You might have taken a picture of the group in Mark Cray's room today, if only by way of contrast to that of yesterday. The living figures were the same: Mark, his wife, and Sara Davenal; but the contrast lay in the expression, in the tone of feeling. Yesterday it had been nothing but gloom, depression, almost despair; today it was all hope and hilarity. The cloud had gone from the faces of Mark and his wife, to give place to almost triumphal gaiety. On Sara's there was a look of pleasure, mingled with perplexity, as if she would rejoice with them, but as yet scarcely understood what there was to rejoice at.
Poor Mark Cray! The very slightest straw of expectancy was sufficient to send his sanguine spirit into the clouds. All this change had been wrought by a letter from Barker, which the eleven o'clock post had brought. Barker, who was another of Mark's stamp, had suddenly discovered, or thought he had discovered, that an English doctor was wanted in Honfleur. He wrote over to Mark, strongly recommending him to come and establish himself, and to lose no time, lest the opening should be snapped up. "There's a goodish many English here," said the letter, "and not the ghost of an English doctor. If an English fellow gets ill he must die, unless he chooses to call in a French surgeon, and the chances arehe'llbleed him to death. If you'll believe me, they bled a young English lady this week for measles! She seemed ill, and her friends called in a Monsieur Somebody, with a name as unpronounceable as that mine of ours, and he looked at her, and asked a few questions, said he thought she was sickening for some disorder or other, and therefore he'd bleed her. Well, he did bleed her, and ordered her some drink, calledtissan, or some such name--I always shirked my French at school--which it's my belief is made of nothing but sugar and water. Bleeding for measles! The English say to me: 'What a boon it would be if we had a countryman established here as doctor!' So Mark, old fellow, I've thought of you; and my advice to you is, come and try it until something better turns up. I'm off to Paris shortly, but I'll stop here and welcome you first, if you decide to come. I know you hate your profession, and so do I, or I might try the opening myself; but if you don't mind taking it up as a temporary thing, I think you may manage to find enough practice to get along with. Living's cheap over here, and the scenery's lovely, though the town isn't much. Havre is only twenty minutes' distance by steamer; it's over the water--themanche, as they call it; and Harfleur lies by its side, nearer to us still. We have got an English church, you can tell Mrs. Cray, if she's particular upon the point; we had a splendid sermon last Sunday, preached by a stranger. Altogether, it seems to me to be worth your thinking ofunder present circumstances, and when the horizon has cleared a little, you can leave the place as readily as you come to it."
And this was the golden bait that had laid tempting hold on Mark. Perhaps to a man "under his present circumstances," as Mr. Barker put it, it did look favourable. Estimating things by comparison, it looked more than well. That one present room he was in, the dinnerless days, the blue spectacles, and all the rest of the little disagreeables you have heard hints of, were things to be flown from with the fleetest wings, if they could be exchanged for the position of a flourishing doctor in Honfleur. Mark was on his exalted ropes again, and his wife seemed to have thrown off her sorrow and her ailments.
The first consideration was money. This desirable place could not be reached without some. Even sanguine Mark allowed that. Just a little, to allow of their getting there, and a pound or so to pay for lodgings, and carry them on until his patients came in. He and his wife were deep in the difficulties of the matter when Sara interrupted them. She had come to tell Caroline of her ill-success with Oswald Cray.
But Caroline was in no mood to listen to aught that savoured of non-success, and Sara's news was overwhelmed with the other. Barker's letter was read to her, and Mark enlarged upon it in his sanguine strain.
"I knew something would turn up," said he. "Barker's a right good fellow not to keep it himself. Those continental towns are charming, if you can put up with the sameness: of course they get a littlesameafter a time. Not all of them, though. We stopped three months in Boulogne once, before my father's death, and were sorry to come away from it. Only think how this will set Carine up, after all the late bother."
"I fear Honfleur is a small place to support a medical man," observed Sara, who could look at the proposal more dispassionately than the other two.
"It's a lovely place," fired Mark. "Barker says so. It's renowned in history. If the places he mentions are not of note, I'd like to know what are. History tells us that! Why, it was from Harfleur that the children of one of the kings set sail and were overtaken by a storm and drowned, and the poor old father never was seen to smile again. I'm sure I remember having to learn that in my history. Honfleur a small place! Not support a doctor! You must be saying it for the purpose, Sara!"
"Well, Mark, I don't think it is large; but what I meant was, support an English doctor. Are there enough English living there to do that?"
"Of course there are," returned Mark, whose sanguine mood resented nothing more than a check. "Would Barker say there was an opening if there wasn't?"
She could have retorted that Barker had no more judgment than Mark; but it was utterly useless, and she held her tongue. Besides, she did hope that Mark might pick up some practice, and any change seemed an improvement upon the present state of things.
It seemed that there was only Oswald to apply to in the difficulty, and Sara was asked to do it. She declined. Upon which Caroline, in a defiant spirit--for she was angry with her--said she would go to him herself.
She kept her resolution. At the dusk of evening, not before, Caroline Cray took her way to Parliament Street, her step quick, her mood defiant still; not defiant against anybody in particular, but against the whole world save herself and Mark.
But when she came in view of the house she slackened her pace, going on slowly and cautiously, as one who wishes to reconnoitre the ground beforehand. What was she afraid of? Of meeting any of the wrathful shareholders of the Great Wheal Bang? If so, it was surely a singular coincidence that one of them should at that very moment be at Oswald Cray's door.
He was being shown out by a lady in an inverted bonnet, if the term may be held applicable--brim downwards, crown upwards. Caroline recognised him at once as a Major Pratt, rather an extensive shareholder. Some acquaintanceship had sprung up between him and Mark, and the Major had dined twice in Grosvenor Place. Mrs. Cray shrank into the shade, and drew her veil tighter over her face. He passed without seeing her, and Mrs. Benn, after taking a look out up and down the street, gave the door a bang after him.
Suffering a few moments to elapse, Caroline went to the door and knocked at it. Mrs. Benn had just reached her kitchen, and it went very much against the grain of that amiable lady's temper to have to go up again. Flinging open the door, she confronted the applicant, opposition written in every line of her face, in every movement of her working arms, bared to the elbow.
"I want to see Mr. Oswald Cray."
"You want to see Mr. Oswald Cray!" repeated Mrs. Benn, the tight and disguising veil completing her ire. "Well, that's modest! When folks come here they ask if theycansee him--and that's pretty bold for young women. What might you want, pray?"
"I wanthim," angrily returned Caroline. "Is he at home? If so, show me into his presence."
Something in the refinement of the voice, in its tone of command, struck on the ear of Mrs. Benn. But she was at warfare with the world that evening, and her prejudices were unconquerable.
