Do you remember the severe weather of the Christmas of 1860? How for once we had an old-fashioned Christmas day, when the icicles hung bright and frozen from the trees and the ponds were alive with skaters, after the manner of the Christmases we read of, of the days gone by. It was indeed a bitter winter, that at the close of 1860, and an unusual number of the poor and friendless, the sick and ailing, passed from its biting sharpness to a better world.
In the mind of one it almost seemed as though he had held some mysterious prevision of it; and that was Oswald Cray. When deliberating, the previous autumn, whether he should go to Spain himself, times and again had the thought recurred to him--what if we have a sharp winter?--how will Allister weather it? And now that the sharp winter, more terribly sharp than even Oswald dreamt of, had indeed come, he was thankful to have sacrificed his own self-interest. In that more southern climate Allister would no feel the cold of this; and it almost seemed as if the thought alone brought to Oswald his reward.
"Isn't it stunning, Aunt Bett?"
You will probably recognise the words as likely to emanate from nobody's lips but Mr. Dick Davenal's. Mr. Dick had arrived for the holidays; rather against the inclination as well as the judgment of Miss Bettina, but she did not see her way in courtesy to exclude him. Leopold had been in town with her since October, she and Sara nursing him; so it would have been unkind to keep Dick at school alone for the holidays. Miss Bettina said London was a bad place for Dick; he would be getting into all sorts of mischief: perhaps get run over, perhaps get lost; it was uncertain what: but Sara, in her love for the boy, promised to keep him in order and out of harm. A rash undertaking.
What of the Great Wheal Bang? The Great Wheal Bang was gone for ever It had passed out ignobly, never probably to be heard of as a mine again, except in name at certain law courts, to which some of its angry shareholders persisted in bringing it. Mr. Barker was abroad, and did not come home to face the storm; it appeared there was no law to force him home, the matters of the Wheal Bang just escaped that; and he carried on a free-and-easy correspondence with some of the exasperated shareholders, who told him to his face in their answers that he deserved hanging.
And Mark Cray? Mark Cray was nowhere. The defunct company did their best to find him, but, try as they would, they could not discover his hiding-place. They assumed he was out of the country, most probably with Barker, and perhaps their home search was, through that very assumption, less minute than it might have been. A run from danger is always more formidable than a faced one; and if Mark Cray had only faced those shareholders he would no doubt have found their bite less hurtful than their bark. That they were loud and threatening and angry, was true; but Mark would have done well to meet the worst, and get it over. The luxurious house in Grosvenor Place had been long ago abandoned by Mark and his wife; and so temporarily had it been lived in, so fleeting had been the enjoyment of the carriages, the servants, the society, and all the rest of the accessories, that altogether that time seemed only like a dream.
"Isn't it stunning, Aunt Bett?"
Dick was standing at the dining-room window, his sparkling eyes devouring the ice in the streets, the tempting slides in the gutters. A young gentleman who was coming to the house with a small tray of meat upon his back had just gone down one beautifully, and Dick longed to be behind him. Leo stepped to the window to look, and thought he should like it too; but Leo was not in strong health, as Dick was.
"Isn't it what?" asked Aunt Bett, looking up quickly. "Raining?"
"Stunning," roared Dick.
"I wish you would learn to speak like a gentleman, Richard, and not use those expressions. If they do for school, they don't do for home."
"I have been oiling my skates this morning," continued Dick. "They are rather short, but they'll do."
"Oiling what?"
"My skates."
"What cakes?"
"Sk--a--tes, Aunt Bett. Everything will bear today."
"Nothing bears in London," said Miss Bettina. "You must not try it, Richard. A great many boys are drowned every winter in the Serpentine."
"What muffs they must be!" returned Dick; "Aunt Bett, the ponds would bear you if you'd put on a pair of skates and try. They'd bear me a hundred times over."
"Would they?" said Miss Bettina. She turned to Sara, who was busy at the table and pointed with her finger to indicate Dick.
"I will not have him to go into this danger. Do you hear, Sara?Youundertook to keep him out of harm, if he came to us; so see to it. Perhaps the best plan will be to lock up his skates. I don't want to have him brought home drowned."
Dick was resentful. He might have broken into open rebellion but for fear of being sent back to enjoy his holidays at school. He sat in a sullen sort of mood, on the edge of a chair, his hands in his pockets clicking their contents about, and his boots beating time restlessly on the carpet.
"How it's all altered!" he exclaimed.
"How is what altered?" inquired Sara. They were alone then. Miss Bettina had gone from the room to give Leopold his eleven o'clock dose of strengthening medicine.
