giving the details of her death, no answer was accorded him. Mrs. Cray, as Mary Oswald, had possessed a small income independent of her father, and this on her death passed to her little son. It was just one hundred and six pounds per year, and she made it her dying request that he should use the surname of Oswald in addition to that of Cray--should be known henceforth as Master Oswald Cray.
And it was so; and when the boy first entered a noted public school for gentlemen's sons, far away from Hallingham, and the boys saw him sign his exercises and copies "O. Oswald Cray," they asked him what the "O" was for. For his Christian name, he answered. Was not Oswald his Christian name? they wanted to know. Yes, his Christian and his surname both, he said--Oswald Oswald. It was his grandpapa's Christian and surname, Sir Oswald Oswald. Oh! washehis grandfather asked the boys. Yes; but--Oswald added in his innate love of truth--he had never been the better for him, Sir Oswald had never spoken to him in his life; there was something unpleasant between him and his papa, he did not know what. No; at that stage of the boy's age he was unconscious what the breach was, or that his dead mother had made it.
Poor Oswald Cray had not had a very happy childhood's life; he scarcely knew what was meant by the words, home-ties, home-love.Hehad never enjoyed them. There was a second Mrs. Cray, and a second family, and she did not like the boy Oswald, or care that he should be at home. He was but four years old when he was despatched to a far-off preparatory school, where he was to stay the holidays as well as the half-years. Now and then, about once in two years or so, he would be had home for a fortnight at Christmas, and Mr. Cray would make an occasional journey to see him.
It was at ten years old that he was removed to the public school, where the boys asked him the meaning of the "O." Before that time came, grief had penetrated to the family of Sir Oswald Oswald. His only son and heir had died in battle in India; his daughter Frances, who had never gone back to the old lord, had died at Thorndyke; and Sir Oswald and his wife were childless. Neither survived the year, and when Oswald was eleven years old, and getting to hold his own in the school, the title had devolved on the next brother, Sir John. Sir John was sixty when he came into it, and had no children. He had offended the Oswald family in the same way that Mary Oswald had offended them, by marrying a lady whose family was not as good as his own.
That lady was the present widow, Lady Oswald, now lamenting over the threatened innovation of the railway sheds. Sir John Oswald enjoyed the title for four years only, and then it lapsed to a cousin, for Sir John had no children. The cousin, Sir Philip, enjoyed it still, and lived at Thorndyke, and his eldest son would succeed him. They were proud also, those present Oswalds of Thorndyke, and never had spoken to Oswald Cray in their lives. The prejudices of old Sir Oswald had descended upon them, and Sir Philip and Lady Oswald would pass Oswald Cray, if by chance they met him, with as stony a stare as had ever greeted his poor mother.
Perhaps the only one of the whole Oswald family upon whom the prejudices had not descended was the widow of Sir John. Upon the death of her husband, when she had to leave Thorndyke, she took on lease the house at Hallingham, and had never removed from it. Her jointure was not a large one; but Sir John had bequeathed to her certain moneys absolutely, and these were at her own disposal. These moneys were also being added to yearly, for she did not spend all her income; so that it was supposed Lady Oswald would leave a pretty little sum behind her, by which somebody would benefit. There was no lack of "somebodies" to look out for it, for Lady Oswald had two nephews with large families, both of whom wanted help badly. One of these nephews, the Reverend Mr. Stephenson, was a poor curate, struggling to bring up his seven children upon one hundred a year. Lady Oswald sent him a little help now and then; but she was not fond of giving away her money.
The pride and prejudices of the family had not fallen upon her and she noticed and welcomed Oswald Cray. He was fifteen when she settled at Hallingham, and she had him to spend his first holidays with her afterwards. She had continued to notice him ever since, to invite him occasionally, and she was in her way fond of him; but it was not in the nature of Lady Oswald to feel much fondness for any one.