"I don't know about that. The other night a lady walked herself here, as bold as could be, and saidshewanted to see Mr. Oswald Cray; and when I let her go in, it turned out that she had got some smuggled cambric handkechers to sell, and she kept worriting of him to buy for five-and-twenty minutes. 'Mrs. Benn,' says he to me afterwards in his quiet way, 'I don't want them sort of people showed in to me.' But how be I to know one sort from----Oh, so itisyou, is it, Joe Benn? I wonder you come home at all, I do! You have been two mortal half-hours gone, and nothing but visitors a-tramping in and out. Perhaps you'll attend to 'em."
Caroline turned instinctively to the respectable-looking man who approached the door. "I wish to see Mr. Oswald Cray. My business is of importance."
"Certainly, ma'am. Is Mr. Oswald Cray alone?" he asked of his wife.
"Yes, he is alone. And I should think he'd like to remain alone, if only for a moment's peace and quiet. He can't get no rest at his work, any more than I can at mine."
She stood before Oswald with her veil thrown back, her face working with emotion, her hands clasped. The table was between them. Benn had closed the door after showing her in, and Oswald, who was busy over some tracings, rose and stared in very astonishment. She gave a summary of her business in a rapid, breathless manner, as if fearing there would be no time left to tell it in. Mark had at length an opening of escape from the present misery, if he could only be helped to embrace it. A surgeon was wanted at Honfleur, and the place was offered to him.
Oswald pressed her to a chair, sat down, and questioned her.
"Why does not Mark come forward and show himself?" he presently asked.
"Come forward and show himself?" she repeated. "What, and get put into prison?"
"He must come, sooner or later. He cannot remain a proscribed man all his life. What end has he in view by remaining concealed? What does he promise himself by it?"
"I don't know."
"But Mark ought to know. He must be aware that there's an imperative necessity for his coming forward; that it is a thing there is no escaping. What does he wait for?"
"He says he wants the storm to blow over first."
"The storm will not blow over. Were Mark to hide himself for ten years, and then appear, it would only raise itself again. The very best thing that he can do is to appear and face it."
"Then he never will--at least, not yet awhile. And, Oswald, I don't think you are a brother if you can wish him to do it. But I did not come here to discussthat," she added. "I came to ask if you would lendme--me, not Mark--the trifle necessary to take us over the water. I will pay you back again if I have to save it up by sixpences."
She betrayed more restlessness of manner than Oswald had ever observed. Since her entrance she had been incessantly taking off and putting on the left-hand glove. He thought her changed. Her face looked worn, her eyes anxious.
"It would be doing you no kindness, Mrs. Cray. Believe me, the only plan open to Mark is to come forward and meet the company. His stopping away makes things worse. Major Pratt was here just before you came in, asking if I could give him news of Mark. I am tempted to wish often that I had no connection with him.Tellhim to face this."
"I will not tell him," she answered, her cheeks crimson, her violet-blue eyes shining with a purple light. "If you will not advance me these poor few pounds that I plead to you for there'll be nothing for us but to lie down and die. I have not"--she paused, struggling with her emotion--"I have not had a proper meal these three months; I feel often sick with want. Sometimes I wish I was with Uncle Richard."
Oswald hesitated, whether to ring at once for refreshment or to wait until her emotion had spent itself. He compassionatedherwith his whole heart.
"What would ten or twenty pounds be to you?" she resumed. "Ten might take us there; twenty would seem like a fortune.Won'tyou give us a chance of life?"
"It is not the money I think of; it is not indeed, Mrs. Cray. But Mark ought not to go to Honfleur while these clouds are hanging over him."
"Letme have the money," she pleaded; "let me have it. I don't want you to give it me tonight, only to promise it to me. Uncle Richard would have done as much for you."
What was he to do? What would you have done, my reader? Upright, honourable just though he was, he did not resist those tearful eyes, those pleading hands, and he promised her the money that would carry Mark Cray farther and farther away from his creditors.
"And now what will you take?" he asked, ringing the bell.
"Nothing. I don't think I am as strong as I was; and in moments of excitement I feel unable to touch bit or drop. Wine? no, I am not strong, I say; I am not used to wine now; only half a glass of it, and I should hardly walk home." He did not intend that she should walk, he told her; and he induced her to take a very little wine, but she could not eat. Then he gave her his arm downstairs.
Mrs. Benn met them in the hall. Caroline hastily drew her veil over her face, but not before the woman had caught a glimpse of her features. Oswald let himself out at the door, and shut it after him, and Mrs. Benn backed against the wall to recover her amazement.
"Mrs. Cray!--his brother's wife! them that are in hiding! And the last time she was here it was in a coach and four, as may be said, with her feathers in her bonnet and her satins on her back! What a world this is for change--and work! Yes shehavejust gone out, that there lady, Joe Benn, and the master with her. And you not up to open the door!"
It was an exquisite scene; one of the very prettiest in Normandie. The old town, with its aged and irregular buildings rising one over the other like hanging gardens; the large expanse of water, clear as a sheet of glass, bright with the early sun, stretching out underneath as far as the eye could see; the hills on the right, with their clustering trees and their winding road, leading to the nestling houses in the village of St. Sauveur; Harfleur opposite, standing as a background to the plain of crystal, with its old castle (or what looks like one) conspicuous, and its gentle mounts green and picturesque; Havre lying next it almost side by side, with its immensity of buildings and its long harbour;--these were what may be called the prominent parts of the canvas, but were you looking at it you might find the minuter points of the filling-in even more interesting. The whole made a magnificent tableau, which, once seen, must rest upon the charmed mind for ever.
The Hôtel du Cheval Blanc, situated at one end of the town, was perhaps the best spot in all Honfleur for admiring this panorama--unless, indeed, you mounted the heights above. Standing in one of the end rooms of this hotel on the second floor, whose windows commanded two sides of view, the town and the water, was a gentleman whom you have met before. You could not have mistaken it for anything but a French room, with its bare floor, its tasty curtains, and its white-covered chairs. The tables had marble tops, hard and ugly, but the piano opposite to the fireplace was of tolerable tone.
It was the best of the two sitting-rooms in the hotel; better than the one on the first floor underneath, because these windows were low and cheerful, and those were high and grim. This room and a chamber into which it opened (whose intervening door could never be got to shut, and if shut couldn't be got to open) looked right over to Harfleur. For the matter of that the room opened into two chambers, but the one was closed up just now, and we have nothing to do with it. Like most French rooms, it seemed made up of doors and windows.
The gentleman standing at the window was Mark Cray. Resident at Honfleur more than a month now, this was the first time he had been called in to see a patient. A traveller had been taken ill at the Cheval Blanc in the middle of the night, had asked if there was an English doctor in the place, and Mark was summoned.