"Since Uncle Richard's time. Why, he bought me those very skates last winter, when that frost came in November. That is, he sent word to school that I might have them. And then we had no more ice at all! and Uncle Richard kept wishing through the holidays there might be some for us!He'dhave let us skate."
Sara was silent. Things had indeed altered since then.
"It's an awful shame of Aunt Bett! The ice stunning thick, and a fellow can't enjoy it! Drowned! She might get drowned herself perhaps, butIshouldn't. Uncle Richard would have let us skate in Hallingham!" added Dick, excessively resentful. "He wanted us to skate."
"But I think it was a little different, Richard dear. Those ponds at Hallingham were not deep; and people do get drowned in the Serpentine. And there's nobody to go with you." Dick tossed his head. "Perhaps you think I want somebody! You had better send a nursemaid. Fine holidays these are!"
A few minutes more of sitting still and Dick could stand it no longer. He darted into the passage and snatched his cap. Sara, quick as he, caught him with the street-door in his hand.
"Dick, it must not be. You know I have answered for you to Aunt Bettina."
"All right, Sara. I'm not going near the Serpentine, or any other deep water."
"You promise?"
"Yes; on my honour. There! Why, I have not got my skates. I'm going up and down the street-slides; that's all. You can't expect me to sit twirling my thumbs all day in Aunt Bett's parlour, as Leo does."
She had no fear then. If Dick once gave his honour, or if put upon his honour, he could but be a loyal knight. Left to himself, no promise extracted from him, he would have decamped right off to the Serpentine, or to anything else mischievous and dangerous; but not now.
But Dick "took it out"--the words were his own--in street-slides. All the most attractiveruisseauxwithin a few miles of home Mr. Dick exercised his legs upon. It required a terrible amount of resolution to keep his promise not to "go near" the forbidden water; and how long Dick stood in envy, his nose frozen to the park railings as he watched the streams of people pouring towards the ice, he never knew. He was not in a good humour; the slides were very ignoble pastime indeed, only fit for street-boys; and he thought if there was one gentleman more ill-used than another that day in all Her Majesty's dominions, that one was himself.
Mr. Dick stopped out his own time. He knew that he would be expected home about one o'clock to have something to eat; but as nothing had been expressly said to him, he took rather a savage pleasure in letting them expect, punishing his hunger. He saw a man selling hot potatoes; and he bought three and ate them, skins and all. Dick was not in the least troubled with proud notions: Leo would have looked askance at the tempting edible, and passed on the other side; Dick danced round the man's machine while he feasted, in the face and eyes of the passers-by. If Miss Davenal had but seen him!
Altogether, what with the slides, the hot potatoes, and the temper, Mr. Richard Davenal remained out long after dark. When he began to think it might be as well to return home, and to feel as if fifteen wolves were inside him fighting for their dinner, he was in some obscure and remote region of Chelsea, where the population was more crowded than aristocratic, and the ice abundant. Happening to cast his eyes to a clock in a baker's shop he saw that it wanted but twenty-five minutes to six.
"My?" ejaculated Dick in his dismay. Miss Davenal's dinner-hour had been altered from six to five while the boys were with her, and Dick had certainly meant to be home to time. He had not thought it was so late as this. Dick's hair stood on end, and the wolves fought desperately.
"Suppose old Bett should say I shan't have any dinner?"
The shop next door to the baker's was a cook's shop--as they are called: and perhaps Dick's dreadful doubt caused him irresistibly to linger for a fond moment at the window and gaze at the attractions inside. Under Dick's very nose was a steaming mound of beef just out of the pot, some parsnips round it; other joints were there in plenty; peas-pudding, plum-pudding, sausages, and a whole host of things irresistible to a boy in Dick's famishing condition. He mechanically put his hand into his pocket, lest a stray sixpence might by some miracle be there. In vain. Dick Davenal was one who could not keep money for an hour, and his having sufficient to buy the potatoes was a fact notable.
Hurried as he was, he could not tear himself from the tempting shop. The shopman, in a white apron, a great carving-knife and fork in his hand, was cutting thin slices from a cold round of beef and placing them in the scale on a piece of white paper. The balance went down, and he rolled the paper round the meat and handed it to the customer waiting for it, a young woman--or rather lady, for she looked like one--who wore a black veil over her face. She gave him sixpence and some halfpence in return, but the man did not seem to like the sixpence; he held it close to the gas and then showed it to her, and she put her veil aside and bent her face nearer while she looked at it.
If ever Dick Davenal believed he was in a dream he believed so then. He rubbed his eyes; he rubbed his frozen nose; he stared through the intervening steam; and he pinched himself to see whether he was awake. For that face was the face of his cousin, Mrs. Cray.
