Yes, he was gone. Great Britain rose on the Sunday morning to the news, for the telegraphs were at work, and the tidings were carried through the length and breadth of the land. And people did not believe it. It could not be! Why, it seemed but yesterday that he had come over in the flower of youth and promise to wed the fair young Queen! Dead! Prince Albert dead! None of you have forgotten the wide gap in the Litany that Sunday morning; the pale lips of the clergymen, compelled to make it; the quivering, breathless hearts that answered to it. But for the remembrance that God's ways are not as our ways, how many of those startled and grieved hearts would have felt tempted to question thewhyof the stroke, in their imperfect wisdom.
But to return to Caroline Cray, for the night was not yet over and the bell was ringing out. When the first immediate shock had passed, she quitted the window and leaned her head upon the counterpane. A solemn awe had laid hold of her, and she felt as she had never felt in all her life. Her whole soul seemed to go up in--may I dare to say?--heavenly commune. It was as if heaven had opened--had become very near. I may be mistaken, but I believe this same feeling was experienced by many in the first startling shock. This was so entirely unlike an ordinary death; even of one of our near and dear relatives. Heaven seemed no longer the far-off mysterious place she had been wont to regard it, but ahome, a refuge, all near and real. It had opened and taken him in; in his early manhood; in his full usefulness; in England's need; when that wife and royal lady had learned to lean upon him; when his sons and his daughters were growing up around him, some of them at the moment in other lands, out of reach of the loving farewell of his aching heart! with his mission here--it so seemed--only half-fulfilled!--it had taken him in before his time, and gathered him to his rest. He did not seem to have gone entirely away; he was only hidden beyond reach and sight for a little while; that same refuge would open for her, Caroline, and others; a little earlier, a little later, and she and all would follow him. Heavy as the blow was in itself, incapable as she was of understanding it, it yet seemed an earnest of the overruling presence of the living God. Oh, what was the poor world in that night, with the strokes of the death-bell sounding in her ears, compared to that never-ending world above, that heritage on which he had entered!
Fatigue and emotion did their most on Mrs. Cray. In the morning she was unable to get up, and Watton wisely and kindly urged that she should not rise at all that day, but take a good rest, and go on to Miss Davenal's on the morrow. So she lay where she was, and listened to that gloomy death-bell, as it periodically gave forth its sound; and the bursts of tears, in her bodily weakness could not be suppressed, but came forth repeatedly to wet the pillow, as she thought of the widowed Queen, the fatherless children.
The day's rest did her a great deal of good, and she rose on the Monday renovated and refreshed. A wish had come over her that she could see a doctor and learn her fate before she went to her aunt Bettina's. She had not come to town with the intention of consulting any particular surgeon;--indeed she hardly knew the name of one from another. Watton, when sitting with her on the Sunday night, had spoken of a noted surgeon living in Westminster, and Caroline remembered then to have heard Dr. Davenal speak of his skill: and she determined to go to him.
She went up in an early omnibus through the mourning streets. The bells were tolling, the shutters were partially closed, men and women stood in groups to converse, sadness pervading every countenance. The surgeon, Mr. Welch, was at home, but she had to wait her turn to be admitted to him.
He was not in the least like Monsieur Le Bleu, except in one little matter--he wore spectacles. A silent man, who looked more than talked; he bade Mrs. Cray tell her case to him from beginning to end in the best manner she was able, and he never took his spectacles from her face while she was doing so.
What she said necessitated an examination of the side. It could be but a slight one there, dressed as she was, but the surgeon appeared to form a pretty rapid opinion. She inquired whether it was curable, and he replied that he could not say upon so superficial an examination, but he would see her at home, if she would tell him where she lived. In her reply, when she said she had no home in London, it escaped her that her husband was a medical man living in France.
"What part of it?" he inquired.
"At Honfleur."
"Honfleur!" echoed the surgeon in an accent of surprise. "Is there sufficient practice to employ an English medical man at Honfleur? I should not have thought it. I was there a year or two ago."
The consciousness of the truth of what the "practice" was dyed her cheeks with their carmine flush. Her eyelids drooped, her trembling fingers entwined themselves convulsively one within the other, as if there were some sad tale to tell. Her bonnet was untied, and its rich white strings (for Watton had affixed these new ones, and taken off the dirty ones) fell on her velvet cloak, nearly the only good relic left of other days. That grave gentleman of sixty, seated opposite to her, thought he had never seen so lovely a face, with its fragile features, its delicate bloom, and its shrinking expression.
She raised her dark blue violet eyes, their lashes wet. Misfortune had brought to her a strange humility. "There's not much practice yet, sir. It may come with time."
He thought he could discern the whole case. It is that ofsomewho go abroad; a struggle for existence, anxiety of mind and body, privation, and the latent constitutional weakness showing itself at last.
One single word of confidential sympathy, and Caroline burst into tears. Her spirits that morning were strangely low, and she had no power to struggle against emotion.
"I beg your pardon," she murmured apologetically when she could speak. "The fatigue of the long journey--the universal gloom around--I shall be better in a minute."
"Now tell me all about it," said Mr. Welch in a kind tone, when she had recovered. "There's an old saying, you know: 'Tell your whole case to your lawyer and your doctor,' and it is a good injunction. I like my patients to treat me as a friend. I suppose; the practice in Honfleur is worth about five francs every three months, and that you have suffered physically in consequence. Don't hesitate to speak: I can shake hands with your husband: when I was first in practice I had hardly bread to eat."
It was so exceedingly like the real fact, "about five francs every three months," and his manner and tone were so entirely kind and sympathising, that Mrs. Cray made no pretence of denial. The practice was really not enough to starve upon, she acknowledged: none of the English residents at Honfleur ever got ill.