It was rather a serious case, and Mark had not left him yet. The door between the rooms was open, but Mark kept as still as a mouse; for the patient, he hoped, was dropping into a doze. Mark had occupation enough, looking out on the busy scene. It was high tide, and the harbour, close on which the hotel was built, was alive with bustle. Fishing-boats were making ready to go out; fishing-boats were tiding in, bearing their night's haul. The short pier underneath had quite a crowd on it for that early hour; women with shrill tongues, men with gruff ones, who were waiting to tow in a merchant vessel drawing near; idlers only looking on,--their babel of voices came right up to Mark, and had he been rather more familiar with the Norman tongue he might have known what all the gabbling was about. A quiet wedding-party, three men and three women, were taking a walk on the pier, two and two, after the performance of the early ceremony; or perhaps it had been performed the previous day, and this one was the continuance of the holiday,--one never knows; the gala caps on the women's heads--such caps as we may see in pictures--flapped out their extraordinary wings: a sober, middle-aged, well-conducted wedding-party of humble life. They probably came, Mark thought, from some few miles inland, where the water and the boats were not everyday objects, as at Honfleur, for their interest in these seemed intense. Every minute there was something new, as is sure to be the case with a full tide at early morning: now, an entanglement of boats at the entrance of the harbour; now, the snapping of a cord and deafening noise in consequence; and now a flat barge, heavily laden, went rounding off to the Seine, to toil up between its green banks as far as Rouen.
Suddenly a noise as of the waters being cut through arose, and Mark, who was watching the toiling barge and wondering what she was laden with, turned his head to the left. The steamer plying from Havre was coming in--had almost reached the port. She had made a fine passage that morning: not twenty-five minutes yet had passed since she steamed out of Havre. The coming in, and the going out again of these steamers, twice each way in the summer days, is the great event in Honfleur life.
In she came to the harbour, swiftly and steadily, rounded the point under the hotel windows, and moored herself in her place opposite the hotel entrance. Mark Cray changed his window now.
Quitting that at which he had been standing, he quietly opened the one which faced the town and inner harbour, and leaned out to watch the disembarking of the steamer's live freight.
"I wonder how many of them will be coming into the hotel to breakfast," he murmured. "I wish----"
What he was about to wish was never known. A voice from the inner room interrupted him. And it was not by any means a feeble voice, but rather a loud one.
"Mr. Cray!"
Mark hastened in. To his surprise he saw his patient, whom he had left in hope of sleep, out of bed and dressing himself. Mark, as medical attendant, made a strong remonstrance.
"I feel a great deal better," was the answer. "I can't lie any longer. Is not that the boat come in?"
"Yes," said Mark. "But----"
"Well, I told you I must go back by her to Havre, if I possibly could. Necessity has no choice."
Mark could only look his amazement. The boat would go out again almost directly, and the patient stood little chance of having time for breakfast. "You cannot go by this boat," he said. "There'll be another later in the day."
"I can't wait for that. I must be away from Havre by an early train."
"But I--I don't know that I can pronounce you out of danger," remonstrated Mark, hardly able yet to realise the fact that a gentleman, thought to be dying in the night, was dressing himself to go off by a steamer in the morning.
"I know these attacks of mine are bad--dangerous, I suppose, while they last; but once over, I am well, except for weakness. And the long and the short of it is, I must go to Havre by the return boat."
Mark Cray saw that further objection would be useless. The chamber-man (I can't help it if you object to the appellation; the hotel had no women servants) came in with warm water, and the traveller ordered a cup of coffee to be ready by the time he got down. Mark went back to the sitting-room. He would stay and see him on board.
The steamer's first bell had rung when the traveller came forth. Mark caught up his hat and gloves. "I hardly know what I am indebted to you," said the stranger, placing a thin piece of paper in his hand. "Perhaps that will cover it."
It was a hundred-franc note. Mark would have given it tack, badly though he wanted money. It was too much; altogether too much, he exclaimed.
"No," said the stranger. "I don't know what I should have done without you; and you have stayed with me the night. That's being attentive. I was taken ill once before in the night at an hotel in France, where there happened to be an English doctor in the town, and they got him to me. But he was gone again in an hour, and in fact seemed to, resent having been disturbed at all. I didn't payhimmore than I was obliged."
"Ah, he had plenty of practice, perhaps," cried Mark, rather too impulsively. "But indeed this is paying me a great deal too much. I don't like to take it."
"Indeed it is not, and I hope you will accept my thanks with it," was the conclusive answer.
Mark Cray saw the traveller on board the boat, watched it move off, turn, and go steaming down the port And then he made the best of his way home, the hundred-franc note in his pocket seeming to be a very fairy of good fortune.
They had come to Honfleur the latter end of April; this was the beginning of June; and poor Mark had not found a single patient yet. Mr. Barker had been there to receive them on their arrival. How Barker contrived to live, or whence his funds came, Mark did not know, but he always seemed flourishing. There are some men who always do seem flourishing, whatever may be their ups and downs. Barker was in Paris now, apparently in high feather, his letters to Mark boasting that he was getting into "something good."
Mark ran all the way home; his lodgings were not far, near the ascent of the Mont Joli. Could scenery have supplied the place of meat and drink, then Mark Cray and his wife might have lived as epicures, for nothing could well be more grandly beautiful than the prospect seen from their windows. But, alas! something besides the eyes requires to be ministered to in this world of wants.
It was a small house with a garden before the door, and was tenanted by a widow lady and her servant. Mark and his wife occupied a small sitting-room in it and a bedchamber above; opening from the sitting-room was a little place about four feet square, which served for kitchen, and was let to them with the rooms. They waited on themselves; it is rare indeed that attendance is furnished with lodgings in France. But madame's servant was complaisant, and lighted their fire and did many other little things.
Caroline was in the bedroom, dressing, when Mark returned;--dressing in that listless, spiritless manner which argues badly for the hope and heart. It was a pity their expectations in regard to Honfleur had been so inordinately raised, for the disappointment was keen, and Caroline perhaps had not strength to do battle with it. She had pictured Honfleur (taking the impression from Barker's letters and Mark's sanguine assumptions) as a very haven of refuge; a panacea for their past woes, a place where the English patients, if not quite as plentiful as blackberries, would at least be sufficient to furnish them with funds to live in comfort. But it had altogether proved a fallacy. The English patients held aloof. In fact, there were no English patients, so far as they could make out. Nobody got ill; or, if they did get ill, they did not come to Mark Cray to be cured. Tribulation in the shape of petty embarrassment was coming upon them, and Caroline began to hate the place. She was weary, sick, sad; half dead with disappointment andennui.
Unfortunately, there was becoming a reason to suspect that something was radically wrong with Caroline. Not that she thought it yet; still less Mark. Dr. Davenal had surmised that her constitution was unsound.