Dick could not believe his senses. The shopman apparently decided that the sixpence was a good one, and put it in his till, and the lady had left the shop before Dick recovered his bewilderment. He had believed Mr. and Mrs. Cray were abroad. From a shrewd boy like Dick it had been impossible to guard the secret that something was wrong; besides, he had heard of the failure of the Great Wheal Bang, and that its promoters were away, abroad or somewhere.
But that was surely Caroline gone out of the shop with a paper of meat in her hand! Dick's spirit went down to zero. Howeverhemight condescend to the purchase of hot potatoes, and such like stray escapades, he did not like to see Caroline buy cooked meat and carry it away with her. Dick knew that something or other must be all wrong, and he suddenly felt as timid as Leo.
She crossed the road and went down a by-street, where the lights were scanty and the houses poor. Dick followed her. He saw how tightly her veil was drawn over her face; and she walked with her head down: it might be to keep out the cold, or it might be to avoid observation.
She turned into a house on the left-hand side whose door stood open; a shabby-looking house, but sufficiently large. Dick, hardly certain in his own mind yet, deliberated whether he should follow her and show himself: and when he at length went to the door nobody was in sight. He took courage and knocked; and a woman came out of the parlour on the right.
"Is Mrs. Cray here?" asked Dick.
"Mrs. who?"
"Mrs. Cray. She's just gone in."
"There's nobody here of that name. Who's Mrs. Cray? You have mistook the house, young man." Dick had his wits about him, as the saying runs, and they were sufficiently alert to prevent his insisting on the point of its being Mrs. Cray. "I'm sure I saw some lady come in," said he.
"Mrs. Mark came in a minute ago, for I met her in the passage. First floor if you want her."
"Can I go up?" asked Dick.
"That's as you please," returned the woman, who was crusty enough to be first cousin to Mrs. Benn. "The other lodgers in the house is nothing to me, who goes up to 'em or who doesn't."
She retreated inside the parlour and banged the door. Dick stumbled upstairs in the dark, the words "first floor" having guided him. Some light came in from a window on the landing, and he distinctly heard Caroline's voice in the front room. Dick-fashion, he burst in without knocking.
Caroline gave a short scream. She was untying her bonnet, and the paper of meat, slowly unfolding itself, lay on the table. It was a plain sitting-room carpeted with drugget, a large sofa covered with dark blue stuff seeming to take up one side of it. A white cloth was spread on part of the table, with some tea-cups and saucers, a loaf of bread, and a piece of butter.
"Caroline, I was sure it was you!" The first moment of surprise over, Caroline threw herself on a chair and burst into tears. Dick sat down opposite to her and stared round the room, staring off his bewilderment. Poor Dick was not possessed of any superfluous sentiment, and the sobs and emotion only made him feel awkward. The sight of a home face was too much for Mrs. Cray.
"Is Mark here?"
Dick asked presently.
"No." Dick glanced round again, but he could see no door except the one he had entered at.
"I'm sure I heard you talking to somebody, Caroline. It made me know which was the room."
"I was talking to myself. The words I said were, 'I hope Mark will not be long,' and I suppose I spoke them aloud."
A few final sobs, and the emotion passed. Dick was timid, almost nervous, and he never remembered to have been so in his life. A thought crossed the boy's mind of what his uncle Richard would say, could he see this curious state of things.
"Do you live here, Caroline!"
"Yes. We went away in the country for a little time at first; but it was so out of the way of hearing anything, so dull, so wretched, that we came back again. Mark thought it would be better to come pretty near to the old neighbourhood; that there was less chance of our being looked for there than elsewhere."
"You don't have all the house."
"All the house!" echoed Caroline. "We only have this room and the use of the kitchen, which I hardly ever go down to. That sofa is a bed," she added, pointing to it. "Mark draws it out at night."
Dick felt more at sea than ever. "Has Mark got no money?"
Caroline shook her head. "There's a little left; not much. We did not save a thing from Grosvenor Place. People came in and took possession while Mark was away, and I got frightened and left it. Afterwards, when my clothes were asked for, they sent me a boxful of the poorest I had, and said those were all. I don't know whether it was that they kept the best, or that the maid-servants helped themselves to them. Dick!" she passionately added, "I'd rather die than have to bear all this."
"Do you have to go out and buy the meat?" questioned Dick, unable to get the practical part he had seen out a his head.
"There's a boy that waits on the lodgers, the landlady's son, and he goes on errands sometimes. Mark thought we should be safer in a house like this, where there are different lodgers, and one does not interfere with the concerns of the others; that we should be less likely to attract notice. In truth we were afraid to venture on a better place where persons might recognise us."
"Afraid of what?" questioned Dick.
"I'm sure I hardly know," she answered. "Of his being arrested, I suppose."