And yet, though not in her inmost heart cherishing the prejudices of the Oswalds, she did in a degree adopt them. She could not be independent and brave them off. Conscious that she was looked down upon herself by the Oswalds, she could not feel sufficiently free to take up her own standard of conduct, and fling those prejudices utterly to the winds. Upon tolerably good terms with Thorndyke, paying it occasional state visits, and receiving state visits from it in return, she did not openly defy all Thorndyke's prejudices. Though she acknowledged Oswald Cray as a relative, received him as an equal, there it ended, and she never, by so much as a word or a nod, recognised his father, Mr. Cray. She never had known him, and she did not enter upon the acquaintance. But in this there was nothing offensive, nothing that need have hurt the feelings of the Crays; Lady Oswald and they were strangers, and she was not bound to make their acquaintance, any more than she was that of other gentlepeople about Hallingham, moving in a sphere somewhat inferior to herself.
Mr. Cray had continued to reside at Hallingham Abbey, and to live at it in a style that his income did not justify. However the Oswalds may have despised him, he did not despise himself; neither did Hallingham. Mr. Cray of the Abbey was of note in the town; Mr. Cray was courted and looked up to; Mr. Cray went to dinner-parties, and gave them; Mr. Cray's wife was fashionable and extravagant, and so were Mr. Cray's daughters; and altogether Mr. Cray was a great man, and spent thousands where he ought to have spent hundreds.
He had four children, not counting Oswald--Marcus and three daughters--and it cost something to bring them out in the world. Marcus, changeable and vacillating by nature, fixed upon half a dozen professions or occupations for himself, before he decided upon the one he finally embraced--that of a doctor. Chance, more than anything else, caused him to decide on this at last. Altogether what with home extravagance and the cost of his children, Mr. Cray became an embarrassed man; and when he died, about two years previous to the opening of this story, a very slender support was left for his wife and daughters. His will did not even mention Oswald. Two or three hundred pounds were left to Marcus--the rest to Mrs. Cray for her life, and to go to her daughters afterwards.
Oswald had not expected any. Where a home gives no affection, it is not very likely to give money. When Oswald had come of age he found that his own income, of which his father was trustee, had no only been spent upon his education, but the principal had been very considerably drawn upon as well--in fact, it would take years to redeem it. "I was obliged to do it, Oswald," his father said. "I could not limit your educational expenses, and there was the heavy premium to pay in Parliament Street. I'd willingly have paid all cost myself; but it has not been in my power."
Oswald was not ungenerous. He grasped his father's hand and warmly thanked him, saying it was only right his own money should pay his cost when there were so many at home to educate. Ah, it was not themoneyhe regretted. Had every sixpence of it been spent--why, it was spent--he was young and strong, with a good profession before him, and brains and hands to work it, he could make his own way in the world, and he should make it. No, it was not the money; but what Oswald had been hurt at, was the manner in which they had estranged him from his home; had kept him from the father's affection which he had yearned for. He knew that the fault had been Mrs. Cray's; that his father held him aloof only under her influence. He did not allow himself to blame his father even in his own heart; but he could not help thinking that, were he ever placed in a similar situation, he should openly love and cherish his first-born son, in spite of all the second wives in the world. Oswald had yet to learn by experience how utterly futile is that boast which we are all apt to make--that we should act so differently in other people's places. Never was there a truer aphorism than the homely saying: "Nobody knows where the shoe pinches save those who wear it."
Oswald Cray had been born proud: it might be detected in every tone of his decisive voice, in every turn of his well-set head, in every lineament of his haughty features. He could not help it. It is well to repeat this assertion, because pride is sometimes looked upon as a failing demanding heavy reproach. There it was, and he could not shake it out of him any more than he could shake out his other qualities or feelings. It was discerned in him when a little child; it was seen conspicuously in his schooldays; it reigned paramount in his early manhood. "The boy has the proud spirit of his grandfather Sir Oswald," quoth the gossips; and no doubt it was from that quarter that it had come. Only in his later days, those years between twenty and thirty when thought and experience were coming to him, did it grow less observable, for he had the good sense to endeavour to keep it in due subjection.
But it was not a bad sort of pride, after all. It was not the foolish pride of the Oswalds generally, who deemed everybody beneath them; it was rather that pride of innate rectitude which keeps its owner from doing a mean, a wrong, or a disgraceful action. It was the pride of self-esteem, of self-reliance; that feeling which says: "I must not do so and so, for I should disgrace myself--those careless-living men around me may do these things, but I am superior to it" Other young men might plunge into the world's follies; pride, if no better motive, kept Oswald Cray from them. He could not for very shame have borne a tainted conscience; he could not have shown a clear outside to the world, open and fearless, knowing that his heart was foul within.
