It was a charming evening in the month of October. The heat of summer was over, the cool calm autumn reign ad in all its loveliness. Never had the sun set more brilliantly than it was setting now; never did it give token of a finer day for the morrow; and that morrow was to be Caroline Davenal's wedding-day.
Persuasion and promises had proved stronger than Dr. Davenal and prudence, and he had consented to the early marriage, it may be said reluctantly. He had urged upon them the verb to wait: but neither of them appeared inclined to conjugate it; Caroline especially, strange as it may seem to have to say it, had turned a deaf ear. So the doctor had yielded, and the plans and projects for the carrying the wedding out were set on foot.
Dr. Davenal had behaved generously. He increased Mark Cray's share to four hundred a-year, and he gave them a cheque for three hundred pounds for furniture. "You must be content to have things at the beginning in a plain way, if you must be in a hurry," he said to them; "when you get on you can add costly furniture by degrees." Miss Bettina would not give anything. Not a penny-piece. "No," she said to Caroline; "you are flying in the face of wiser heads than yours, and I will not encourage it. If you don't mind, you'll come to grief."
Caroline laughed at the "coming to grief." Perhaps not without cause. Were they but commonly prudent there would be little fear of it. Four hundred a-year to begin upon, and a great deal more in prospective, was what many and many a couple beginning life might have envied. Even Dr. Davenal began to think he had been over-cautious. It might have been better to wait a year or two, but they would do well as it was, if they chose. If they chose! it all lay in that. Perhaps what made people think of imprudence in their case was, that both had been reared to enjoy a much larger income.
Those prudential fears and scruples were over, however; they belonged to the past; nobody retained them in the actual face of preparation. When Mark Cray was looking out for a house, the Abbey, yet untenanted, occurred to him. It had been his father's residence; it carried a certain weight of position with it; and he thought it would be well that it should be his. Dr. Davenal acquiesced: it was certainly rather farther from his own residence than was convenient; and it was at the opposite end of the town; but that fact might have its advantages as well as its disadvantages: and Mark took the Abbey at a yearly rental.
How busy they had been, furnishing it and getting the wedding clothes ready, they alone could tell! In this bustle, in the satisfaction of buying the new furniture, and settling it in its appointed places, the old prudent objections, I say, were lost sight of; completely forgotten. Miss Bettina thawed so far as to go down two whole days to the Abbey, and superintend; and she read Caroline lessons on domestic management and economy from morning until night.
Oswald Cray had delicately placed a fifty-pound note in his brother's hands. "Present-giving at these times seems to be the order of the day, Mark," he carelessly said. "If you and Caroline will choose something for yourselves, and save me the trouble, I shall be glad. You know more about dressing-cases and work-boxes than I do." Altogether, the Abbey,--what with the purchased furniture, and a few pretty things that went down out of Dr. Davenal's house,--was quite sufficiently well set up.
And now it was the evening preceding the wedding, and the house was in a commotion of preparation. Servants were running hither and thither; Miss Bettina, with her sharp voice and her deaf ears, was everywhere, creating no end of mistakes; the breakfast-table was being laid out; Sara was quietly helping Jessy to pack her cousin's travelling trunk; and Caroline, useless as usual, was going into ecstasies over a present which had just come in.
It was from Lady Oswald. A handsome tea and coffee-pot with their stands, sugar-basin and cream-jug, all of solid silver. Caroline ran round the house to get admirers to view it, and ran into the room of Dr. Davenal.
Neal was coming out as she entered, a waiter in his hand, therefore it was evident he had been bearing something to his master. Dr. Davenal stood before the window looking at an unopened note.
"O uncle, do come and see! It is the best present I have had: a silver tea-service. I did not expect anything like it from Lady Oswald."
"Presently, child. All in good time."
He laid down the note on the table, as he spoke, not having opened it. Caroline thought his tone and countenance were alike sad.
"Has anything vexed you, Uncle Richard?"
"A little, Carine. When one waits for the sight of a dear face, and the hours go by in expectation, hour after hour, from the opening of the day to its close, the disappointment brings a chill."
Caroline wondered. She did not understand that longing waiting yet. "Do you allude to Edward, Uncle Richard?"
Whom else should he allude to? Since Richard's death, Edward Davenal had grown dearer than ever son did to father. Dr. Davenal could willingly have laid down his life for him, and thought it no sacrifice. Ah! if these sons and daughters could but realise this precious love that is lavished on them in all its strange intensity!
"Aunt Bettina's vexed that he is not here. She says it will be putting the dinner off."
"We are too impatient, Caroline. I daresay he could not get here sooner. Here's Mark," added the doctor.
Dr. Davenal's carriage was drawing up to the gate. The doctor had despatched Mark in it that afternoon to see a country patient: he waited at home for his son. Roger looked to the house as Mr. Cray got out, wondering whether the carriage was wanted again, or whether he might drive it round to the coach-house. Dr. Davenal raised his hand by way of signal, and was hastening out.