"I say, does Sara know you are here?"
Caroline shook her head. "I have written her a note twice, saying we are safe; but Mark would not let me give the address. Aunt Bettina has shaken us off, there's no doubt; she'll never forgive Mark."
"Forgive him for what!"
"Oh, altogether," returned Caroline with a gesture of impatience. "There was the leaving Hallingham, and Sara's money, and other things."
"Where is Mark?" continued Dick.
"He won't be long. He strolls out a little after dark, but he does not care to venture abroad by daylight. And so, you are up for the holidays, I suppose?"
Dick nodded. "Aunt Bett wouldn't have us at midsummer. But Leo broke his arm, and he wasn't strong, and she sent for him; and then she said I might come up for Christmas, and we could both go back to school together. I say, wasn't it unkind of her not to have us in the summer? She said her house was small. Summer holidays are jollier than winter ones, especially when they don't let you go on the ice."
Did a remembrance cross Caroline of somebody else who would not have them in the summer?--whose house was not small? Probably not. Caroline had room only for her own griefs. Since the falling of the blow she had existed in a state of bewilderment. The change was so great, the order of things so completely altered, that at times she believed she must be in a prolonged dream, and should shortly wake up to reality. As one who has suddenly put ashore in a foreign country, where the land, the customs, the people, and the tongue, are all strange to him, and he can only accept them passively, yielding himself perforce to the necessity of circumstances, so it was with Caroline Cray. Believe me, I am telling you no untrue story.
"How you cough?" exclaimed Dick, as she was interrupted by a heavy fit of coughing, not for the first time.
"I caught a bad cold. It was very bad for a day or two, and I lay in bed. O Dick! I wonder if I shall ever have a bedroom again!"
"Couldn't you have a bedroom as well as this room?" sensibly answered Dick.
"There was only this room to let when we came here, and we thought it would do. It's tolerably good-looking you see, and we are more to ourselves. Every week, too, we are hoping to leave it."
"Where to go to?"
"I don't know. Mark says something will be sure to turn up."
"I say, do they know about this in Barbadoes?"
"Not from us. I daresay Aunt Bettina has taken care to tell them. Is she as deaf as ever, Dick?"
"She's deafer. And she's getting a regular old woman. What do you think? she'd not let me go out skating this morning, for fear----"
A gentleman entered, and cut Dick's revelations short. The boy looked at him in puzzled bewilderment, for he thought he knew him, and yet did not. It was a full minute before Dick recognised him for Mark Cray.
Formerly Mark had whiskers and no moustache; now he had a moustache and no whiskers, and his beard was growing, and his face looked longer. He had on blue spectacles too. Altogether, Dick was hardly certain yet.
Mark did not seem glad to see him. In manner he rather appeared to resent the accident which had discovered them to Dick, than to feel pleasure at it. Caroline put the slices of beef upon a dish, made the tea, and asked Dick to partake.
But Dick declined. And nobody, perhaps, would have given careless Dick credit for the true motive, or for the real self-denial that it was to a hungry boy. He had somehow drawn a conclusion that Mr. and Mrs. Cray had not too much meat for themselves, and he would not lessen it.
"I can't stay now," he said rising, "I shall have Aunt Bett at me as it is. Goodnight, Mr. Cray; goodnight, Caroline."
Mr. Cray followed him down the stairs. "You must be very cautious not to say that you found us here," he said. "Can we depend upon you?"
"As if you couldn't!" returned Dick. "I know! A fellow of ours at school has got a big brother, and he has to be in hiding nine months at least out of every year. I'll tell nobody but Sara." He vaulted off, or perhaps Mark Cray's injunction might have been extended to Sara in particular. When he reached home, Miss Bettina, who had believed nothing less but that he was drowned, and had sent Neal to a circuit of police-stations, met him in the corridor, followed by Sara and Leo.
"You ungrateful boy! Where have you been?"
"Don't, Aunt Bettina! No need to seize hold of me in that way. I have only been sliding. I haven't been to the water."
"You shall go back to school tomorrow," said Miss Bettina, as she turned into the dining-room.
Dick caught his cousin by the arm. "You be off after Aunt Bett, Leo; I want to speak to Sara. I say," he continued in a whisper, as Leo obeyed him, "I have seen Caroline and Mark Cray!"
"Nonsense, Dick! Why did you stay out so and frighten us?"
"I have. I should have been in earlier but for that. Frightened? How stupid you must all be! As if I couldn't take care of myself. I saw Carine in a beef and pudding shop, buying cold meat, and I watched where she went to, and I've been there for half an hour, and I saw Mark. He has shaved off his whiskers, and wears blue----"
"Hush!" breathed Sara, as Dorcas came up the stairs. "You must tell me later."