During the time of their sojourn at Chelsea, where Mr. Dick Davenal came so suddenly upon them, and Mark was accustomed to go out to take the air adorned with blue spectacles and a moustache, Caroline, in undressing herself one night, found--or fancied that she found--a small lump in her side, below the ribs. She thought nothing whatever about it, it was so very small; in fact, it slipped from her memory. Some time afterwards, however, she accidentally touched her side and felt the same lump there again. This was of course sufficient to assure her that it was not fancy, but still she attached no importance to it, and said nothing. But the lump did not go away; it seemed like a little kernel that could be moved bout with the finger; and in the week following their arrival at Honfleur she first spoke of it to Mark. Mark did not pay much attention to it; that is, he did not think there was any cause to pay attention to it; it might proceed from cold, he said, or perhaps she had given herself a knock; he supposed it would go away again. But the lump did not go away, and Caroline had been complaining of it lately.
On this past night--or rather morning--when Mark was at the hotel with the patient to whom he was called, Caroline had been recreating her imagination with speculations upon what the lump was, and what it was likely to come to. Whether this caused her to be more sensitive to the lump than she had been before, or whether the lump was really beginning to make itself more troublesome, certain it was that her fears in regard to it were at length aroused, and she waited impatiently for the return of her husband.
"Mark, this lump gets larger and larger. I am certain of it."
It was her greeting to Mark when he entered and came up to the chamber. She turned her spiritless eyes upon him, and Mark might have noted the sad listlessness of the tone, but that it had become habitual. He made no reply. He was beginning himself to think that the lump got larger.
"And it pains me now,--a sort of dull aching. I wonder if it's coming to anything. Just feel it, Mark."
Mark Cray drew her light cotton dressing-gown tight across the place, and passed his fingers gently over and over it. He was not so utter a tyro in his profession as to be ignorant that the lump might mean mischief. Caroline, with most rapid quickness of apprehension, noted and did not like his silence.
"Mark! what is it? What's going to be the matter with me?"
"Nothing, I hope," replied Mark, speaking readily enough now. "It will go away, I daresay. Perhaps you have been fidgeting with it this morning."
"No, I have not done that. And if the lump meant to go away, why should it get larger? Itdoesget larger, Mark. It seems to me that it has nearly doubled its size in the last week."
"I think it is a little larger," acknowledged Mark, feeling perhaps that he could not get out of the confession. "How long has it pained you?"
"I can't remember. The pain came on so imperceptibly that I hardly know when it first began. Whatisthe lump, Mark?"
"I can't tell."
"You can't tell?"
"I can't tell yet. Sometimes lumps appear and go away again, and never come to anything."
"And if they do come to anything, what is it that they come to?"
"Oh, sometimes one thing and sometimes another," answered Mark lightly.
"Can't you tell me what the things are?" she rejoined, in a peevishly anxious tone.
"Well--boils for one thing; and tumours."
"And what becomes of these tumours?" she quickly rejoined, catching at the word.
"They have to be taken out.
"Is it very painful?"
"Law, no. The pain's a mere nothing."
"And cancers? How do they come?" proceeded Caroline after pause. "With a little lump at first, like this?"
"Cancers don't come there. You need not fear that it's a cancer. Carine, my dear, you must be nervous this morning."
She passed by the remark, hardly hearing it. "But Mark--you say you can't tell yet what it is."
"Neither can I. But I can tell what it isnot.I'll get you a little ointment to rub on it, and I make no doubt it will go away."
Caroline was doing her hair at the moment. She had the brush in one hand, the hair in the other; and she paused just as she was, looking fixedly at her husband.
"Mark, if you don't know what it is, perhaps somebody else would know. I wish you'd let me show it to a doctor."
Mark laughed. He really believed she must be getting nervous about it, and perhaps deemed it would be the best plan to treat it lightly. "A French doctor Why, Carine, they are not worth a rush."
"I have heard Uncle Richard say the contrary," she persisted. "That the French, as surgeons, are clever men."
"He meant with the knife, I suppose. Well, Caroline, you can let a Frenchman see the lump if it will afford you any satisfaction. You don't ask me what has kept me out all these hours!" rejoined Mark, changing the topic. "I have had a patient at last."
"Yes, I suppose that. He was very ill, perhaps, and you had to remain with him."
She spoke in the wearied, inert tone that seems to betray an entire absence of interest. When the spirit has been borne down with long-continued disappointment, this weariness becomes a sort of disease. It was very prejudicial now, in a physical point of view, to Caroline Cray.
Mark took out the note. "See how well he paid me!" he cried, holding it to her. "I wish such patients would come to the Cheval Blanc every day!"
The sight aroused her from her apathy. "A hundred-franc note!" she exclaimed with dilating eyes. "O Mark! it is quite a godsend. I shall believe next in Sara Davenal's maxim: that help is sure to turn up in the time of need."
In the time of need! It was a time that had certainly come for them. The surplus of Oswald Cray's twenty pounds, remaining after the expenses of removal were paid, had come to an end, and neither Mark nor his wife had seen their way clear to go on for another week. It was in truth a godsend; more strictly so than Caroline, in her lightness, deemed.
But the money, welcome as it was, did not take the paramount place in her mind today that it might else have done.Thatwas occupied by the lump. Caroline's fears in regard to it could not be allayed, and she insisted upon being taken to a doctor for his opinion, without any delay. Mark made inquiries, and found a Monsieur Le Bleu was considered to be a clever man. He proposed to ask him to call, but Caroline preferred to go to him, her reason being a somewhat whimsical one, as expressed to Mark: "If he has to come to me I shall think I am really ill." Accordingly they went that same afternoon, and the interview, what with Mark Cray's French and the doctor's English, was productive of some temporary difficulty.
They started after their early dinner. M. Le Bleu lived not very far from them, but in the heart of the town, and Mark began by calling him Mr. Blue,sans cérémonie. Mark had learned French at school, and therefore considered himself a French scholar. On the door was a brass plate--"M. Le Bleu, Médecin;" and a young woman in a red petticoat, grey stockings, and sabots, came to the door in answer to the ring.
"Is Mr. Blue at home?" demanded Mark. "Mossier Blue, chez elle?" continued he, tying to be more explanatory, in answer to the girl's puzzled stare.
"O Mark," whispered Caroline, her cheeks flaming at this specimen of French. "Monsieur Le Bleu, est-il chez lui?" she hastily said, turning to the servant.
Monsieur Le Bleu was "chez lui," the girl said to them, and they were admitted. A little middle-aged gentleman in spectacles with no beard or whiskers or moustache, or any other hair to speak of, for that on his head was as closely cut as it could be, short of being shaved, came forward. He asked what he could have the honour of doing for them.
"Speak English, Messeu?" began Mark. "Parle Anglishe?"
"Yas, sare," was the amiable response, as the doctor handed Caroline a seat. "I spack the Anglishe, moi."
"Oh then we shall get on," cried Mark. "Madame here, ma femme, it's for her. I don't think it's much, but she would come. That's my name"--handing in his card.