"Won'tyou come and see my teapot and things, Uncle Richard?" cried Caroline, piteously.
"When I come back, Carine. The teapot can wait."
"And there's that note on the table," she said, resenting the slight on the teapot. "You have never opened it."
"That can wait too. I know what it is." The doctor walked quickly on, and Caroline followed him to the front door. Mark was coming in.
"Is the London train in, Mark?--did you notice as you came by? There's one due."
"I did not notice," replied Mark. "I don't much think it is in. I saw no bustle."
Dr. Davenal stepped into the carriage. "Turn round, Roger. The railway station."
The whistle was sounding as they drew near, and Roger whipped up his steeds. The doctor stepped on to the platform as the train dashed in. He elbowed his way amidst the crowd, trying to peer into every first-class carriage.
"Edward!"
"My dear father!"
Captain Davenal leaped lightly out--an upright, slender man, with the unmistakable look of the soldier; a dark, handsome face, and a free and ready voice.
"I have been looking for you all day, Ned."
"Not up here, surely?"
Dr. Davenal laughed. "Not likely. I just happened to come up now; so it's all right. You have some luggage, I suppose?"
"A portmanteau. My servant's here."
"Good evening, Dr. Davenal. Ah, captain! how are you?"
The salutation came from a passenger who had likewise stepped out of a first-class compartment. They turned to behold Oswald Cray.
"Why! you don't mean to say that you have come by this train?" cried Captain Davenal, in his quick manner.
"Yes I have. And you?"
"I have come by it, too. Where were our eyes, I wonder?"
"In our own compartment, I expect," said Oswald Cray. "I was at the end of the train, and did not get out during the journey."
"Neither did I. The same errand brings us, I suppose--Caroline's wedding? It's fine to be Mark Cray! You and I must wait for our honours: we can't afford these grand doings yet."
Dr. Davenal looked at his son. "If you can't afford them now Ned, when are you to afford them?"
Captain Davenal's answer was to shrug his shoulders. "There may come in a great rich ship some day," he said, with his ready laugh. "Are you going that way, Mr. Oswald Cray? We shall see you by and by."
All the pride and affection of the father shone out in Dr. Davenal's face as he passed through the town, sitting by the side of his brave son, who was in Roger's place, and drove. A hundred hats were taken off; a hundred pleased faces greeted them. The doctor remained passive, save for smiles; but Captain Davenal's gay face was turned from side to side, in answer to the salutations, and he had something else to do besides attending to his horses.
"Take care, Ned."
"All right, sir," was the young officer's careless answer. But he escaped the wheel of a meeting carriage by only half an inch; and Roger, seated behind, said to himself that the captain had not yet grown out of his randomness.
He pulled the horses up with a jerk when they arrived, leaped out, and turned to give his hand to his father. Neal had the door open, and Edward Davenal passed him with a nod and a fleet foot, for he saw his sister's face behind, bright with joyous tears. He kissed them away.
"Sara, you foolish child! Keep the tears until I go again."
"When will that be, Edward?"
"Tomorrow evening. Hush!" he whispered, checking her startled exclamation. "Let me take my own time for telling papa. I know he will be vexed."
"We thought you would stay a week at least."
"I wish I could! Leave is difficult to get at all just now, on account of---- I'll tell you more later, Sara."
Miss Bettina Davenal was at hand, waiting for her greeting. In the old days of his boyhood, she and he were undisguised enemies. The boy was high-spirited and rude to her, ten times worse than poor Richard: he had been the first to call her Aunt Bett, and to persist in it, in spite of her angry displeasure. He called it her still.
"Well, Aunt Bett! You are looking younger than ever."
"Are you quite well, Nephew Edward?"
"In high feather, aunt. And mean to keep so until the wedding's over. When is yours to be, Aunt Bett?"
"Tomorrow at eleven," was Aunt Bett's unconscious answer. "And right glad I shall be when it has taken place."
The shout of laughter vexed Miss Davenal; she wondered what the mistake was. But the captain turned away, for Caroline was stealing towards them with conscious cheeks, and the new silver teapot in her hand.
"It was unkind of you not to come before, Edward," she said. "Some of my beautiful new dresses are packed up now, and you can't see them."
"I shan't die of the disappointment, Carry," was the ungallant rejoinder of the captain. "What's that you are carrying? A trophy?"
"It's a teapot. It is part of Lady Oswald's present. Her's is the best of all, and I have had so many. Come and look at them: they are laid out in the garden-room."
"So many teapots?" inquired the captain.
"Nonsense, Edward! You know I meant presents."
He drew something covertly from his pocket, and clasped it on her neck. It was a dazzling necklace. Caroline, loving ornaments excessively, was wild with delight.