The cold, bitter, biting winter passed away, and when the lovely spring came round again little trace was left of its effects, save in the remembrance of those in whose homes sickness, or privation, or death, had been busy.
Twoof those visitations had been rife in the poor house of Caroline Cray: sickness and privation. Perhaps you noticed Caroline's reply to Dick's question of whether Mark had no money: there was a little left, she said, not much. Left from what? Dick did not ask.
If ever an unfortunate company had come to grief more completely than other unfortunate companies, it was surely that noted one, the Great Wheal Bang. Sympathising friends--Barker's and Mark's--were wont to assure those gentlemen that they had "managed wretchedly:" and if we may dare to assume that the reproach was levelled at the fact of having secured nothing for themselves, it was a right one. On the day that Mark Cray went up to the offices for the last time he had but a trifling sum of money about him: Caroline had even less in her own purse; and that was all. Barker's word of precaution had secured the diamond ring and studs, and these were converted into money, Mark and Barker equally dividing the spoil. Barker, with his share, took a little tour abroad while the cloud blew over; Mark, as you have seen, went into hiding, and lived upon his part as long as it held out.
Yes, it was an unhappy fact, very debasing indeed after all the glory of Grosvenor Place, lowering as you may feel it to be to this history, Mr. Mark Cray hid himself by day, and slipped out to take the air at dusk in a moustache and blue spectacles. Mark Cray could but be a coward in the hour of trial; he ran from the danger instead of facing it. Had Mark but looked the angry shareholders and the trouble in the face, he need not have been so very fearful; but to look a difficulty in the face was not in the nature of Mark Cray. He scarcely understood what he was afraid of; he did not know what they could do to him--whether imprison him, or make him a bankrupt, or what; and Mark would rather have jumped into the sea than ascertain. He was exactly like a child who runs away screaming from a dark closet, and dare not look to see whether cause for terror is there. Some of us, my friends, have been sadly frightened at shadows.
When this state of affairs was to end, and what was to get Mark out of his difficulty, he did not at present see. As long as the money lasted he was not unduly anxious. He had great faith in something "turning up," he had unlimited faith in Barker; and Barker's letters were pretty frequent, and in the highest degree cheering. Barker happened to have a cousin, about the nineteenth remove, settled at Honfleur, in Normandie, and Barker had steered for the same port, and seemed to be living at ease there. Towards the close of the winter he wrote word to Mark that he had something good in contemplation, connected with Paris, and if it came to anything Mark should share in it.
But when Mark's money was gone things changed. He grew restless and gloomy. He could not starve, he could not go to the workhouse: he must do something. Miss Bettina Davenal would not help them: she said she could not--perhaps with justice. Leopold Davenal had been an expense to her, and was still; he went back to school after the Christmas holidays with Dick, but he was not strong yet, and sundry expensive extras were provided for him out of her pocket. That was not much: but a heavier expense had fallen upon her: for she had repaid Mr. Wheatley the two hundred pounds borrowed by Sara. Sara had disclosed to her aunt the fact of borrowing it, and in her pride Miss Bettina had made a sacrifice and repaid the sum. She had none left to bestow on Mark; there was clearly no help to be had from her.
And Caroline? You can take a look at her as she sat in the sun, which was shining into the room this bright day in early April. Perhaps you remember a remark Dr. Davenal once made--that Caroline was not one, as he believed, to bear well the adversities of life. Dr. Davenal was quite right: neither physically nor mentally did they agree with poor Caroline.
I don't know whether anybody gets ill at once under a great shock. Caroline had not. When it fell upon her she was too stunned, too entirely surprised, to be anything but bewildered. It may be questioned if a change so sudden--from seemingly assured prosperity to hiding and disgrace and poverty--has ever fallen. You may feel inclined to question it in this instance; nevertheless, I repeat that I am telling you the simple truth. The reaction had come now, and Caroline Cray gave way sadly. Her cough, that Dick remarked upon, had got well; but she would lie back in her chair all day, and it seemed next to impossible to get her out of it.
But if the body was at rest the mind was only the more active. Caroline's hours, in point of fact, were pretty equally divided between outward complaining and inward lamentation. Such lamentation is nearly always rebellious, and so was hers. The blow had been so complete; the change was so very great! All that pomp and vanity, all the luxuries, the carelessness, the pleasure attendant on that one past sunshiny wave in life's current, to have given place to this! Perhaps the worst mortification, looking back, was that the play now seemed to have been sounreal; as if they had had no right to indulge in it, were such fools to have embarked in it, worse than fools to have believed in it. Mortified, fretful, miserable, Caroline Cray seemed to live but in repining and repentance. Mark was different He neither repined nor repented; he was always restless, always expecting something to turn up; and he would stalk up and down the room, giving tongue to all sorts of wild visions of what he would do were he but clear of the world and the Great Wheal Bang.