"But why did your husband settle there? Was it his first essay?--his start in life?"
"O no. He was in practice at Hallingham before that, in partnership with Dr. Davenal."
"With Dr. Davenal!"
The repetition of the name, the astonished tone, recalled Mrs. Cray to a sense of her inadvertence. The admission had slipped from her carelessly, in the thoughtlessness of the moment. Mr. Welch saw that there was something behind, and he kept his inquiring eyes fixed upon her. She felt obliged to give some sort of explanation.
"After Dr. Davenal's death my husband gave up the medical profession, and embarked in something else. He thought he should like it better. But it--it---failed: And he went to Honfleur."
Her confusion--which she could not hide--was very palpable: it was confusion as well as distress. All in a moment the name, Cray, struck upon a chord in the surgeon's memory. It was his custom to take down the names of his patients ere he entered upon their cases, and he looked again at the memorandum-book before him. "Cray."
"Your husband is not the Mr. Cray who was connected with the Great Chwddyn Mine!" he exclaimed. "Marcus Cray?"
She was startled to tremor. There was no cause for it, of course the fact of its being known that she was Mark's wife could not result in their takinghim. But these unpleasant recognitions do bring a fear with them, startling as it is vague.
"Don't be alarmed," said the surgeon kindly, discerning the exact state of the case. "I do not wish ill to your husband. I was no shareholder in the company. Not but that I felt an inclination for a dip into it, and might have had it, had the thing gone on."
"It was not Mr. Cray's fault," she gasped. "He would have kept the water out had it been in his power: its coming in ruined him. I cannot see--I have never been able to see--why everybody should be so much against him."
"I cannot understand why he need keep away," was the answering remark.
He looked at her inquiringly as he spoke. She shook her head in a helpless sort of manner: she had never clearly understood it either.
"Ah well; I see you don't know much; you young wives rarely do. Did you know Dr. Davenal?"
"He was my uncle," she said. "He brought me up. I was Miss Caroline Davenal."
Another moment of surprise for Mr. Welch. It seemed so impossible for a niece of the good and flourishing physician-surgeon to be so reduced, as he suspected she was--almost homeless, friendless, penniless.
She was struggling with her tears again. With the acknowledgment her memory had gone back to the old home, the old days. She had scarcely believedthenthere was such a thing as care in the world;now----?
"You will tell me the truth about myself," she said, recovering composure. "I came to England to learn it.Praydon't deceive me. I am a doctor's wife you know, and can bear these shocks," she added, with a poor attempt at a smile. "Besides, I seem toknowthe fate that is in store for me: since Saturday night I have not felt that I should get well."
There was one moment of hesitation--of indecision. Caroline caught at it all too readily. "I see," she said, "there is no hope."
"I said nothing of the sort," he returned.
"But I am sure you think that there is not. Mr. Cray thought there might be an operation: the French doctor said no."
"I cannot tell you anything decisive now. I will come to you if you will tell me where."
She gave him Miss Davenal's address. "I am so sorry to trouble you; I did not think of that. A few days and I shall go back to France."
"No," replied the surgeon. "You must not think of going back. It would not do."
"But I came. And it has not hurt me."
"You must not return."
He spoke in a tone so quietly grave that Caroline did not like it. Could it be that he knew she would be unable to go back? What would become of Mark? what would become ofher?But she could not take up his time longer then.
"Is this right?" she asked timidly, as she laid a sovereign and a shilling on the table.
"It's quite wrong," said he. "Doctors don't prey upon one another. My dear lady, do you think I should take money from Dr. Davenal's niece?--or your husband's wife? Anything that I can possibly do for you I shall be most happy to do--and I am glad you happened to come to me."
She went out of the house. Why it should have been she could not tell, for certainly Mr. Welch's words had not induced it, but the conviction of a fatal termination, which had but dawned upon her before, had taken firm possession of her now. Lost in thought as she walked, she missed the turning by which she had gained the surgeon's house, and, found herself at last in a labyrinth, far away from omnibuses and anything else available.
One directed her this way; one directed her that. Weary, faint, unfit to move another step, she found herself at last in a street whose aspect seemed more familiar; but not until she caught sight of a door-plate, "Bracknell, Street, and Oswald Cray," did she recognise it to be Parliament Street.
The temptation to go in and ask to be allowed to rest was strong upon her, but she did not like to do so, and walked on, longing to sit down on every door-step. A little way further and she met Oswald Cray.
When the physical strength has been taxed beyond its power, especially in a peculiar case such as hers, any little break to it of mental excitement either renovates it for the moment or destroys it utterly. It was the latter case with Caroline.
"Mrs. Cray!" exclaimed Oswald, in surprise. "I did not know you were in London."
She caught hold of something in her faintness. Whether pillar, railings, post, she could not have told. Her brow grew moist, her lips white. Oswald hastened to support her.
"I have lost my way," she gasped, leaning heavily upon him. "I missed it when I came out of the surgeon's, Mr. Welch. I came over from Honfleur on Saturday, Oswald; I came to consult an English doctor. I am dying."
"Dying!" repeated Oswald. "No, no, it is only a little faintness."
"Notthis. I shall be better of this directly. It is my side. I'll tell you about it when the faintness has passed. I thought there was no hope for me. I know it now."
He was leading her gently, by slow steps, towards the house. "How is Mark? Is he here too?" he asked.
"Not Mark. He cannot come, you know."
"Is he getting on?"
"Oh, Oswald! getting on! There's no practice; and we have not a penny-piece; and--I--I am dying. Oh, if I had not to die abroad! If Mark could but come to me."
"Where are you staying?" he asked after a pause.
"Watton gave me shelter. It was late when the boat got up, too late to go on to my aunt Bettina's, and I called at Watton's, and asked her to take me in. Oswald!--Oswald!--"
"What?" he asked, for she had dropped her voice, and her utterance seemed to be impeded by emotion.