"O Edward! how kind you are! I never liked you as much as I do now."
"Candid!" cried the captain: and Dr. Davenal laughed outright as he walked away to his consulting-room.
His son followed him. The doctor had taken up the note which he had left on the table, and was about to open it when something strange in its appearance struck upon his eye. He carried it to the window and looked minutely at its fastening, at the claret-coloured crest stamped in the envelope, that of the Oswald family.
"Edward," said he, "does it look to you as if this envelope had been tampered with--opened, in fact?"
Captain Davenal examined the fastening. It was quite daylight still, though less bright than before the sun went down. "There's not a doubt of it, in my opinion," he said, handing the note back to his father.
"It's very strange," exclaimed the doctor. "Do you know, it has occurred to me lately to think that two or three of my letters have been opened."
"By their appearance?"
"By their appearance. But I could not be certain how or when it was done. For aught I know, they might have been reopened by their writers before forwarding them to me. I do feel, however, sure that this one has been tampered with since it lay here. It came by the same messenger that brought Caroline's present, and Neal brought it in to me. I was deep in thought at the time, and I turned it about in my fingers, looking at it, but not opening it. I knew what its contents were--that they concerned a little matter Lady Oswald had to write to me upon--and I did not open it, but went to the station, leaving it on the table. Now I am fully certain that that appearance of reopening was not on it then."
"Who can have opened it, then?" quickly cried Captain Davenal.
"Neal."
"Neal!"
"Neal--as I suspect."
"But I thought Neal was so faithful a man--so good a servant altogether!"
"An excellent servant, though I have never liked him. And latterly I have suspected the man's truth and honesty. I don't mean his honesty in regard to goods and chattels, but in regard to his own nature. If my letters have been opened, rely upon it, it is he who has done it."
"Have you spoken to him?"
"No. I shall speak now, though."
Dr. Davenal rang the bell, and Neal appeared. So calm, so quietly unconcerned!--not in the least like a man who has just tampered with his master's letters.
"Come forward, Neal. Shut the door for a minute. When I went out just now I left this note on the table--the one you brought in to me from Lady Oswald's servant I did not open it before I went out;--but it looks to me as if it had been opened since, and closed up again."
Dr. Davenal spoke in a quiet tone. Neal, entirely unruffled, save by a slight natural surprise, stepped close up to the table, and looked first at Dr. Davenal and then at the note, which, however, the doctor did not particularly show to him.
"I should think not, sir. There has been no one here to open it."
"That it has been opened I feel certain. Who has been in the room?"
"Not any one, sir," replied Neal. "It has not been entered, so far as I know, since you left it."
There was nothing more to be said, and Dr. Davenal signed to him to go. "I could not accuse him downright," he remarked to his son; "but enough has been said to put him on his guard not to attempt such a thing again."
"He does not look like a guilty man," cried Captain Davenal. "It is next to impossible to suspect Neal of such a thing. He is too--too--I was going to say too much of a gentlemen," broke off Captain Davenal, laughing at his own words. "At any rate, too respectable. His manner betrayed nothing of guilt--nothing of cognisance of the affair. I watched him narrowly."
"True; it did not. He is an innocent man, Ned, or else a finished hypocrite. Of course I may be wrong in my suspicions: honestly to confess it, I have no cause to suspect Neal, beyond the powerful feeling in my mind that he's not to be trusted--a feeling for which I have never been able to account, although it has been upon me since the first day I engaged him."
"We do take up prejudices without knowing why," remarked Captain Davenal. "I suppose sometimes they are false ones.--Here's Neal coming in again."
"I beg your pardon, sir, for having so positively assured you that no one had been in your room," he said, addressing his master. "I remember now that Mr. Cray entered it. I did not think of it, sir, at the moment you questioned me."
"If he did, he'd not touch the letter," said Dr. Davenal.
"Certainly not, sir. But I thought it right to come and mention to you that he had been in."
Neal withdrew, and Captain Davenal looked at his father. "The man seems quite honest in the matter. I think this is an additional proof of it. Had he opened the letter himself he would not have forgotten that another person had been in the room."
Very soon Neal appeared again. This time it was to say that dinner was served. Dr. Davenal nodded to him to close the door; he and his son were deep in conversation.
Ten minutes elapsed before they came out. Miss Bettina fidgeted and grumbled, but it did not bring them; and when they did come, the doctor had a strange cloud upon his brow. Edward also, or else Sara fancied it; but he grew merry as the dinner advanced, joking and laughing with every one.
She took the opportunity of speaking to him after dinner. He went out on the lawn at the back to smoke his cigar in the starlight, and Sara stole after him. He threw his arm round her, and they paced the gravel walk.
"Were you telling papa before dinner that you should have to leave tomorrow?" she asked.
"I was telling him worse than that, my little sister."
"Worse?"
"You loving ones at home will think it so. You will, Sara. And my father--it's a blow to my father."