As he was doing now. While Caroline sat listless and inert in her chair, Mark was indulging a dream of the future, sanguine as a child. He had lately taken to consult the newspapers, and one tempting advertisement in particular had attracted him. Mark Cray was getting that experience which comes inevitably in a life of vicissitude; he had yet to learn how many of these advertisements are but traps for the unwary, how next to impossible to be the one successful applicant, if they are genuine. But ever and anon Mark's dream was brought unpleasantly to a break, as the recollection intruded itself that he was not a free man.
"You see, Carine, if I were but clear of that resentful company, there are a hundred good things to be picked up. I'm sure there's a dozen at least in the paper every day. That's a splendid thing, I know, that one advertisement of this morning; any fellow securing that----"
"Where's the use of talking of it?" interrupted Carine. "It all comes to nothing. You know you are not clear of the company."
She spoke in a fretful, peevish tone. Just at first, Mark's sanguine visions of rising again more gloriously than ever, like a phoenix from its ashes, had somewhat infected her, but she was learning what they were worth: as she had just said, "it all came to nothing." Utterly weary was her spirit. Hope deferred making the heart sick; but hope destroyed--and it had come to that with Caroline Cray--maketh it die.
Physical privation tells terribly on the mind as well as the body, and it was telling upon her. They were next door to starving. What made it worse for Caroline was, that hers was a constitutionrequiringthe best of nourishment. The Davenals were a healthy family, but there had been a taint in her mother's blood. These physical privations would alone have made Caroline fretful: and she could not help it.
"I shall be clear of it soon," said Mark.
"But how?"
Even sanguine Mark could not detail the precise means by which the emancipation was to be accomplished. "Oh, somehow," said he, in his careless way. "The company must wind itself up."
"Why can't you apply to Oswald?"
He shook his head very decisively. "I can't facehim. And if I did, he'd not assist me. He has lost too much, and is sure to bear malice."
"Are we to go on like this for ever?"
"I hope we shan't go on so for a month. I wish you'd not talk so, Caroline."
"How am I to talk? You have been saying the same all along?"
"Well it's of no good your looking on the dark side of things. You are always doing it now." Caroline was silent for a few moments, when she suddenly lifted up her hands, and her voice broke into a passionate wail.
"Oh, if that money had been but settled on me, as Uncle Richard wished! This must be a judgment upon us for defying his last commands."
"Rubbish!" said Mark.
"Are we to go out in the street and beg?" she plaintively asked.
"Are you going to be a child? One must get a rub or two through life; Caroline. Barker has been down upon his beam-ends five or six times, just as much as we are, but it has always come right again."
She relapsed into a fit of weeping; half her hours, abed and up, were so spent. Mark had ceased either to soothe or reproach; he had tried both, but ineffectually; and now was fain to let her weep simply because he was helpless to prevent it. Mark Cray could not be unkind; he was not that; but he was hardly the right sort of husband for adversity. Shallow-minded, shallow-hearted, possessed of no depth of feeling, there seemed something wanting in him now. He did his best to cheer his wife; but the result was not satisfactory.
The fits of weeping would sometimes go on to hysterics; sometimes stopped just short of it. As this one stopped. Caroline suddenly roused herself and looked round wearily at the mantelpiece, as if there were a timepiece there, perhaps in momentary forgetfulness. Grosvenor Place had been rich in such; elegant bijoux, worth no end of money.
"I wish Sara would come!"
"Sara?" repeated Mark, halting in his monotonous promenade.
"I wrote to her to come."
She spoke the words half defiantly. Sara, in consequence of the discovery of Mr. Dick Davenal, had come to see them once; but she was not encouraged to repeat the visit. Mark especially was against it. "If we have them coming here, we may get dropped upon," he had said to his wife; "it would never do." But poor Caroline, wearied out with the wretched loneliness that seemed to continue month after month, and to have no end, had at length written to her cousin.
"Why did you not tell me, Caroline?"
"You might have forbidden me."
"It's just what I should have done. We don't want her here. What good will she do?"
"What good will anything in the world do? I wish I was out of it!"
Mark Cray began to ask himself the question whether the expected visit could be stopped now. He had an intense dislike to meet Sara Davenal; we all shrink from meeting those whom we have injured directly or indirectly. But the question was set at rest by Sara's entrance, and Mark, after a short greeting, disappeared.
All Caroline did for the first quarter of an hour was to sob hysterically. Sara, in slighter mourning now, unfastened the white crape strings of her straw bonnet, and sat over her in dismay, her sweet face full of compassion for the change she saw.