He was not proud of his family descent from the Oswalds. Quite the contrary. He found no cause to pride himself on either the Oswalds or the Crays. So far as the Oswalds went, many a hundred times had he wished they were no connections of his. All his life he had received from them nothing but slights; and slights to a man of Oswald Cray's temperament bring the deepest mortification. He knew now how they had treated his mother; he felt to his very heart how they despised himself. If he could have changed his dead grandfather into somebody else, a little less foolish and a great deal less grand, he had been better pleased.
But this very isolation from his mother's family had tended to foster his own pride--the mortification which it induced had fostered it--just as the isolation from his own home, from his father and the second family, had contributed to render him self-reliant. It is not your home darling, bred up in fond dependence, sheltered from the world's storms as a hothouse flower, who becomes the self-reliant man, but he who is sent out early to rough it, who has nobody to care for him, or to love him, in all the wide earth.
Not a more self-reliant man lived than Oswald Cray. He was sure, under God, ofhimself, of his good conduct; and I think it is about the best surety that a man or woman can carry with them through life. In moments of doubt, perplexity, difficulty, whatever might be its nature, he turned to his own heart and took its counsel--and it never failed him. It was with himself he deliberated; it was his own good judgment, his right feeling, that he called to his aid. He had an honest, upright nature, was strictly honourable; a proud man, if it is the proper sort of pride, nearly always is so. His ambition was great, but not extravagant; it did not soar him aloft in flights of fancy, vain, generally speaking, as they are absurd. He was determined to rise to the summit of his profession--that of a civil engineer--but he entertained no foolish dreams beyond it. To attain to that, he would use every diligence, every effort, consistent with uprightness and honour; and dishonourable efforts Oswald Cray would have scorned to use, would have shaken them from him as he shook a summer-day's dust from his shoes.
He was connected with a firm of high repute in Parliament Street: Bracknell and Street. Oswald Cray was a partner, but his name did not appear as yet: and, as you may readily imagine, the lion's share of the profits did not fall to him. In fact, he had entered it very much as his half-brother had entered the house of Dr. Davenal--to obtain a footing. For more substantial recompense he was content to wait. Bracknell and Street were engineers to the Hallingham line, and to Oswald Cray had been entrusted its working and management.
He had said to Lady Oswald, in answer to her reproach of his not calling to see her more frequently, that his time when at Hallingham was much occupied. True, so far: but the chief and real motive which kept him from her house was a sort of sensitive feeling relating to her money. It was not that he dreaded people's saying he was looking after it: he would have scorned that kind of reproach: but he did dread lest any degree of intimacy, any pushing of himself in her way, should cause her to leave it to him. I am not sure that you will quite understand this; understand him or his feeling. None but a man of the nicest honour, who was entrenched, as it were, in his own pride, the pride of rectitude, could have felt this delicacy. He did not want Lady Oswald's money; he knew that he had no claim upon any of it, no right to it, and he would not put himself in her way more than he could help, even as a passing visitor. Gossiping Hallingham had said: "My lady would be leaving her nest-egg to Mr. Oswald Cray." The gossip had penetrated to Mr. Oswald Cray's ears, and his only notice of it was a haughty gesture of contempt: but in all probability it tended to increase his dislike to go to Lady Oswald's. During these business visits at Hallingham, he sojourned at a respectable inn of the old school, a little beyond the town and the Abbey Gardens, called the "Apple Tree," and had recently become more intimate with the family of Dr. Davenal.