"I heard the bell toll out for Prince Albert! I was close to it!"
"Ah!"
"Oswald! can you realise the fact that he is dead?"
"Not yet; scarcely yet. It is difficult to believe thatheis taken, while we are left. It seems to us, in our finite notions, that there's hardly a man in the realm but could have been better spared. But God knows best."
His tone of pain had changed to reverence. There was no more said until they reached his door. He assisted her upstairs to the old sitting-room, the same sitting-room, with the same plans and charts and signs of work on its table. Oswald was a full partner now. Industry--trustful, patient, persevering, fair-dealing industry--had met with its reward. Did you ever know it fail? I never did.
Mr. Bracknell had virtually retired from the firm, leaving most of its profit to Mr. Street and Oswald Cray. Had Miss Sara Davenal been the daughter of the still-living and flourishing physician, on whom not a cloud rested, as was the case in the years gone by, Oswald could have asked for her hand now, and given her a home that even he would have deemed worthy of her.
Not having her, however, or any other lady, as a wife in prospective, he was content to let the home remain in abeyance, and lived in the old rooms, putting up with the comforts and agreeables Mrs. Benn chose to provide for him. The first thing Caroline did, on being placed on an easy chair, was to faint away. It was the only time she had fainted since the day in October when she walked to the Côte de Grâce. Mark Cray gave fatigue the benefit of the blame then, and it was probably due to the same cause now. When Mrs. Benn came up in answer to Oswald's summons, nothing could well exceed her amazement at seeing a lifeless lady lying in the chair, her bonnet hanging at the back by its strings, her gloves on the ground, and Mr. Oswald Cray rubbing her unconscious hands.
The first thought that occurred to Mrs. Benn was one of wonder how she got there: the second, that it was some stranger who had come to the offices on business, and had been taken ill.
"She's married, at any rate," remarked that lady, as she took up the left hand to chafe it. "But nobody would say so to look in her face. She's like a girl."
"Don't you know her?" returned Oswald, glancing at the woman. "It is Mrs. Cray; my brother's wife."
Mrs. Benn gave a shriek in her surprise. "Her!Why, sir, how she's altered! She looks fit----"
"Hush!" was his interrupting caution, for Caroline began to revive. "Can't we improvise a sofa or mattress, or something of that sort, to place her on?"
In the same house at Pimlico, and in the same attire as of yore, save that the deeper mourning had been exchanged for rich silks, and the black ribbons on the realguipurecaps for white or grey, sat Miss Bettina Davenal. She was not altered. She had the same stately presence, the same pale, refined features; she was of a stamp that changes little, and never seems to grow old. Sara had changed more than her aunt, and the earnest, sweet expression, always characteristic of her face, was mingled now with habitual sadness. She wore a robe of soft grey cashmere, its white collar tied with ribbon, and bows of the same ornamenting the lace sleeves shading her delicate wrists.
Miss Bettina stood, grandly courteous; Sara's cheeks were flushed, and she played with a key which had happened to be in her hand as she rose. Oswald Cray had come in unexpectedly, and was telling the story of Caroline; telling it rapidly, before he took the chair offered him. What with the extraordinary nature of the news, and Miss Bettina's inaptitude for hearing, it was a difficult business as usual.
"Come over from Honfleur in a goods-boat, and it didn't get here?" exclaimed Miss Bettina, commenting on what she did hear--for Oswald repeated the particulars Caroline had disclosed to him on her revival. "Andwheredo you say she's lying, sir?"
"In my sitting-room in Parliament Street."
"The boat is?" questioned Miss Bettina, looking at Oswald keenly, as if she thought he had lost his senses. "I beg your pardon Mr. Oswald Cray, I must have misunderstood."
"Caroline is lying there, not the boat. I fear she is very ill. She looks so; and she says she is suffering from some fatal complaint."
"Fatal mistake! I should think so," returned Miss Bettina. "If ever a man made that, it was Mark Cray when he threw up Hallingham. But what's she come for? And why did she go to you instead of to me?"
But Sara had drawn near to Oswald.Shehad heard the explanation aright, and the words "fatal complaint" frightened her. "Do you know what it is?" she asked. "Is she very ill?"
"She is so ill, if her looks may be trusted, that I should think she cannot live long," he answered. "I came down to you at once. Something must be done with her; we cannot let her go back to Watton's. If you are unable to receive her, I will get a lodging--"
"But we are not unable to receive her," interrupted Sara. "Of course we are not. My aunt--"
"Caroline doubted whether you had room. She has just told me you were expecting Captain Davenal and his wife."
"We are looking for their arrival daily. Perhaps the ship may be in today. But they will not stay with us: Lady Reid expects them there. Did you not know Edward was coming?" she continued, quitting for a moment the subject of Caroline. "His wife's father is dead, and business is bringing them home. She has come into a large fortune."
"Willyou let me understand what this matter is?" interposed Miss Bettina.
It recalled them to the present. But to make Miss Bettina understand--or rather hear--was a work not speedily accomplished. She even was aware of it herself.
"I am not myself today, sir," she said to Oswald Cray. "I have not been myself since yesterday morning. When the tidings were brought to me that--that it was all over with that good Prince--I felt as I had never felt in my life before. It is not a common death, Mr. Oswald Cray, or a common loss, even had we been prepared for it. But we were not prepared. That Royal Lady and her children were not prepared; and we can but pray God, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, to love and help them."
"Amen!" responded the heart of Oswald.
When there was a real necessity for Miss Bettina Davenal's relenting in her severity, she did relent. She returned with Mr. Oswald Cray, and Sara went with them. On her way she spoke to him about the rise in his prospects, a rumour of which she had heard from Neal.