"I want to know how it is all to end," were the first distinct words Caroline uttered. "Am I to stop here till I die?"
A question difficult for Sara to answer. "Is Mark doing nothing?" she asked.
"He is doing nothing. He can't do anything while that business of the Wheal Bang hangs over him. If that were settled, there are fifty things he might get into. And if it can't be settled, we may both of us as well die at once as be famished to death. For that's what it would come to. Those poor creatures that shut themselves up with the fumes of charcoal are not so much to blame, after all."
"Caroline!"
"Well, I mean it," returned Caroline, a sullen tone beginning to mingle with her sobs. "It is all very well for you to exclaim 'Caroline!' as if I were mad; but you don't know what sorrow is. Nobody does until poverty comes."
Sara thought that there were worse sorrows to be borne in the world than poverty. And she was right; bad as poverty, to those unaccustomed to it, undoubtedly is. "What can I do for you?" she gently asked.
"Here we are, buried alive, and nobody comes near us! Sara, if you only knew how I yearn for a home face!--how I lie and cry for it!"
"Mark--and you also--said I must not come, lest it might lead to discovery."
"Neither must you, I suppose. At least, not often. But sometimes I think it would be well if discovery happened. There'd be an end to this uncertainty at any rate. What is Mark to do if the thing can't get settled?"
She asked the question in strange earnestness, and Sara was struck with the yearning beauty of the lifted face, of the wasting form. The violet eyes were larger than of yore, the cheeks were of a delicate crimson, and the hands were long and white and thin.
"But can it not get settled?" returned Sara.
"We have nothing to eat, you know. That is, there's bread, and suchlike; but I can't eat it. Mark will dine on bread and cheese, or a thick slice of bread and butter; and he really does not seem to mind; but I can't. O Sara! if I could but have a good dinner!"
Sara caught up her breath. What comfort could she give?
"Sometimes, when I am sick with hunger I lie and imagine the dinners we used to sit down to in Grosvenor Place. Iimagineit, you know; that they are before me now, and I am eating them. Turkey and bread sauce, or salmon and lobster sauce--it's nearly always substantial things I think of, I suppose because of my hunger--and I quite seem to taste them, to eat through a whole plateful Sara, it is true."
Sara Davenal had heard the doctor speak of some kinds of hunger as a disease, and could only suppose this must be one. "I wish--I wish I could help you," she murmured.
"You can't, I know. You have it not in your power, and Aunt Bettina won't; she's implacable. I did not send for you to ask it. But, Sara, there's Oswald Cray. If you would ask him perhaps he might do something for Mark."
The words startled her. "Ask Oswald Cray!"
"I think if he would listen to any one, it is you. I don't forget how fond he used to be of you in the days gone by. Indeed, I got to think--but I was wrong, I suppose, so let it pass. O Sara, you'll ask him for my sake! Don't abandon us quite. I think he might help Mark out of this difficulty. Perhaps he might see the company, and get them to be friendly with Mark; or perhaps he'd pay a few of Mark's pressing debts. It might not take much money?"
"But why cannot Mark ask him?"
"He won't. Mark would rather it came to the charcoal--not that anything of that sort would ever be inhisline--than apply to Oswald. There was some trouble between them about the money Oswald put into the mine, and Mark has kept away from him since. That is just why I have sent for you. Mark will not apply to Oswald; no, not if it were to save him from prison; and I don't feel well enough to go, and my bonnet's shabby. O Sara, when a recollection comes over me--and it is always coming--of the nice clothes I had, and how foolishly they were abandoned, I feel fit to go mad. Anyway, unless a change takes place, I shan't want clothes long. Sara, surely you will do for us so trifling a thing as this!"
To pursue the interview would be waste of time. When Sara Davenal quitted her cousin it was with a given promise to see Oswald Cray. Very much indeed did she shrink from it; as much as she had shrunk from those interviews with Mr. Alfred King: but she saw no other means to help them; and in truth she did not anticipate much would come of this.
Money seemed to be wanted everywhere. Miss Bettina complained sadly of shortness; the repaid money to Mr. Wheatley had crippled her: and Captain Davenal's letters to Sara dwelt on his embarrassments. They told her privately how "hard up" he was, and in his random meaningless way said he should have to run away to Australia and dig for gold, unless some dropped shortly from the clouds. Captain Davenal's wife, as it turned out, was only an heiress in prospective; but he appeared excessively fond of her, anxious to supply her with every luxury: and we all know that a married captain's pay, without other means, does not accord with luxuries in India.