Driven forth all his life from his father's home, allowed to enter it but at rare intervals, and then as a formally-invited guest, it cannot be supposed that Oswald Cray entertained any strong affection for his half-brother and sisters. Such a state of things would have been unnatural, quite in opposition to ordinary probabilities. It would be wrong to say that they disliked each other; but there was certainly no love: civil indifference may best express the feeling. Marcus, the eldest child of the second Mrs. Cray, was from three to four years younger than Oswald. It had been better that Mrs. Cray had fostered an affection between these boys, but she did just the reverse. She resented the contempt cast on her husband by the Oswalds of Thorndyke; she resented, most unreasonably, the fact that the little money of the first Mrs. Cray should have descended at once to Oswald; she even resented the child's having taken the distinguishing name: he was Oswald Cray, her son, plain Cray. How worse than foolish this was of her, how wrong, perhaps the woman might yet learn: but altogether it did excite her against Oswald; and she had kept him aloof from her own children, and encouraged those children to be jealous of him. When the boys became men, they met often, and were cordial enough with each other; but there was no feeling of brotherhood, there never could be any.
For a twelvemonth after Mr. Cray's death, Mrs. Cray remained at the Abbey, and then she left it. It was too expensive a residence for her now--its rent swallowing up half her income. She removed with her daughters to a watering-place in Wales, where, as she fractiously said, she hoped they should "get along." Marcus, who had qualified for a surgeon, became assistant to Dr. Davenal, and that gentleman at length gave him a small share in the profits. It was not a regularly-constituted firm--"Davenal and Cray"--nothing of the sort. Hallingham knew that he was admitted a partner so far as receiving a share went; and they knew that that was all.
He was liked in Hallingham, this young doctor, and Dr. Davenal had done it in kindness, to give him a standing. As the time went on, he would have no doubt a larger and larger share--some time succeed to the whole. He was considered a suitable partner for the doctor; the Crays of the Abbey had always been looked up to in the town; and young Cray's skill as a medical man was in the ascendant. Lady Oswald was getting to like him very much; she evinced a desire to patronise him, to push forward his interests; and Dr. Davenal was really in hope that she would adopt him as her attendant for everyday calls instead of himself. Mr. Cray could spare the time for these useless visits better than Dr. Davenal. He, Mr. Cray, resided in lodgings in the town, and was growing in its favour daily in a professional point of view: not that he had displayed any unusual skill, but simply that Hallingham gave him credit for possessing it, because they likedhim.
There was a large family of the Davenals, as there was of the Oswalds--speaking, in both cases, of the days gone by, and comprising collateral branches. Years and years ago Surgeon Davenal's had been a noted name in Hallingham; he had a large practice, and he had several children. It is not necessary to speak of all the children. Richard (the present Dr. Davenal) was the eldest son, and had succeeded to the practice. The two other sons, Walter and John, had chosen to enter the Church, and both, when ordained, had gone out to the West Indies; one of them became chaplain to the Bishop of Barbadoes, the other obtained a church in the island. Both had married there, and Caroline Davenal was the only child of Walter, the elder of the two.
Sara was twelve years old when her cousin Caroline arrived in England, an orphan; father and mother were both dead. A poor clergyman in the West Indies, dying young, was not likely to have amassed money, and the little child, Caroline, had literally nothing. Her father wrote an appealing letter to his brother Richard, on his deathbed, and Richard Davenal was not one to reject it.
"She shall be my child henceforth, and Sara's sister," said he, in the warmth of his heart, when the letter and the child arrived at Hallingham. And so she had been.
But it was by no means so certain that Caroline Davenal would not some time be rich. A very large sum of money was pending in her mother's family, who were West Indians. It had become the subject of dispute, of litigation, and was at length thrown into that formidable court in England--Chancery. Should it be decided in one way, Caroline would derive no benefit; if in another, she would come in for several thousand pounds. The probabilities were in her favour--but Chancery, as you all know, is a capricious court, and does not hurry itself to inconvenience.
Upon the death of Dr. Davenal's wife, his sister Bettina came to reside with him, and to rule his children. He had but three--Richard, Edward, and Sara. There had been others between Edward and Sara, but they died young. Fine lads, those of Dr. Davenal, although they took to plaguing stern Miss Bettina, and aggravatingly called her "Aunt Bett." Fine young men, too, they grew up--well reared, liberally educated. Richard embraced his father's profession; for Edward a commission in the army was purchased, in accordance with his strong wish, and he was now Captain Davenal.
And Richard Davenal, the eldest son, where was he? Ah! it was a grievous story to look back upon. It had clouded the life of Dr. Davenal, and would cloud it to the end. Richard was dead, and Dr. Davenal blamed himself as the remote cause.