"Is it true?" she asked, bending forward to catch his answer, as he sat opposite to her in the carriage.
"It is true that my share has been considerably increased. Mr. Bracknell has retired."
"I suppose you will take a house now?"
"I think not," said Oswald. "Single men don't care to set up a house of their own."
"What men don't?"
"Unmarried men."
"Oh," said Miss Bettina. "Do you never intend to marry?"
Oswald laughed. "I have no time to think about it, Miss Bettina."
Miss Bettina did not catch the answer. "Some time ago we had reason given us to think that you were about to marry. Did you change your mind?"
It was a home question. Oswald could have joked it off but for that gentle, conscious, Dent face in the opposite corner. "We have to give up all kinds of fond dreams and visions, you know, Miss Bettina. Youth is very apt to indulge in such: and they mostly turn out vain."
"Turned out vain, did she? I must say I did not think she was in a position worthy of you."
Oswald opened his eyes. "Of whom are you speaking, Miss Davenal?"
"Of you. I was not speaking of any one else."
"But the lady? You alluded to a lady."
"Oh, the lady. You don't want me to tell you her name. You know it well enough. That young Scotch lady whose brother was ill."
He breathed with a feeling of relief. A fear had come over him that his dearest feelings had been exposed to Miss Davenal--perhaps to others. Sara's colour heightened, and she raised her eyes momentarily. They met Oswald's: and she was vexed with herself.
"I shall most likely live a bachelor all my days, Miss Davenal. I believe I shall."
"More unwise of you, Mr. Oswald Cray! Bachelors are to be pitied. They never get a cup of decent tea or a button on their shirts."
"I am independent of buttons; I have set up studs. See," he continued, showing his wrists. "And tea I don't particularly care for."
Miss Bettina thought he was serious. "You'd be happier as a married man, with somebody to take care of your comforts. It is so different with women;theyare happiest single--at least, such is my belief--and their comforts are in their own hands."
"The difficulty is to find somebody suitable, Miss Bettina. Especially to us busy men, who have no time to look out."
"True," she answered. But whether she heard or not was another matter. "What's Mark Cray about?" she presently asked, somewhat abruptly. "Doing any more harm?"
"I hear he is not doing any good. There's no practice in Honfleur."
"No politics?"
"Practice."
"Nobody in their senses would have thought there was. Perhaps he expects to get up a mining scheme there, and dazzle the French."
"If he is to do any good for himself, he must come over and get clear of the mining scheme here," observed Oswald.
Miss Davenal nodded her head and drew in her lips. It was not often that she condescended to make the slightest allusion to Mark Cray.
Mrs. Cray was asleep when they entered. She lay on the couch hastily improvised for her, dressed, and covered with a warm counterpane. One hand was under her wan cheek, the other lay outside, white, attenuate, cold. Miss Bettina Davenal took one look; one look only with those keen eyes of hers. It was quite enough, and an exclamation of dismay broke from her lips. Caroline opened her eyes and gazed around in bewilderment.
"Aunt Bettina! Have they brought you to see me? Will you take me in for a day or two until I can go back?"
"I have come for you," said Miss Bettina.
Until I can go back! Poor thing! what had she to go back to? A lodging in a foreign land that they might be turned from at any hour, for the rent could not be paid up; scanty nourishment, care, trouble, almost despair. Only Mark to lean upon, with his wavering instability: his vague chatter of the something that was to "turn up." Better depend upon a reed than upon Mark Cray.
Sara Davenal had drawn back for a moment, that the shock on her own face might be subdued before presenting it to Caroline. Oswald passed round to her.
"Is she dying?" came the frightened whisper.
"Do not be alarmed," he answered. "She looked worse than this when I first brought her in. She has had a good deal of excitement and fatigue these last few days, and that tells upon her appearance."
"Yes--but--do you know there's a look in her face that puts me in mind of papa's. Of papa's as it was the night he died."
It was not often that Sara gave way to emotion. The moisture had gathered on her brow, and her hands were trembling. Oswald gently laid his hand upon her shoulder.
"Youare not going to faint, surely, Sara!"
"No, no "--and the slightest possible smile parted her trembling lips. "I used to think I was very brave, but lately--at times--I have found myself a coward. I seem to become afraid at trifles," she continued in a dreamy tone, as if debating the question with herself why it should be so.
"Where's Sara? I thought I saw her."
Sara moved forward at the words. She suppressed all sign of emotion as she stooped over her cousin. Caroline was the one to show it now. She burst into tears and sobbed hysterically.
"If Uncle Richard were but alive! He could cure me."
"Don't, Caroline, don't distress yourself. There are doctors as clever as papa was."
"I kept thinking"--she turned her colourless face to Sara as she spoke--"I kept thinking at Honfleur of Uncle Richard; that if the old days could come back again, and I were at home with him at Hallingham in the old house as it used to be, I should be well soon. The thought kept haunting me. And, Sara, I am sure if my uncle were alive hecouldcure me. I shall never believe otherwise."
She paused. Sara knew not what reply to make. Miss Davenal did not catch the words, and Oswald leaned on the back of a chair in silence, only looking at her as she lay.
"Why should this conviction have haunted me? Uncle Richard was gone. Mark kept dinning in my ears that there were other doctors as good as Dr. Davenal, and at last I grew to think so too, because they were English. So I came over; I should have had a fever or died if I had not come; and now I see how foolish the hope was, for theycan'tcure me. Nobody could do it but Uncle Richard."
Miss Bettina had been bending her ear close to the invalid, and caught the sense of the words. "Why do you think nobody can cure you?"
"I feel that they can't. No: Uncle Richard's gone, and there's no chance for me."