The Frenchman was a little puzzled by so much English all at once, and relieved himself by looking at the card.
"Ah, c'est ça, Meestare Cr--Cr--Craw," pronounced the doctor, arriving with satisfaction at the name after some stammering. "And Madame what has she?"
"Malade," briefly responded Mark. "Elle a une--une--lump--come in the--the (what's French for side, I wonder?) in the côté. Ici, Messeu," touching himself; "mais il est très petite encore; no larger than a--a--petite pois."
Clearly the gentleman did not understand. Mark had drawn him aside, so that they were speaking apart from Caroline.
"A-t'elle d'enfants, Madame?"
"Oh, oui, oui," responded Mark, at a venture, not catching a syllable of the question, the Frenchman seemed to speak so rapidly.
"Et combien? I ask, sare, how many; and the age of them; the age!" "Three-and-twenty. Vingt-trois."
"Vingt-trois!" echoed the doctor, pushing up his glasses. "Mais, n'est pas possible. I say it not possible, sare, that Madame have twenty-three children."
"Children!" shouted Mark, "I thought you saidage. She has not any children; pas d'enfants, Messeu. She found of it before we quitted England--avant nous partons d'Angleterre."
Monsieur Le Bleu tried hard to understand. "Where you say it is, sare, the mal? Est-ce que c'est une blessure?"
"It's here," said Mark, touchinghimnow. "It came of itself--venait tout seule, grande at first comme the tête of an épingle, not much more; à présent larger than a big pea--a petite pois."
The doctor's ear was strained, and a faint light broke upon it. He had enjoyed the pleasure of conversing with English patients before; in fact it was mostly from them that he was enabled to shine in the language.
"Ah, je vois. Pardon, sare, it not a blessure, it a--a--clou--a bouton? I ask, sare, is it a button?"
"It's alump," returned Mark, staring very much. "A sort of a kernel, you know. Comprends, Messeu?" he questioned, in no hurry, perhaps, to make any worse suggestion.
The doctor gravely nodded; not caring to confess his ignorance. "When did he arrive, sare?"
"When did who arrive?"
"Him--the mal, sare."
"Oh, the lump. Several weeks back--quelques semaines, Messeu. Pas beaucoup de trouble avec; de pain! mais trouve nervous this morning, and--and--thought she'd like a doctor's opinion," concluded Mark, his French completely breaking down.
"Bon," said the surgeon, wishing Mark did not talk English quite so fast. "Madame has not consultayed a docteur donc, encore?"
"Only me," replied Mark. "I'm a doctor myself--docteur moi-même, Messeu."
"Ah, Monsieur est médecin lui-même," cried the doctor, making a succession of bows in his politeness. "That will facilitate our understandings, sare. Has Madame the good--the bonne santé de l'ordinaire?" he continued, coming to a breakdown himself.
"Santé de l'ordinaire!--I wonder what that is," debated Mark within himself. "Vin ordinaire means thin claret, I know. I no comprendre, Messeu," he confessed aloud. "Ma femme eats and drinks everything."
"Is Madame--je ne trouve pas le mot, moi--is shesaine, I would ask?"
"San?" repeated the puzzled Mark. "Why, you never meansane, surely!" he exclaimed in astonishment. "She's as sane as you or I. What on earth put that in your head, Messeu? she doesn't look mad, I hope!"
"I no say mad," disclaimed Messeu. "I ask if she--ah, voilà le mot, quel bonheur!--if she healthy?--if she partake of the good constitution?"
A recollection flashed across Mark Cray's memory of a doubt he had once heard drop from Dr. Davenal as to whether Caroline's constitution was a healthy one. "Elle a porté très bien," was his answer to Monsieur, plunging into his French again. "This mayn't be anything, you know, Messeu."
"I not like these boutons though, sare."
"Which buttons," demanded Mark.
"The buttons you do me the honour to consult for. Je ne les aime pas, soit clou, soit tumeur--n'importe pour l'espèce. In the place you indicate to me it is like to be a tumeur, and she is obstinate."
"Who is, Messeu?" asked Mark, in doubt whether the incomprehensible Frenchman did not allude to his wife's temper.
"She herself," lucidly explained Messeu. "I have held cases that would not terminate themselves at all by anyway, no not for the years."
"Oh, but this is not a case of that sort," said Mark, half resentfully. "A few simple remedies may disperse it."
"Yes, I hope," agreed the doctor. "I would demand of Monsieur if he has tried the sangsues?
"The what?" cried Mark, who had not the remotest idea what sort of a thing "sangsues" could be. "No, I have not tried it."
"J'aime assez la sangsue, moi. She is a useful beast, sare."
Mark nearly groaned, Whatever had "useful beasts" to do with this lump of Caroline's? Useful beasts? "Is it a camel you are talking of?" he asked.
"A camel!" repeated the doctor, staring at Mark. "Pardon, I no understand."
Mark was sure he didn't. "You spoke of useful beasts, Messeu?"
"Yas, they have moche virtue, the sangsues. They do good to Madame; they bite her well."
Mark was never more at sea in his life. Roaming away in search of camels, his home perceptions were perhaps a little obscured in that moment. Bite Madame? What on earth was "sonsues?"
"I speak of the little black beast that long when she full--" pointing to his finger. "You call them litch--litch--"
"Leeches!" interrupted Mark, with a laugh. "I could not understand, moi; Je pensé, Messeu, que vous--vous--speak of wild beasts."
"Yas," said the doctor complacently, "I thought you understand, sare."
"Bon pour Madame, vous dit, Messeu, the sonsues?"
"Je pense que oui. Mais--but I no say trop before the examen of Madame. I would see the hurt, me. I go to your house, sare, and meet Madame without her robe. I go tomorrow at four of the clock after twelve, if that will arrange you."
"So be it," returned Mark, when he had puzzled out the words "Je dis à ma femme que--que--it was of no use for her to call here, herself; you'd want to see her dishabillayed. Je vous merci, Messeu."
And when they were walking home Mark said to his wife how very glad he was to find he had kept up his French.
I wonder whether you remember that most charming weather we had in the October of that same year 1861. The first fortnight of the month was more lovely than can be imagined of October; it was brilliant and warm as summer.
Toiling up the ascent of the Côte de Grace went Mark Cray and his wife on one of these delightful days. The word toiling would be misapplied to you, I hope, for the way is gentle, the ascent easy; but it was toil now to Caroline Cray. The past three or four months had made a great change in her: health and spirits had alike sunk. As the lump got larger--we may as well call it by its familiar name--the body got weaker, and she felt the fatigue of walking now. Mark and the weather's unusual beauty had tempted her out, and they had taken the way through the town to the Cête de Grace.