His wife!Over and over again Sara asked herself how it was possible Edward could have married her, how he could speak of her in the fond manner that he did, if there really existed that impediment. All the trouble and the care seemed to fall upon herself individually--upon her own hidden heart. So long as there existed a grain of doubt, she could not speak of this to Edward; and, besides, the letter might fall into the hands of his young wife.
Personally, Sara had not been annoyed by Catherine Wentworth. Occasionally through the winter and spring she had seen this young woman hovering outside waiting for Neal; twice she had come boldly to the house, knocked, and asked for him. Miss Bettina's keen eyes had seen her once. "Is it one of your nieces, Neal?" she graciously asked; "pray, invite her in." "Oh no, ma'am, she is no relative of mine," returned Neal, with pointed emphasis. Sara's breath had quickened at the colloquy, but it ended there. She was surprised at this immunity from personal annoyance, and wondered how long it would be hers.
It was a coincidence rather remarkable that Oswald Cray should be at the door when Sara returned home from the visit to Caroline. About once in three months he made a call of politeness on Miss Davenal. Sara met him turning away: Miss Davenal was out, and he had left his card. He would have passed her after shaking hands--his visit was not to her--but Sara detained him, her cheeks in a glow at having to do it.
"It is very strange," she exclaimed. "I was but now thinking how I could best get to see you. Do you mind coming in with me for five minutes?"
He returned with her, perhaps all too willingly. A great many of us are tempted to stray from the strict line of duty marked out in our own minds. Sara led the way to the drawing-room, and told him where she had been, and what Caroline said. The declining sun--for the afternoon was drawing towards its close--fell on Oswald as he sat listening to her. It was the same noble face that she had so loved to look upon--calm, still,good; but somehow all its youth seemed to have passed away. The eyes had a look of habitual sadness; some silver threads mingled with the dark chestnut hair. She simply repeated Mrs. Cray's words, almost as a child repeats a lesson; throwing no persuasive tone, no pleading of her own into it, for she felt that she had no right to do so.
"Did Mark Cray wish you to ask me this?" he inquired, as she ceased the tale.
"Not Mark; only Caroline. By what she said, I fancy Mark Cray feels--feels ashamed to ask you anything."
"And he well may," answered Oswald, the old look of pride unpleasingly crossing his face. "I could have borne almost anything from Mark better than deliberate deceit. I cannot, no I cannot forgive it."
Neither spoke for a few moments. Sara had untied her bonnet-strings, and sat with her face a little bent, the eyes raised straight to him in their simple trust. He had one glove off; it was a black one; and he was gently swaying it as his elbow rested on the arm of the chair.
"I cannot quite understand what it is that Mrs. Cray would ask me. She cannot seriously expect that I should pay Mark's debts. His personal debts alone would take, I imagine, a far deeper purse than mine. I am but making my way upwards, and Mark has taken care to put me back to an extent I shall not readily recover. Pay Marcus Cray's debts! It is not within my power, any more than it would be within my will."
Sara was silent, save for a glance. It said how foolish she herself had thought the demand.
"I very much fear that Mark Cray is one of those men who want others to 'pay their debts' throughout life," he resumed. "There are such. Were he free tomorrow he would be embarrassed again in a year. To assist such men is no charity."
"Do you think anything can be done to clear him of the company?"
"Not while he keeps aloof. Mark himself must know it to be impossible, or ought to know it. The only chance for these affairs to be wound up is for him and Barker to come forward."
"Yes, I thought so," she answered. "But--Caroline tells me--they are near upon starving!"
"More shame to Mark!" exclaimed Oswald. "I cannotdescribeto you how this affair has pained me. Mark is my father's son, and his disgrace seems to be reflected upon me. His hiding himself is the worst part of it all. While he does so he is only prolonging the trouble and the ill. Believe me, it would not be a kindness to help Mark. Let him come forward as a man and a gentleman ought; that would be the best help to him."
Sara felt that he was right; but she felt also that Mark wouldnotcome forward; and what was to be the ending?
"They are living in only one room; it is at--."
"Don't tell it me?" impulsively interrupted Oswald, something like anger in his tone. "I would not for the world be made cognisant of Marcus Cray's hiding-place. People have come to me for it times and again; and I am thankful to assure them in all truth that I know it not."
He rose, as if wishing to put an end to the subject, and held out his hand to Sara.
"At least you will forgive me for presuming to trouble you so far," she murmured. "I could not help it: Caroline besought me very piteously."
His dark blue eyes, so earnestly bent on her, gave sufficient answer, even without the pressure of the hand, the tender tone of the low words.
"You should not speak of it in that light. If you knew how great a pleasure it is to me for you to ask me anything! I had almost said it is the only one left to me in my matter-of-fact working life. You and I have none too much of such: it seems to me that we both have to suffer for the wrong-doing of others."