They got her ready, Oswald helped her down to the carriage, and she was conveyed home. The only home she would henceforth know in this world. Dorcas stood in the passage, and looked on askance as she entered the house.Thatthe blooming young bride whom she had received into the Abbey at Hallingham little more than two short years before!
Sara gave up her room to her as the most commodious one in the house, herself taking the chamber at the back of it, which had been occasionally occupied by Dick and Leo. Caroline looked round the room as she lay in bed, a curious, inquiring sort of gaze in her eyes.
"Have I been in this room before?" she suddenly asked.
She had never been in it. Her visits to Miss Bettina's, during the prosperity in Grosvenor Place, were not sufficiently familiar to allow of her entering the bedrooms. Sara told her she had never yet been in it.
"I seem to know it all; I seem to have seen it before. I suppose it's a sign that I shall die in it."
She spoke dreamily, alluding to a foolish superstition that she had heard in her childhood, and probably had never thought of since. It was not a very promising beginning.
Miss Davenal wrote a line to Mr. Welch, the surgeon, and he called in the evening. Caroline was better then, calm and cheerful. Her spirits had revived in a wonderful manner; but it was in her nature to be subject to these sudden fluctuations.
"Shall I get well?" she asked, when his examination was over.
"I will do what I can for you. The pain I think can be very considerably alleviated."
It was not a satisfactory answer. To most ears it might have savoured of considerate evasion, but it did not to Caroline's. "Must there be an operation?" she resumed.
"No."
She looked up at him from the depths of her violet eyes, pausing before she spoke again. "Monsieur Le Bleu said there must be an operation, if it could be performed.If, he said; he did not seem sure. It was the only chance, he said."
The surgeon met the remark jokingly. "Monsieur Le Bleu's very clever--as he no doubt thinks. I will see you again tomorrow, Mrs. Cray."
"But--stay a moment. Tell me at least by which day I shall be ready to go back. You can put me in the proper way of treatment, and I will pursue it over there."
"Not by any day. You must not think of returning to France."
She looked puzzled: there was a wild expression in her eyes. "Do you mean that I shall not be able to return at all?"
"Yes, I do. I say that you must not venture upon the shores of France again. We can't think of trusting you to the care of that clever French doctor, you know."
And before Caroline had recovered her surprise sufficiently to rejoin, Mr. Welch had left the chamber and was down in the drawing-room with Miss Davenal. She bent her head as she waited for his opinion.
"Do you wish for the truth, ma'am?" he asked.
"Wish for what?" repeated Miss Bettina, putting her hand to her ear.
"The truth."
"Do I wish for the truth?" she retorted, affronted at the question. "Sir, I am the daughter of one surgeon and the sister of another; I don't know to whom the truth may be told if not to me. It isnecessarythat I should know it."
Mr. Welch gave her the truth: that there was no hope whatever. At least, what he said was equivalent to that.
"And the operation that she talks of?"
"It cannot be performed. The case is not an ordinary one."
Miss Bettina was for a minute silent. "My brother, Dr. Davenal, always said Caroline had no constitution."
"Dr. Davenal was right," returned the surgeon. "Mrs. Cray is one--if I may form a judgment upon so short an acquaintance--who could never, even under the most auspicious surroundings, have lived to grow old."
"I remember a remark he made to me after Caroline's marriage with Mark Cray was fixed--that it was well she should marry a doctor, for she'd need watching. A fine doctor, indeed!" continued Miss Bettina, irascibly, as she recalled Mark's later career. "If my poor brother had but known! I suppose it is all this disgrace that has brought it on!"
"It may have hastened it," said the surgeon. "But this, or some other disease, would inevitably have developed itself sooner or later. The germs were within her."
"And now what can be done for her?"
"Nothing in the world can be done for her, as regards a cure. We must try and alleviate the pain. That she will now grow worse rapidly there's not a doubt. Miss Davenal, she must be kept tranquil."
It was all very well for Mr. Welch to say she must be kept tranquil; but Caroline Cray was one who had had an absolute spirit of her own all her life, and an excitable one. When Miss Bettina went up to her room after the departure of the surgeon she found her in a wild state. Her cheeks were crimson with incipient fever, her eyes glistening. Sara, terrified, was holding her down in bed: begging her to be reasonable.
"I want to go back at once, Aunt Bettina," she exclaimed, throwing out her arms in a sort of frenzy. "He says I can't go back to France, but I will go. What does he know about it, I wonder? I was well enough to come, and I am well enough to go back! Be quiet, Sara! Why do you wish to prevent my speaking? You'll send me back today, won't you, Aunt Bettina?"
"I'll send for a strait waistcoat and put you into that," shrilly cried Miss Bettina in her vexation. "This is a repetition of the childishness of the old days."
"I won't be separated from Mark. Though he has been mistaken and imprudent, he is still my husband. It's a shame that Mr. Welch should want to keep me here! Don't you be so cruel as to side with him, Aunt Bettina."
For once in her life Miss Bettina Davenal lent herself to an evasive compromise. She promised Caroline that she should go back when she was a little stronger, perhaps in two or three days, she said. And it had the desired effect. It soothed away the invalid's dangerous excitement, and she turned round on her pillow and went to sleep quietly.
But as the days went on, and the disease--as the surgeon had foretold--rapidly developed itself, it became plain to Mrs. Cray herself that returning to France was out of the question. And then her tone changed. She no longer prayed in impatient words to be sent: she bewailed in impassioned tones that she must die away from her husband. One day, towards the end of December, it almost seemed that her brain was slightly affected, perhaps from weakness. She started suddenly from the sofa in the drawing-room, where she was reclining, and seized hold of the hands of her aunt in a wild manner.
"O Aunt Bettina! Aunt Bettina! if I had not to go over there to die!"
"Over where?" cried Miss Bettina. "What are you talking of, child?"