Sara Davenal's heart was beating against her side; a thousand improbabilities rushed into her brain. "Tell it me, Edward," she said, very calmly. Sometimes, in moments of agitation, she could be calm, almost unnaturally so, outwardly. It is frequently the case with those who feel the deepest.
"The regiment's ordered abroad."
"O Edward!"
For a few minutes neither spoke again. Sara's greatest thought was for her father. She seemed to have divined how cruelly Dr. Davenal felt the separation from his sons; Richard dead, Edward in London with his regiment. If he had to go abroad to remote countries, thousands of miles away--why, almost as good that he had died. They should feel it so.
"And that explains why I could not get a long leave," he resumed. "There's so much of preparation to be made; and we officers have to look to everything, for the men as well as for ourselves. We sail in a week or two."
They paced on in silence. Captain Davenal suddenly looked down at her, and detected tears.
"Don't grieve, child. I am but a worthless sort of brother, after all--never with you. Perhaps I shall come back a better one."
"Edward, can't you sell out?"
"Sell out!" he exclaimed, in astonishment. "Sell out because we are ordered on active service. You are a brave soldier's sister, Miss Sara Davenal!"
"Some time ago, when there was a question of the regiment's going out, you were to have exchanged into another, and remained at home, Edward. It was just after Richard's death, I remember. Can you not do that now?"
"No, I cannot. I can neither sell out nor exchange. It is impossible."
There was so much grave meaning in his tone that Sara looked up involuntarily. He laughed at her earnest face.
"O Edward!mustyou go!"
"There's no help for it. We go to Malta first. India--as we suppose--afterwards."
"Papa may be dead before you return."
"No, no! I trust not."
"It will be as though he had no children!" she exclaimed, almost passionately, in her love for her father, in her grief. "Richard dead; you gone: he will have none left."
"He will have you, Sara."
"I! Who am I?"
"The best of us. You have given him no grief in all your life; I and poor Dick have: plenty. It is best as it is, Sara."
She could scarcely speak for the sobs that were rising. She strove bravely to beat them down, for Sara Davenal's was an undemonstrative nature, and could not bear that its signs of emotion should be betrayed outwardly. She loved her brother greatly; even the more, as the doctor did, for the loss of Richard; and this going abroad for an indefinite period, perhaps for ever, rang in her ears as the very knell of hope. He might never return: he might go away, as Richard had, only to die.
How long they continued to pace that walk underneath the privet-hedge, which skirted and hid the narrow side path leading from the house to the stables, Sara scarcely knew. Captain Davenal spoke little; he seemed buried in thought: Sara could not speak at all; her heart was full. Rarely had the night's brilliant stars looked down on a sadness deeper felt than was that of Sara Davenal.
"You will come down again to take leave of us?" she asked, after a while.
"Of course I shall."
Nearly four-and-twenty hours subsequent to that, Dr. Davenal was pacing the same walk side by side with Lady Oswald. The wedding was over, the guests were gone, and the house, after the state breakfast, had resumed its tranquillity. Of the guests, Lady Oswald had alone remained, with the exception of Mr. Oswald Cray. It was one of those elaborate breakfast-dinners which take hours to eat, and five o'clock had struck ere the last carriage drove from the door.
Lady Oswald asked for some tea; Miss Davenal, as great a lover of tea as herself, partook of it with her. Captain Davenal preferred a cigar, and went into the garden to smoke it: Mr. Oswald Cray accompanied him, but he never smoked. Both of them were to return to town by the seven o'clock train.
By and by, the tea over, the rest came out on the lawn to join them--Lady Oswald and Miss Davenal in their rich rustling silks, Sara in her white bridesmaid's dress. The open air of the warm, lovely evening was inexpressibly grateful after the feasting and fuss of the day, and they lingered until twilight fell on the earth. Miss Davenal went in then: but Lady Oswald wrapped her Indian cashmere shawl, worth a hundred guineas Hallingham said, more closely round her, and continued to talk to Dr. Davenal as they paced together the sidewalk.
Her chief theme was the one on which you have already heard her descant--that unwelcome project of the railway sheds. It had dropped through for a time. There had been a lull in the storm ever since it was broached in the summer. Lady Oswald complacently believed her remonstrance had found weight with the authorities of the line, to whom she had addressed a long, if not a very temperate letter: but, in point of fact, the commencement of the work had been delayed for some convenience of their own. Only on this very morning a rumour had reached Lady Oswald's ears that it was now to be set about immediately.
"I am not satisfied with Oswald," she was saying to the doctor. "Did you observe how he avoided the subject at the breakfast-table? When I told him that he might exercise his influence with the company, and prevent it if he pleased, he turned it off quietly."
"I think he did not care to defend himself publicly, or to enter upon the matter," observed the doctor. "Rely upon it, he would prevent it if he could; but his power does not extend so far."