When Richard had completed his studies, and passed the College of Surgeons, he returned to Hallingham, and joined his father in practice, as it had been intended that he should. He grew greatly in favour: he promised to be as clever as his father: and Hallingham courted him. He was a man of attractive presence, of genial manners, and he mixed a great deal of pleasure with his life of work. Dr. Davenal spoke to him seriously and kindly. He said that too much pleasure did not agree long with work, could not agree with it, and he begged him to be more steady. Richard laughed, and said he would. A short while, and startling news reached the ears of Dr. Davenal--that Richard was thinking of marrying one who was undesirable. Richard, his fine boy, of whom he was so fond and proud, marryher!It was not against the young lady herself that so much could be urged, but against her connections. They were most objectionable. Dr. Davenal pointed out to Richard that to wed this girl would be as a blight upon his prospects, a blow to his reputation. Richard could not be brought to see it. Though not equal to themselves in position, she was respectable, he said; and her connections had nothing to do with it--he did not marry them, he married her. The feud continued: not an open feud, you understand, but an undercurrent of opposition, of coolness. Richard would not give up his project, and Dr. Davenal would not view it with anything but aversion. As to giving his consent, that Dr. Davenal never would; and Richard, hitherto dutiful, was not one to go the length of marrying in defiance.
It was at this time, or a little before it, that the dispute had arisen in Barbadoes touching the money already spoken of. Particulars of it were written to Dr. Davenal by his brother John, explaining also how Caroline's interests were involved. He, the Reverend John Davenal, said in the same letter that he was anxious to send his two little boys to Europe for their education, and was waiting to find them a fit escort; he did not care to trust them alone in the ship. As Dr. Davenal read this letter, a sudden thought darted into his mind like a flash of lightning. What if he sent out Richard? Richard could sift the details about this fortune, could, if expedient, urge Caroline's interests; he could bring back the two little boys, and--and--the chief thought of all lay behind--it might break off the engagement with the young girl here, Fanny Parrack! Quite a glow of satisfaction came over Dr. Davenal's face at the thought.
He sought a conference with his son. He told him that he wished him to take a voyage to Barbadoes; that Caroline's interests required somebody to go out; that the two little boys had no friend to bring them over. Richard hesitated. To most young men a visit to the West Indies would be a welcome distraction; but Richard Davenal seemed strangely to hold back from it--to shrink from its very mention. Did some mysterious warning of what it would bring forth for him dart unconsciously across his spirit? Or did he fear that it might in some way lead to his losing the young lady upon whom he had set his heart? It cannot be known. Certain it was, remembered, oh how remembered afterwards, that an unaccountable repugnance on Richard's part did evince itself, and it was only to the persistent urgent persuasion of Dr. Davenal that he at length yielded. He yielded, as it were, under protest, and he said he did, sacrificing his own strong wishes against it to his father's.
He set sail, and he wrote on his arrival at Barbadoes, after a fine passage; and the next letter they received, a fortnight afterwards, was not from him, but from his uncle, the clergyman. Richard had died of yellow fever.
It seemed to turn the current of Dr. Davenal's life. He blamed himself as the cause: but for his scheming--and in that moment of exaggerated feeling, of intense grief, he called it scheming--Richard, his best beloved son, would be still by his side to bless him. He had never been a scheming man, but an open and straightforward one; and never, so long as he lived, would he scheme again. In his unhappiness, he began to reproach himself for having needlessly opposed Richard's marriage--to believe that he might have done worse than in marrying Fanny Parrack. He sent for her, and he found her a pretty, modest, gentle girl, and his repentance heaped itself upon him fourfold. He informed her very kindly and considerately of the unhappy fact of Richard's death, and he told her that should any memento be found left for her amidst Richard's effects when they arrived--any letter, no matter what--it should be given to her.
But that death had changed Dr. Davenal into an old man; in the two years which had elapsed since, he had aged ten, both in looks and constitution. No wonder that a spasm of pain came over his face when Mr. Cray asked him whether he should forbid Caroline to him. You can understand his answer now: "So long as I live I shall never 'forbid' a marriage to any over whom I hold control:" and you can understand the anguish of the tone in which it was spoken.
And that ends the chapter of retrospect.