Winding up the shady road--and the sun was too hot not to make the shade welcome--they gained the top. Caroline sat down at once on a bench that faced the sea: Mark stepped forward to the edge, dangerous enough if unprotected, and looked down. Was any panorama ever more beautiful? It happened to be full tide, as it was that morning when you saw him looking at it before--the same view, from the windows of the Cheval Blanc. But the same view, extended, enlarged, altogether grander, from the height on which he now stood.
Mark Cray took a glass from his pocket--it belonged to Monsieur Le Bleu, with whom they were now passably intimate--one of those small but effective telescopes rather rare to meet with. Adjusting its focus, he swept it round the horizon. He turned it to the right, and saw the women winding up the paths on their way from Honfleur market, their unbecoming borderless caps of everyday wear quite plain to him. Opposite was Harfleur, flickering in the light and shade; underneath him, beyond the cultivated precipice, were the walks by the sea--if you call it sea--the road winding on afar, the bathing establishment with its seats, and its linen spread out to dry. Havre itself looked rather cloudy from local smoke, but its entrance was beautifully clear, and Mark put up his glass again to gaze at it. Vessels, great and small, were rounding the point. A large steamer, which he recognised as the London boat, was turning into it, her steam so full, seemingly so close, that he might have fancied he heard its hiss. A fine sailing vessel was being towed out, to commence her long voyage; she looked like an Indiaman. The steamer plying between Havre and Trouville had reached its midway passage; a little funnelled boat was bearing swiftly on in the direction of Fiquefleur bay; an ugly, black-looking yacht had pointed its nose towards the dangerous bar of Quillebeuf; one of the everlasting flat barges was moving imperceptibly up the Seine; smaller boats and more picturesque were coquetting on themanche, and the Honfleur steamer was coming on quickly, leaving Havre far behind her. Mark extended the glass in the direction of the extreme left, and studied the vessels in the distance. Not a breath seemed to fill their sails. The blue and clear waters of the Seine were not calmer than that sometimes turbulent sea: river,manche, sea, were today still as a lake. A fair scene! none fairer throughout the department of the Calvados.
How familiar the scene had grown to Mark Cray he could tell you now. His days unfortunately were days of idleness, and he, had nothing to do but look at it from some point or other of the heights. Mark's fondly-anticipated patients had not come to him: whether the handful of English stationary at Honfleur preferred Monsieur Le Bleu or one of his compatriots to attend them, or whether they were so disobliging as to keep in perfect health, Mark Cray never clearly ascertained. All he could be sure of was, thathewas not summoned. His professional services had been called into requisition but three times, including the stranger at the hotel who gave him the large fee. An English maid-servant had come to him once to have a tooth drawn; she could not speak French, she said, and did not like to go to a chemist's shop for it; Mark drew it, borrowing his friend Monsieur Le Bleu's pincers--or whatever you call the things--and charged her three francs. He said five at first; but she slightly reproached him, said she could have it done in a shop fer one and in fact had but three francs with her. So Mark took the three. The third time he was called in to a gentleman who said he had lived in Honfleur six years and had never been ill yet. He had now got an attack of what he called "La grippe," which Mark interpreted into the gripes, utterly unconscious that la grippe in French means influenza in English. The patient soon got well, despite a little wrong treatment at that; and Mark's remuneration was ten francs. That was all he had earned, this ten francs and the three for the tooth, besides the present made him at the hotel.
How were they to get along? Howhadthey got along? They, poor sufferers, looking to the past, could hardly tell. Barker, who was in Paris still, full of wild hopes as usual, had sent Mark once a hundred-franc note in a letter and a promise of more; a little had come to Caroline from Barbadoes, for she had told of her woes; and so they existed somehow. Mark Cray was by no means one to sit down tamely and starve; any hopeless scheme rather than that; but Mark was caged, as it were, at Honfleur, and did not see how to get away from it, or where to travel to. Under happier auspices that "lump" might not have got so large as it was now getting: had that Great Wheal Bang mine only sent its ore to market instead of getting drowned it might never have shown itself at all; or, at least, not for years.
Mark Cray lowered the glass and turned to speak to his wife, who was seated but three or four yards behind him. Towards her left were those enclosed and accommodating gardens of entertainment, where you might order a dinner and eat ital fresco, or where you might take your own basket of provisions and they would bring you drink from the house, wine, milk, beer, lemonade, or coffee, at choice. Behind her, looking beyond, rose the little Chapelle de Nôtre-Dame-de-Grâce, on whose interior walls were recorded accounts of devoted pilgrims who had toiled on crutches up to the shrine, and whose faith Our Lady had rewarded by an instantaneous cure, whereupon they went down rejoicing, leaving their crutches behind them, a memento of the miracle. On the right was the small building called, surely by courtesy, the Observatoire, where innumerable wonders might be seen for two sous. And on the near plateau close around was many a bench similar to the one occupied by Mrs. Cray; the grass forming a carpet underfoot, the trees a shade overhead. A pleasant spot to rest in on a summer's day; a charming tableau to look upon in silence.
"Won't you come and have a look, Caroline I don't think I ever saw the atmosphere so clear on a brilliant day."
She only shook her head by way of answer: wearily, despondently.
"The boat's coming in," he resumed. "Two minutes more, and she'll pass us. You'll like to see her go by."
"I can't Mark. My side is paining me worse then ever. I must not walk up the hill again."
It was a very obstinate side, as M. Le Bleu would express it, a very persistent, provoking lump, and that renowned practitioner--who was really a skilful man, for all his obscure English--had formed his own opinion upon it. It baffled him and his remedies persistently. Even those highly-regarded bêtes, the sangsues, had tried their best to subdue it--and tried in vain. Evidently the effective remedy was not sangsues. The lump had had its own way all these months. It had been growing larger and larger, giving by degrees more and more pain. Monsieur Le Bleu had once hinted his doubts of a "tumeur fibreuse," and Mark had politely retorted that he was an idiot to fancy such things. What the end of it all was to be--of the disease, of the semi-starvation, of the next to impossibility to go on in Honfleur, and the equal impossibility to get away from it, of Mark Cray's little difficulty with England and the shareholders of the old company--would take a wiser head than either Caroline's or Mark's to tell.
This day has been noticed because it was a sort of turning-point in this persistent malady: not a turning for better but for worse. Whether the walk up the hill injured her--for perhaps she had grown really unfit for it--or whether the disease itself made a sudden leap onwards, certain it was that poor Mrs. Cray never went up the Côte de Grâce again. She walked home with Mark very slowly, and fainted when she got in. Mark did not like her look, and ran off for Monsieur Le Bleu. It was only the fatigue, she said to them: but the next morning she did not rise from her bed.
Several weeks dragged themselves slowly on, Caroline growing worse and weaker. An idea arose to her--it may have almost been called a morbid fancy--that if her uncle Richard were alive and at hand, her cure would be certain and speedy. From him it was natural perhaps that her hopes should stray to other English doctors; not young men such as Mark, but men of note, of experience, of known skill; and a full persuasion took possession of her mind that she had only to go to London to be made well. It grew too strong for any sort of counter-argument or resistance; it became a mania: to remain in Honfleur was to die; to go to England and the English faculty would be cure and life.