"I know hesaysit does not," was the observation of Lady Oswald. "Do you think he is true?"
"True!" repeated Dr. Davenal, scarcely understanding in his surprise. "Oswald Cray true! Yes, Lady Oswald. Never man lived yet more honestly true than Oswald Cray."
He looked towards Oswald Cray as he spoke, pacing the broad middle walk with his son and Sara; at the calm good face with its earnest expression, every line, every feature speaking truth and honour; and the doctor's judgment re-echoed his words.
"Yes, Lady Oswald, he is atrueman, whatever else he may be."
"I always deemed him so. But--to protest that he would help me if he could; and now to let this dreadful threat arise again!"
"But he cannot prevent its arising," returned the doctor, wishing Lady Oswald would exercise a little common-sense in the matter. "He is but a servant of the company, and must carry out their wishes."
"I don't believe it," peevishly replied Lady Oswald. "He is the engineer to the company; and it is well known that an engineer does as he pleases, and lays his own plans."
"He is one of the engineers; the junior one, it may be said. I suppose you will not forgive me, Lady Oswald, if I point out, that when your interests and the line's are at issue, as in this matter, Oswald Cray, of all others, is forced to obey the former."
"Was there ever so monstrously wicked a project formed?" asked Lady Oswald, with some agitation.
"It is very unfortunate," was the more temperate reply. "I wish they had fixed upon any grounds but yours."
"I wish they had! It will send me into my grave!"
Careless words! spoken, as such words mostly are spoken, unmeaningly. If Lady Oswald could but have known how miserably they were destined to be marked out! If Dr. Davenal had but foreseen how that marking out would affect all his after-life--change, as it were, its current, and that of one who was dear to him!
"And because that worry was not enough, I have had a second to annoy me today," resumed Lady Oswald. "Jones gave warning to leave."
"Indeed!" returned Mr. Davenal, and the tone of his voice betrayed his concern. He knew how minor vexations were made troubles of by Lady Oswald; and the parting with Jones, her steady coachman of many years, would be a trouble not much less great than this threatened building of the sheds.
"Why is Jones leaving?" he inquired.
"Because he does not know when he's well off," was the retort, spoken querulously. "The servants latterly have been all quarrelling together, I find, and Jones says he won't remain. I asked Parkins what she was good for not to stop their quarrelling, and she burst into tears in my face, and said it was not her fault. You are best off, doctor. Your servants are treasures. Look at Neal!"
"I don't know that Neal is much of a treasure," was the doctor's answer. "I'd make him over to your ladyship with all the pleasure in life. Do you feel the chill of the evening air?"
Lady Oswald looked up at the clear sky, at the evening star, just visible, and said she did not feel the chill yet.
Dr. Davenal resumed.
"I have grown to dislike Neal, Lady Oswald. In strict correctness, however, 'grown to dislike' is not the best term, for I have disliked him ever since he has been with me. He"----
"Disliked Neal!" interrupted Lady Oswald, wondering whether she might trust her ears. "You dislike Neal! Why?"
"I can scarcely tell you why. I don't think I know, myself. But I do very much dislike him; and the dislike grows upon me."
"You never mentioned this. I thought you were so satisfied with Neal."
"I have not mentioned it. I have felt a sort of repugnance to mention what would appear so unfounded a prejudice. Neal is an efficient servant, and the dislike arose to me without cause, just as instincts do. Latterly, however, I begin to doubt whether Neal is so desirable a retainer as we have deemed him."
"In what way do you doubt him!"
Dr. Davenal smiled. "A doubt has arisen to me whether he istrue--as you have just said by Mr. Oswald Cray. I shall watch the man; and, now that my suspicions are awakened, detection will be more easy. Should he turn out to be what I fear--a deceitful fellow, worse than worthless--he will be sent out of my house head foremost, at a minute's warning, and get his true character. Lady Oswald, I think I could pardon anything rather than deceit."
"How angrily you speak!" breathlessly exclaimed Lady Oswald. The words recalled him to courtesy.
"I fear I did; and I ought to have remembered that he was a respected servant once of Sir John's, that it was you who recommended him to me. You will pardon my warmth, Lady Oswald. To any less close friend than yourself I should not have mentioned this. The fact is, a most unjustifiable trick was played me yesterday, and it is impossible for me to suspect anybody but Neal. I shall watch him."
"What trick was it?" asked Lady Oswald.
Dr. Davenal hesitated before he spoke. "Perhaps it would be scarcely fair to mention it, even to you, Lady Oswald. I am not certain: there's just a loophole of possibility. If I find I am wrong, I will honestly confess it to you; if the contrary, you and the world will know what a worthless scamp we have nourished in Neal."