"There. Honfleur. If I had not to go! If I could but stop in my own land, among you to the last! It may not be for long!"
Miss Bettina, what with the suddenness of the attack and her own deafness, was bewildered. "I don't hear," she helplessly said.
"They have got two cemeteries, but I'd not like to lie in either," went on Caroline. "Mark won't stop in the town for ever, and there'd be nobody to look at my grave. Aunt, aunt, I can't go over there to die!"
"But you are not going there," returned Miss Bettina, catching the sense of the words. "You must be dreaming, Caroline. You are not going back to Honfleur."
"I must go. I can't die away from Mark. Aunt, listen!" she passionately continued, clasping the wrist of Miss Bettina until that lady felt the pain. "It is one of two things: either I must go to Honfleur, or Mark must come here. Icannotdie away from him."
The cry was reiterated until it grew into a wail of agony. She was suffering herself to fall into that excess of nervous agitation so difficult to soothe, so pernicious to the sick frame. Sara came in alarmed, and learned the nature of the excitement. She leaned over the sofa with a soothing whisper.
"Dear Carine! only be quiet: only be comforted! We will manage to get Mark here."
The low tone, the gentle words, seemed partially to allay the storm of the working brain. Caroline turned to Sara.
"What do you say you'll do?"
"Get Mark over to London."
She thought for a moment, and then shook her head and spoke wearily, a wailing plaint in her tone.
"You will never get him over. He is not to be got over. I know Mark better than you, Sara. So long as that miserable Wheal Bang hangs over his head he will not set his foot on English ground. I have heard him say so times upon times since he left these shores, and he will not break his word. He is afraid, you see. O Aunt Bettina!" throwing up her arms again in renewed excitement--"what an awful mistake it was!"
"What was a mistake?" returned Miss Bettina, catching the last word and no other.
"What!" echoed the unhappy invalid in irritation. "The quitting Hallingham; the past altogether. It was giving up the substance for the shadow. If we had but listened to you! If Mark had never heard of the Great Wheal Bang!"
Oh, those ifs, those ifs! how they haunt us through life! How many of us are perpetually giving up the substance for the shadow!
Mr. Mark Cray stood on the little bit of low stony ground that bordered the coast at Honfleur, just outside the entrance of the harbour. Mr. Mark was kicking pebbles into the water. Being in a remarkably miserable and indecisive state of mind, having nothing on earth to do, he had strolled out of his lodgings anywhere that his legs chose to carry him; and there he was, looking into the water on that gloomy winter's evening.
But pray don't fear that he had any ulterior designs of making himself better acquainted with its chilly depths. Men in the extremity of despair have been known to entertain such; Mark Cray never would have dreamt of it. There was an elasticity in Mark's spirit, a shallowness of feeling quite incompatible with that sad state of mind hinted at, and the most prominent question pervading Mark, even now was, how long it would be before something "turned up."
Not but that Mark Cray was miserable enough; in a bodily sense, however, rather than a mental. It was not an agreeable state of things by any means to have no money to go on with; to be wanting it in a hundred odd ways; to be told that if he did not pay up at his lodgings that week he must turn out of them--and the French have an inconvenient way of not allowing you to evade such mandates. It was not pleasant to be reduced to a meal or so a day, and that not a sumptuous one; it was not convenient to be restricted to the pair of boots he had on, and to know that the soles were letting in the wet; it was not cheery to be out of charcoal for the cookingréchauds, or to have but a shovelful of coals left for the parlour; moreover and above all, it was most especially annoying and unbearable not to have had the money to pay for a letter that morning, and which, in consequence of that failure, the inexorable postman had carried away with him.
Mrs. Cray's assertion--that her husband never would be got over to London so long as the formidable Wheal Bang threatened danger--proved to be a correct one. Mark had declined the invitation to go. News had been conveyed to him in an unmistakably impressive manner of the state his wife was in, and an urgent mandate sent that he should join her. Oswald only waited his consent to forward him funds for the journey; and poor Caroline hinted in a few private lines that he could choose a steamer which would not make the port of London until after dark, and could wear his spectacles in landing. All in vain. Mark Cray had somehow contrived to acquire a wholesome terror of the British shores, and to them he would not be enticed.
But--has it ever struck you in your passage through life how wonderfully things work round? Caroline Cray was dying; was wanting her husband to be by her side and see the last of her, as it was only right and natural she should; but he--looking at things ashelooked at them--was debarred from going to her; it was--judging as he judged--a simple impossibility that he should go. And this great barrier was turning her mind to frenzy, was making a havoc of her dying hours, and increasing her bodily sufferings in an alarming degree.
It did seem an impossibility. If Mark Cray refused to venture to his own land so long as the Wheal Bang held its rod over him, it was next door to certain that he could not come at all. The Wheal Bang's shareholders would not relax their threats except on the payment of certain claims, and who would be sufficiently philanthropic to pay them? Nobody in the wide world. So there appeared to be no hope of Mark's return; and the knowledge that there was not was entirely taking from Caroline Cray that tranquillity of mind and body which ought if possible to attend the last passage to the tomb: nay, it was keeping her in a state of excitement that was pitiable for herself and for all who beheld her. "If Mark could but come!" was the incessant cry night and day. "I can't die unless Mark comes."
You have heard that beautiful phrase, "Man's extremity is God's opportunity," and though it may strike you as almost irreverent to introduce any matter connected with Mark Cray as an exemplification of it, what came to pass was surely very like a proof of the truth of that phrase. Poor, erring, shallow-pated Mark! even he was remembered, neglectful as he had been of the Great Remembrancer.