Mark would have gratified the wish had it been in his power, but how was he to find the money? But for Barker, they could not have gone on at all. He sent a trifle to Mark from time to time, and they managed to get along with it. Once, when they were at a very low ebb Mark had written a pitiful account of their state to his brother Oswald, and a ten-pound note came back again. Ah what a contrast was this to the prosperity that might have been theirs at Hallingham!
Winter had come now. December was in; its first days were rapidly passing; and so intense had grown Caroline's yearning for home that Monsieur Le Bleu himself said to keep her would be to kill her. "It would only be the passage-money, Mark," she reiterated ten times in a day. "I should go straight to Aunt Bettina's. Angry as she was with us for leaving Hallingham, she'd not refuse to take me in. Mark, Mark! only the passage-money!"
And Mark, thus piteously appealed to, began to think he must do something desperate to get the passage-money. Perhaps he would, if he had only known what. But while Mark was thinking of it help arrived, in the shape of a hundred-franc note from Barker. Things were beginning to look up with him he wrote. Perhaps he meant this as an earnest of it.
"Divide it, Mark," she said, with feverish cheeks. "I know how badly you want it here: but I want it badly too. I want help, I want medical skill; divide it between us: fifty francs will take me over."
And so it was done. How willingly Mark would have given her the whole!--but that was impossible. How willingly he would have gone with her to take care of her on the voyage!--but that was impossible. Mark Cray might not show his face in London. He took her as far as he could, and that was to Havre. On the morning after the arrival of Barker's letter and its inclosure they were off: and so great an effect had the knowledge that she was really going wrought on Caroline, that she seemed to have recovered health and strength in a manner little short of miraculous.
She walked down to the Honfleur boat; she would walk; she was quite well enough to walk, she said. As they turned out of the house the postman was approaching it, selecting a letter from his bundle.
"Pour Madame," he said, giving it to Mark.
It was from Sara: they could see that by the handwriting. Caroline thrust it into her pocket. There was not time for reading letters there; the bell of the starting boat had sounded over the town, and they and the man behind, who was wheeling Caroline's trunk on a barrow, had much ado to catch it. They read the letter going over. It was merely a friendly letter of news, the chief item, of which news was, that they were expecting Captain Davenal and his wife hourly from India.
"Then, Caroline, they won't be able to take you in," was Mark Cray's remark.
"Oh, yes, yes, it can be managed," was her answer, so feverishly and eagerly delivered that Mark suspected she feared he might wish to detain her; and he said no more.
But now, when they reached Havre, Mark discovered that he and Caroline between them had made a very stupid mistake as to the departure of the London boat. He afterwards found that they had inadvertently consulted the list of departures for November, instead of December. There was no London steamer departing from Havre that day.
They stood on what is called the English Quai, Caroline weak, sick, depressed. A check of this kind thrown upon one in her state of health is as very despair. Opposite to them was moored a small English steamer; a board upon her, or which was inscribed "for London," indicating her destination. "I could go by that," she said, feverishly; "Mark, I could go by that."
"I don't think it is a passenger boat," was Mark's reply.
They advanced to the edge of the quai and looked down. Two or three men, apparently English, were taking bales of goods on board by means of a crane. "Is this a passenger boat?" Mark asked them.
"No sir. She's for goods."
The answer was unmistakably English. A stout, middle-aged, respectable-looking man, who was seated across a bar, watching the men and smoking a pipe, looked up and inquired of Mark why he asked.
It was the master of the vessel. They got into conversation with him, and told him their dilemma. He was a kind-hearted man, and he offered to convey the lady to London if she could put up with the accommodation. She was quite welcome to go with them, free of expense, he said, and his wife had come the trip with him this time, so she'd not, as it were, be alone on board. How eagerly Mrs. Cray seized upon the offer, rather than go home again to wait a day or two for the regular boat, I'll leave you to judge.
She went at once on board, and the vessel got out of harbour in the course of the afternoon, the master saying they should make London on the afternoon of the following day. But there's no time to linger over this part, or to give any details of the voyage; it is enough to say that the passage, from unavoidable causes, was an unusually slow one, and they did not reach their destination in the Thames until late in the evening. It was a memorable day for us that; Saturday the 14th of December; a day of sadness irreparable for our land. Not quite yet, however, had the hour of calamity come; and the astounding grief, half paralysing England with its suddenness, had not fully broken upon it.
It was getting on for ten o'clock before Mrs. Cray was able to leave the steamer. To present herself, an unexpected intruder, at Miss Davenal's at midnight was not to be thought of. All the way over she had been revolving the news contained in Sara's letter, of which she had made so light to Mark: should Captain Davenal and his wife have arrived, she did not think there would be room for her; and the untoward lateness of the hour increased her difficulty.
There came a thought flashing into her mind, welcome as a ray of light. "I wonder if Watton could take me in for the night?"
Her kind friends, the captain and his wife--and very kind and hospitable they had been to her--had a cab called, and Mrs. Cray and her trunk were placed in it, a tide-waiter allowing the disembarkment. She was then driven to St. Paul's Churchyard.
Watton came out in a state of wonder. A lady in a cab inquiring for her! Perhaps it was not lessened when she recognised Mrs. Cray: but Mrs. Cray looking so awfully ill, so greatly changed! Watton, always of a demonstrative temper, could not conceal her shock of dismay; and perhaps the woman's words first imparted to Caroline a suspicion of what her real state might be. Always with Mark, he could not detect the ravages in her face as a stranger detected them; and the recent voyage of course added its evil effects to her looks.
"Watton, could you take me in for the night?"
She was too fatigued, too worn and ill to enter upon her demand with introductory circumlocution. Watton only stared in reply. This, coupled with Mrs. Cray's appearance, momentarily took her wits away.
"I could lie on a sofa, or on a blanket put down on the carpet, anywhere just for tonight. I don't like to go on so late to Aunt Bettina's; they do not expect me, and will have gone to bed. And you know what she is, Watton."
"To be sure I can take you in, Miss Caroline," returned Watton, recovering herself partially, and warming to the poor sick girl. "Thirty hours in a steamer! My goodness! And they are horrid things always. I crossed over to Jersey once in my young days, and I shall never forget it. Of course you can't go on to Pimlico tonight. Bring in the trunk, cabman."
The trunk was placed inside the passage, the man paid and dismissed, and Watton was closing the street-door, when it was pushed against. She flung it open with an impatient word, and a gentleman entered. Watton was taken by surprise. "I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure. I thought it was the cabman wanting to stand out for another sixpence."