Very agreeable words indeed! especially to Neal himself, who had the satisfaction of hearing them. Mr. Neal, with his soft tread, was gingerly pacing the narrow path behind the privet-hedge, his steps keeping level with theirs; he having strolled out to take the evening air, and to hear all that he could hear.
They were interrupted by the approach of Captain Davenal and Mr. Oswald Cray. It was getting towards the hour of their departure. Sara came up with them. The doctor laid his hand on his daughter's shoulder, and she walked by his side.
"Going? Nonsense!" said the doctor. "There's no hurry yet."
"When shall you be down again, Oswald?" asked my lady.
"I believe very shortly. I must be down---- about these alterations," he had been on the point of saying, but stopped himself in time. There was no cause for bringing up the sore story oftener to her than was necessary.
"Will you promise that they shall not build those horrible sheds?"
"If it lay with me, I would willingly promise it," was his reply, "I wish you would believe me, dear Lady Oswald."
"Of course I have no claim upon you," she fretfully continued. "I know that. It is not my fault if I am unable to leave my fortune to you--what little I may have to leave. There are others who, in my opinion, have a greater claim upon me."
He seemed not to understand her. He turned his glance full upon her. "I beg your pardon. What did you say, Lady Oswald?"
"Oswald, I have never spoken distinctly to you about my money," she resumed. "I like you very much, and should have been glad to leave some to you; it is natural you should be looking out for it, but"----
Every line of his pale face was ablaze with pride as he interrupted her; his voice, calm, low, terribly stern, was ten times more impressive in its truth than one loud and angry could have been. "Allow me to set you right, Lady Oswald. I have never in my life looked for one shilling of money from you: I do not recognise, or believe in, or see any claim I can by possibility have upon it: of the whole world, the Oswalds are those upon whom I could least recognise it--from whom I would the least accept it. I pray your ladyship to understand me in the fullest sense of the words--from whom I would never accept it."
Never had he looked so like the Oswalds as he looked then. The red colour came into Sara's cheeks, and a faint sense of dread (did it come as a prophetic warning?) stole into her heart--that that pride might prove her deadliest enemy; perhaps his. Lady Oswald's mood changed, and she laughed.
"You are independent, Oswald."
"I am self-dependent," was his answer. "A fair field and no favour are all I ask. I believe I can make my way in the world far better than money could make it for me. It is what I mean to try at--and do, Heaven helping me."
"But you need not have glared at me in that way," she said, relapsing into fretfulness. "I declare I thought it was old Sir Oswald of Thorndyke come out of his grave. My nerves are not strong, and that you know."
A better feeling came over him, and he held out his hand to Lady Oswald, his atoning smile wonderfully frank and sweet. "Forgive me if anything in my speech or manner has offended you, dear Lady Oswald. But I believe you vexed me more than I have ever been vexed in my life."
"Well, well; you shall be as independent as you please," said Lady Oswald. "Let us change the subject. When do you intend to follow Mark's example and marry?"
"Not until I can afford it better than----than Mark could, I was going to say," he added, glancing at Dr. Davenal and laughing.
"You do mean to marry some time, Oswald?"
"I hope so."
The answer was spoken so fervently, that they looked at him in surprise. Sara contrived to draw behind, and began plucking one of the flowers, already closing to the night. He resumed carelessly, as if conscious that his tones had been too earnest for general ears.
"Men do marry for the most part in this good old-fashioned land of ours, and my turn may come some time. I think our time is nearly up, Davenal."
The captain took out his watch. "In a minute or two. We can walk it in ten minutes, if we put out our best speed."
As they went in, Oswald Cray looked round for Sara, and found she had not followed them. He turned back to her.
"I must say goodbye to you. Sara! you are crying!"
"O no," she answered, brushing away the rebellious tears. "It's nothing."
He took her hand and placed it within his arm, and they advanced slowly to the house. "Will you tell me what the 'nothing' is?" he asked in a low tone, which of itself was sufficient to invite confidence.
"I cannot bear to part with Edward," she answered. "Nothing has been said about it; but he brought down bad news. They are ordered to Malta; and thence, he thinks, they shall go to India. Edward said he should tell you as you went back tonight."
It was entire news to him, and he thought how greatly Dr. Davenal must feel it. Few admired that fine young officer, Edward Davenal, more than Oswald Cray. But he had no time to discuss it now, scarcely to say a word of sympathy.
"Goodbye," he whispered, as they halted on the threshold and he turned to press her hand in both of his, bending his face a little down. "Goodbye. And remember."
"Remember what?" she asked.
"That you don't belong quite to yourself now."
He hastened in, leaving Sara standing there: standing there with the significant words and their meaning beating pleasant changes on her heart Captain Davenal came springing out.
"Hush, darling, be brave!" he said, as he took the kiss from his sister's lips. "Leave all that until I come down for my real farewell."
And Sara was brave, and dried her tears, and confided in the prospect of that real farewell; little dreaming that it was destined never to be spoken.