While Caroline was lifting her hands to heaven with a vain cry in which there was no trust; while it seemed to all that there was no human feasibility of bringing Mark to England, that feat was accomplished in the easiest and most unexpected manner. Is it too much to say that a Higher Power was at work in answer to that poor woman's despairing cry?--though the human agencies employed were of the least exalted.
Mr. Barker, who was doing something grand and good (good inhissense) in Paris, found it necessary for his own plans to pay a visit to London. And when there, he, to use his own phrase got "dropped upon;" in other words he fell into the still outstretched hands of the Great Wheal Bang. That it was unexpected to himself there's no doubt; for he was one of those men who believe implicitly in their own luck. Once in the mesh, Barker resolved to make the best of it. He had done nothing wrong, nothing that he could be punished for, and he carelessly told them that his only motive in not surrendering beforehand was the bother of having the accounts to go over. Perhaps it really was so.
Mr. Barker's usual luck attended him now. After he was arrested and had been kept in durance for four days, the shareholders released him. The very shareholders themselves released him; the wronged, imitated, angry shareholders! Surely there was some charm in Barker's tongue! He talked them over to the most miraculous degree; and they took him out of prison, somebody going bail for the single debt on which he had been taken. Now that the thing had come to a crisis Barker was as eager as they were to get it to a settlement, and he went to work with a will. A settlement, however, could not be come to without the presence of Mark Cray; Mark and Barker were both made bankrupts, and it was necessary that Mark should come over--or else never come over any shore. So Barker wrote for him.
We left Mark standing on the water's edge. He was all unconscious of these doings at home which so nearly affected him; and he stood there speculating as to what news the letter, refused to him in the morning, contained. By some mischance Barker had neglected fully to prepay it; he had put on a fourpenny stamp, but the letter turned out to be over weight by a hair's breadth, and of course the Honfleur postal authorities declined to give it up.
"What he's doing in London puzzles me," cogitated Mark,--for he had recognised the writing on the letter as Barker's. "He told me he should not show himself there until the bother was over. What took him there now, I wonder?"
He stopped to single out a particularly shiny stone imbedded in the mud, lifted it up with his toe, and kicked it into the water. A little shrimping-boat was making towards him, for it was low tide, laden with its spoils of the day. But it was not very near yet.
"It's well that she should have gone over as she did," he resumed, his thoughts reverting to his wife. "Heaven knows I should like to be with her; but she has all she wants there, and here she'd have nothing. I wish I could be with her! As to their saying--that Welch, or whatever his name is:Idon't remember any great light of that name--that she's incurable, I don't believe it. That old Blue said the same, or wanted to say it--such jargon as the fellow talked to be sure!--but Blue's nothing better than an old woman. By the way, I wonder how long Blue intends to stop away! It's fine for these French fellows, taking a holiday when they choose, and leaving their patients to aconfrère! I wish he had leftmetheconfrèreon the occasion, t'would have been a few francs, at any rate, in my pocket. The French wouldn't have had that, I suppose! their envious laws won't permit an Englishman to practice on them. Oh, if some rich countryman of one's own would but get ill!"
Mark Cray strolled a few steps either way, and halted again in the same place as before; he kicked six stones into the water, one after the other, the seventh was an obstinate one, and would not come out. Dull and dreary did the waves look that evening, under the grey and leaden sky. That's speaking rather metaphorically, you know, for in point of fact there are nowavesoff Honfleur, except in the stormiest of weather.
That Mark Cray's condition was a forlorn one nobody can dispute. He had no friends or acquaintance in the town; a latent, ever-present consciousness of their straits, their position and its secrets, had caused him and his wife to abstain from making any, And one or two English residents who had shown themselves disposed to be friendly were repulsed at the onset. Not a single person within reach could Mark Cray apply to with the slightest justifiable plea of acquaintanceship and say, Lend me sixteen sous; that I may pay for a letter! Even Monsieur Le Bleu, as you have gathered from his soliloquy, was away. But Mark wished much to get that letter, and he was thinking how he could get it at this very moment as he looked out across the water to the opposite coast, to the dark cloud that hung over Harfleur.
"'Twould be of no use going to the post-office unless I took the money," he soliloquised. "They'd never let me have it without. Stingy old frogs! What's sixteen sous that they can't trust a fellow? Helpmustcome to me soon from some quarter or other; things can't stand in their present plight. That very, letter may have money in it."
Grumbling, however, would not bring him the letter, neither would kicking pebbles into the manche: Mr. Mark Cray grew tired of his pastime, and turned finally away from it. He sauntered through the waste ground underneath the side windows of the hotel, his ears nearly deafened by the noise of the rough boys who were quarrelling in groups over their marbles, made adétouracross the bridge, glanced askance at the slip of building grandly designated Bureau des Postes, and turned off towards his home. It was a soft, calm evening in January, gloomy enough overhead, but in the west the sky was clearing, and a solitary star came peeping out, imbedded like a diamond in its grey setting. To a mind less matter-of-fact than Mark Cray's that star might have seemed as a ray of hope; an earnest that skies do not remain gloomy for ever.
Mark turned in at his little garden, and was about to ring gingerly at the house door; as one, not upon the most cordial terms with a frowning landlady, likes to ring; when a voice in the road greeted him.
"Bon soir!"
"Ben soir," returned Mark, supposing it was but the courteous salutation of some chance passer-by, and not troubling himself to turn his head.
"Et madame? quelles nouvelles avez-vous d'elle?"
Mark wheeled round. It was Monsieur Le Bleu.
Mark Cray extended his hand, and his face lighted up. In his desolation even this French doctor was inexpressively welcome.
"I didn't know you were back, Mr. Blue: savais pas que vous retournez, messeu," added he, taking his customary plunge into the mysteries of French.
"I come from return this after-midday," said the surgeon. "I ask, sare, if you have the news from madame?"