He passed her with a smile, glanced at Caroline and the trunk, and was making his way up the stairs, when she again addressed him.
"Is there any fresh news, sir?"
"Yes, and it is not good, Mrs. Watton," he replied, turning to speak. "Report says that a telegram has been received from Windsor, stating that there is no hope; that the Prince is rapidly sinking."
His voice was low, his manner subdued; and he raised his hat with unconscious reverence while he gave the answer. Watton lost her breath.
"It may not be true, sir! it may not be true!"
"I trust indeed it is not."
"But, sir, was there not hope this afternoon?"
"According to the report that reached us, there was. Could the Prince only bear up through this one night all would be well."
He passed up the stairs as he spoke. Watton led the way into a sitting-room at the back of the house, and Mrs. Cray followed her in perplexed silence, in eager curiosity, unable to understand the words she had heard.
That great and good Prince, whom England knew too little, and whom to know was to love, was indeed lyingin extremisin the castle that had been his many years' home. On that calm, clear, soft December night, when the streets of London were alive with bustle and pleasure, there was a dying bed not many miles away from it, around whose hushed stillness knelt England's sovereign, England's royal children. The gracious and benignant Prince, the faithful consort, the loyal husband, the tender anxious father, was winging his flight away; sinking gradually but surely from those loving arms, those tearful eyes, those yearning prayers, which could not keep him.
London had been shocked that day. Not so shocked as she might have been; for perhaps not one living man within her walls realised to his mind the possibility of the worst.Death!--for him!It was impossible to contemplate it: and from the first duke in the land down to the little pauper boys who sold for a penny the newspapers containing the bulletins none did seriously fear it.
Mrs. Cray listened as one aroused out of a dream. The Prince ill!--ill unto danger! The Prince who had been associated in men's minds as one enshrined in a bright halo of prosperity, in the very sunshine of happiness!--who had looked down from his dizzy height on other men as if he stood above the world! It seemed incredible. Watton gave the details, so far as they were known to the general public; the few days' illness, the apprehensions excited on the Friday, the fluctuating accounts of that same day; the unfavourable news of the morning, the afternoon's opinion of the medical men at Windsor, that if the Prince could only bear up through that one night--the night now entered upon--all would be well. And now the latest tidings were that he was sinking!
Mrs. Cray forgot her own weakness, her fatigue, in these all-absorbing tidings. But it was as impossible for her to believe in the worst for him as it had been for the public. A few minutes of awestruck consternation, and hope reasserted its supremacy in her heart. Nay, not only hope, but a certainty that it "would be well." I honestly believe that such was the prevailing feeling in every breast. It was so hard, it was sohardto look upon the reverse side of the picture.
"We had heard nothing of this at Honfleur!"
"And we can't be said to have heard much of it here until today," was Watton's answer. "It has come upon us with startling suddenness. Oh, if we can but get better tidings in the morning!"
"We shall be sure to do that, Watton," said Caroline, in a low, hopeful tone. "Death surely could not come tohim."
Watton made her some tea, and she sat over the fire in the sitting-room while she drank it. She could not eat: generally her appetite was good, but fatigue and excitement had taken it away tonight. She told of her residence in the French town, she hinted slightly at their want of success, and Watton looked grave as she spoke of her side.
"You think the London doctors can cure you, Miss Caroline?"--for the old name came far more familiar to Watton than the new one.
"I did think so," replied Caroline, feeling that the strong conviction of this, which had amounted to a disease in Honfleur, had in some unexplainable manner gone out of her. "I seem not to be sure of it, as I was before I came."
"And shall you make a long stay in London?"
"About a week. I have come for advice only, not to stay to be cured. Aunt Bettina's is no house for me; and perhaps I cannot even stay there at all. Captain Davenal and his wife may have arrived."
She heaved a sigh of weary despondency. Watton urged her to retire; but Caroline felt at rest in the easy chair, and still sat on. It was so long since she had seen a home face, or conversed with a home tongue.
"Who was that gentleman who passed us as I was coming in?" she asked, "he who spoke of the Prince?" And Watton replied that it was Mr. Comyng, a junior partner of the house, and the only one of the partners who resided there.
It wanted scarce a quarter to twelve when Caroline at length went upstairs to a very high bedroom. Whether it was Watton's room, or not Caroline did not know, but it had been made cheery. The curtains and bed were white and pleasant-looking, and a fire sparkled in the grate. Watton would have stayed with her to help her undress, but Caroline preferred to be alone.
When left to herself, she drew aside the window-curtains, and saw that the room faced the front: there stood old St Paul's, grim and formidable, and apparently so close to her that she might have fancied it within a leap. Letting the curtain remain open, she sat down at the fire, before which was drawn a chair as easy as the one downstairs.
She sat with her head pillowed on the high arm, gazing at the blaze, and musing over present events. Their strangely uncertain life at Honfleur, poor Mark's position and poverty, her own malady and the curious manner in which she had lost that eager faith in the result of her journey, her reception on the morrow by Miss Davenal--and with all these thoughts were mingled more prominently the tidings which had greeted her since her entrance.
Unconsciously to herself she dropped into a doze. It was a very foolish thing to do, of course, for she would have been much better in bed; but none of us are wise always. She dozed placidly; and the first thing that in the least aroused her, and that only partially, was the booming out in her ear of a deep-toned bell.
"St. Paul's clock striking twelve," was the supposition that crossed her mind in its state of semi-sleep. But ere many minutes had gone by she became alive to the fact that the striking did not cease, that the strokes of the bell were tolling out fast and loud as--as--adeath-bellstrikes out.
It has not been the fate of many to hear the bell of St. Paul's Cathedral strike out at midnight. Those whohavewill never forget it during life. Never, never, will it be forgotten by those few who heard it as it went booming into the air on that still December night, bearing forth its message of woe to the startled hearts of the metropolis.
For a brief moment Mrs. Cray wondered what was the matter. She sprang out of her chair and stood staring at the edifice, as if in mute inquiry of what it meant. And then--when she remembered what had been said that night--and the recollection flashed on her with that heart-sickness that generally accompanies some awful terror--she opened the window and leaned out.
Three or four persons were standing underneath, motionless, still as if they had collected there to gaze at the dark cathedral, to listen to the booming bell. "What is it?" she called out "What does it mean?"
Her voice, raised by excitement to unnatural strength and clearness, was heard distinctly. Those standing below looked up. In one of them she thought she recognised Mr. Comyng. He was standing bare-headed, his hat in his hand, and his solemn answer came up to her in the stillness of the night.
"Prince Albert's gone."
A moment of bewildering suspense, while the mind refused to admit the dreadful truth, and Caroline Cray turned sick and faint. And then the sobbing cry burst from her heart and lips--a cry that was to find its echo from thousands and thousands as the hours went on--
"Oh, the Queen! the Queen! May God help and support the Queen!"