Mr. Marcus Cray's marriage had taken place on a Thursday, and the time went on to the following Saturday week with little to mark it. Enough, as events were unhappily to turn out, was to mark it then. They, Marcus Cray and his wife, were expected home that evening: but it is not with them that we have just at present to do.
On this Saturday morning, Oswald Cray had come down to Hallingham on business connected with the line. In the course of the day he called on Lady Oswald, and found her in a state not easy to describe. That very morning certain men had been seen on her grounds, marking off the small portion of its boundaries intended to be taken for the sheds. Convinced that all her hopes of immunity had been but vain dreams, she had become angry, hysterical, almost violent. Oswald Cray had never seen her like this.
It was an illustration of the misery we may inflict upon ourselves, the evil spirit that will arise from self-grievance. In point of fact, these sheds, to be built on a remote and low portion of her land, could not prove any real annoyance to Lady Oswald; she would not see them from her window; she did not go, ever, near the spot. The grievance lay in her imagination; she had made it a bugbear, and there it was. In vain Oswald Cray pointed out to her that it had been the same thing with regard to the rail itself. When she first heard it was to skirt her grounds, she had been as alarmed as she was now; but when the work was complete, the trains were actually running, then Lady Oswald found (though she did not acknowledge it) how void of reason her alarm had been; had the trains been fifty miles off she could not have seen less of them. It would be so with regard to the sheds, Oswald Cray told her; he told her that even a less portion of the ground would be taken than was at first intended: he did not add that he, by his persistent efforts in her cause, had obtained this little concession, but he might have told her so with truth. He assured her that the thingcould notprove an annoyance to her. All in vain. He might just as well have talked to the winds. She would not listen. Parkins sat 'n tears, administering specifics for the "nerves," and entreating my lady to be tranquil. My lady replied by saying she should never be tranquil again, and she actually abused Mr. Oswald Cray.
"Nay," said Oswald, good-humouredly, "it is your landlord you should blame, not me. He agreed to the thing instanter--the moment it was proposed to him."
Lady Oswald's cheeks were burning as she turned to Oswald. "If he had refused, instead of consented, what then? Could they have done it in spite of him?"
"It would have been done eventually, I suppose. Not just yet: the company would have had to bargain with him, perhaps to dispute the matter with him legally: and all that takes time."
"Had he persistently contended against it, the company might have grown weary; have ended by fixing upon some other spot for their sheds," she breathlessly cried, the excitement on her face deepening.
Mr. Oswald Cray hesitated. "It is possible, certainly; but"--
"I will go to him," broke in Lady Oswald. "I will go to Low this very hour."
She started from her seat, upsetting a bottle which Parkins held in her hand, almost upsetting Parkins herself in her vehemence. Mr. Oswald Cray gently restrained her.
"My dear Lady Oswald, you will do no good by going to Low now. It is too late. The thing has gone too far."
"It has not gone too far, Oswald Cray. So long as the sheds are not begun it cannot be too late. If Low did give his consent, he can retract it. The land is freehold, and freehold land cannot be seized upon lightly. Get my things, Parkins, and order the carriage." And Parkins submissively retired to obey.
"Lady Oswald, believe me," said Oswald, impressively, "Mr. Low cannot now retract his consent if he would. The agreement is signed; nay, I believe the money is paid. Your going to him will do no possible good; it can only be productive of further unpleasantness to yourself."
"Have you a motive in keeping me away from him?" asked Lady Oswald, and his brow momentarily contracted at her blind pertinacity. "Do you know that I have never once seen him upon this subject I--never once."
"No!" he said, really wondering at the omission.
"I would not go to see him; I was too angry; I contented myself with writing to him, and telling him what I thought; and then, you know, until this blessed morning, when Jones came into the house with the news that the men were measuring the land, I never thought the thing would be really done. I will go to him now, Oswald Cray, and all you can say against it will not avail with me. If you had any courtesy you would accompany me, and add your voice to mine against this unjustifiable wrong."
Courtesy was an adjunct in which Oswald Cray was not naturally deficient; in time, that day, hewas. The business which brought him down was pressing, must have his full attention, and be finished so as to enable him to return to town that night. He had snatched these few minutes, while the clerks at the company's offices were at dinner, just to see Lady Oswald.
"It would give me great pleasure to escort you anywhere, Lady Oswald, but today I really cannot absent myself from Hallingham. I have my hands full. Besides," he added, a frank smile on his face, "have you forgotten how impossible it would be for me to go against the agreement made by the company with Mr. Low, by soliciting that gentleman to attempt to retract it?"
"I see," said Lady Oswald, beating her foot pettishly on the carpet; "better that I had called anybody to my aid than you. Are you cherishing resentment against me, Oswald Cray?"
Oswald Cray opened his dark blue eyes in surprise.
"Resentment?--against you, Lady Oswald! Indeed I do not understand you."