"She's worse, and can't come back," said Mark. "Plus malade. Not to be cured at all, they say, which I don't believe; pas croyable; messeu. I don't believe the English médecin understands the case. Non! jamais."
"Do I not say two--three--four months ago, me? I know she not curable I feel sure what it was. You call it 'lump' and 'bouton'--bah! C'est une tumeur fibreuse. I say to you, mon ami, you--tiens! c'est le facteur!"
For the facteur had come up at an irregular hour, and this it was which had caused Monsieur Le Bleu's remark of surprise. The bureau des postes had despatched him to offer the letter a second time to Mark.
"Has monsieur got the money now?" he demanded in quick French, which was a vast deal more intelligible to his French auditor than his English one. "If not, our bureau won't be at the pains to offer the letter a third time, and monsieur must get the letter from the bureau himself if he wants it."
What with the amount of French all at once and the embarrassment of the situation, Mark Cray devoutly wished the postman underneath the waters of the manche. That functionary, however, stood his ground where he was, and apparently had no intention of leaving it. He bent over the gate, the letter in his outstretched hand. Monsieur Le Bleu looked on him with some interest, curious to know why the letter had been refused. He inquired why of Mark, and Mark muttered some unintelligible words in answer, speaking in French so excessively obscure that the surgeon could not understand a syllable.
So he turned for information to the facteur. "Did Monsieur dispute the charge?" he asked.
"Not at all," replied the man. "It was not a dispute as to charge. The English Monsieur had no money. It was a double letter: sixteen sous."
"Ah, no change," said Monsieur Le Bleu, with a delicacy that many might have envied, as he turned his eyes from Mark Cray's downcast face. "It's a general complaint. I never knew the small change so scarce as it is: one can get nothing but gold. Hold, I'll take the letter from you, facteur, and monsieur can repay me when he gets change."
The surgeon handed the sixteen sous to the postman, and gave the letter to Mark. Mark spoke some obscure words about repaying him on the morrow, and broke the seal.
There was still light enough to see, though very obscurely, and Mark Cray's dazed eyes fell on a bank-note for £5. The surgeon had bade him goodnight, and was walking away with the postman: Mark Cray was only half-conscious of their departure. Debt did not affect Mark as it does those ultra-sensitive spirits who can but sink under its ills: nevertheless, he did feel as if an overwhelming weight had been taken from him.
He rang at the bell, loudly now, feeling not so afraid of madame, should she answer it. And he lighted his little lamp and read the letter. Read it almost in disbelief, half doubting whether its good news could indeed be true. For Mr. Barker had written all couleur de rose: and a very deep rose, too.
The Wheal Bang had come to its senses, and the worry was over. He, Barker, was upon confidential terms with all the shareholders, shook hands with them individually thrice a-day. There would be no fuss, no bother; the affairs were being wound up in the most amicable manner, and Mark had better come over without an hour's delay, and help. The sooner they got it done, the sooner they should be free to turn their attention to other matters, and he, Barker, had a glorious thing on hand just now, safe to realise three thousand a-year.
Such were the chief contents of the letter. Whether Barker believed in them fully himself, or whether he had dashed on a little extra colouring as to the simplification of affairs relative to the Great Wheal Bang, cannot be told. It may be that he feared hesitation still on the part of Mark Cray, and wished to get him at once over. In point of fact, Mark's presence was absolutely necessary to the winding-up.
Mark yielded without the slightest hesitation. If Mark Cray had confidence in any one living being, it was Barker. He forthwith set about the arrangements for his departure. It would take more than the five-pound note to clear all that he owed in Honfleur; so he paid madame, and one or two trifles that might have proved productive of a little inconvenience at the time of starting, and got away quietly by the boat to Havre, and thence to London.
But, oh! the treachery of man! When the steamer reached the metropolis, Mark Cray walked boldly ashore in the full glare of day, never so much as shading his eyes from the sun with those charming blue spectacles you have heard of, never shrinking from the gaze of any mortal Londoner. Mark's confidence in the good-fellowship of the Wheal Bang's shareholders was restored, his trust in Barker implicit: if he felt a little timid on any score, it was connected with his clothes, which certainly did not give out quite so elegant a gloss as when they were spick and span new. Mark stood on the quay, after landing, and looked round for Barker, whom he had expected would be there to meet him.
"Cab, sir?"
"No," said Mark.
"I'll wait here a minute or two," decided Mark to himself. "Barker's sure to come. I wrote him word what time we might expect to be in--though we are shamefully late. He can't have been and gone again!"
Somebody came up and touched him on the shoulder. "Mr. Marcus Cray, I believe?"
Mark turned quickly. "Well?" said he to the intruder, a shabby-looking man.
"You are my prisoner, sir."
"What?" cried Mark.
"You are my prisoner, sir," repeated the stranger, making a sign to another man to come closer.
Mark howled and kicked, and for a moment actually fought with his assailants. It was of course a senseless thing to do; but the shock was so sudden. He had felt himself as secure, stepping on those shores, as any grand foreign ambassador could have felt; and now to find himself treacherously pounced upon in this way was beyond everything bitter. No wonder that for the minute Mark was mad.
"It can't be!" he shrieked; "you have no warrant for this. I am free as air; they wrote me word I was."
"Would you like a cab, sir?" inquired the official civilly, but not deigning to answer. "You can have one if you like. Call one, Jim."
A cab was called; the prisoner was helped into it and driven away--he was too bewildered to know where.
And that's how Mr. Mark Cray was welcomed to London. His rage was great, his sense of injury dreadful.
"Only let me come across Barker!" he foamed. "He shall suffer for this. A man ought to be hung for such treachery."
Mark Cray was, so far, mistaken. Barker was as innocent in the arrest as he was. An accident had prevented his going down to meet the Havre steamer.