"I thought you might be remembering what I said at Dr. Davenal's the evening of your brother's wedding. I mean about the money; which I said I couldnotleave you," she continued in a low tone. "You took me up so sharply."
"I fear I did. I was vexed that you could so misapprehend my nature. We need not recur to the subject, Lady Oswald. Let it pass."
"I must say a word first, Oswald. I believe, with all your fiery pride, and your aptitude to take offence, that your nature is honest and true; that you would save me from annoyance if you could."
"I would indeed," he interrupted earnestly. "Even from this threatened annoyance I would doubly save you, if it were at all within my power."
"Well, I want to say just this. I have always liked you very well; you have been, in fact, a favourite of mine; and many a time it has occurred to me to wish that I could put you down in my will"----
Lady Oswald, I pray you"----
"Now do be quiet, and hear me. I consider it a duty to myself to tell you this, and I always intended to tell you before my death. I fully believe what you say; that you do not wish for my money, that you would prefer to make your own way; I say I fully believe that, Oswald. There are some men--honourable to fastidiousness, I call them--who are utterly incapable of casting a thought or a wish to the money of others: you are one, as I believe; and there's the additional bar in your case with regard to my money, that it comes from the Oswalds. I don't think you would accept money in whatever form it came to you, from the Oswald family."
"I don't think I would," replied Oswald. And he spoke the truth of his heart.
"Still, I judge it right to give you this little word of explanation," she proceeded. "I daresay, whenever my will comes to be read, that you will feel surprised at its contents; may even deem that you had more legal claim upon me than he who will chiefly inherit. I do not think so. I have left my money to please myself: he to whom it is left has the best claim upon me in my judgment. I am happy to know that he will be rewarded: and he knows it."
Oswald felt a little puzzled: the words "and he knows it" somewhat excited his curiosity. With her own family, who alone (in Oswald Cray's opinion) could be said to have claims on Lady Oswald, she held but little communication: and a conviction stole over him that she did not allude to them. He was destined (as it proved) never to forget those words; and the construction he put upon them was, that the future inheritor of the money knew he was named as the inheritor. He said nothing. It was not a subject he cared to pursue; he had neither right nor inclination to inquire as to the disposal of what Lady Oswald might leave behind her. Had he dreamt of the ill those words would work, he might have asked further particulars.
"I thought I'd say this to you some time, Oswald. Had you been less fiercely proud, and I more at liberty to dispose of what I have to leave, I should regret not remembering you. As it is, perhaps all's for the best."
That again struck upon him as strange: "I more at liberty to dispose of what I have to leave." Was she not at full and entire liberty?--if so, why was she not? The question set Oswald thinking.
But circumstances seemed inclined to prove themselves stronger than Lady Oswald's will, in regard to this visit to her landlord. Her coachman made his appearance with hindering news; one of the carriage horses had fallen lame.
"Accept it as an omen that the visit would have brought forth no good luck," said Oswald Cray, with a smile, while Jones stood, deprecating his lady's anger.
A doubt flashed across her mind for a moment whether the excuse was real, and the amazed Jones had to repeat it, and to assure his mistress that he was going "right off" for the veterinary surgeon then.
"It will not avail," said Lady Oswald. "I shall go by train. Perhaps you can tell me, Oswald Cray, at what hours the trains leave for Hildon!"
Oswald Cray said not another word of objection. To make use of the railroad, to which her dislike had been so insuperable, proved that she was indeed bent upon it. He bade her good-day and left, and encountered Dr. Davenal's carriage in the avenue. The doctor was arriving on his usual daily visit.
She was somewhat of a capricious woman, Lady Oswald. A few months before, in the summer-time, Dr. Davenal had been hoping, it may almost be said secretly plotting--but the plotting was very innocent--to get Lady Oswald to favour Mark Cray sufficiently to allow ofhispaying these daily visits. Since then Lady Oswald had, of her own accord, become excessively attached to Mark. That is, attached in one sense of the word. It was not the genuine esteem founded on long intimacy, the love, it may be almost said, that draws one friend to another; it was that artificial liking which suddenly arises, and has its result in praising and patronising; artificial because so shallow. In the new feeling, Lady Oswald had not only sanctioned Mark's visits to her in the place of Dr. Davenal, but she had recommended him to everybody she knew as the cleverest young surgeon in Hallingham or out of it. It had been Mark's luck speedily to cure some fancied or real ailment of Lady Oswald's in a notably short space of time, and Lady Oswald, who set it down to skill, really had taken up the notion that he had not his equal. We all know how highly-coloured for the time are these sudden estimations of a popular doctor's skill. None rejoiced more than Dr. Davenal, and he resigned Lady Oswald to Mark with inward satisfaction, and the best grace in the world. But during Mark's absence on his wedding-tour the doctor had taken again the daily visits.
Roger pulled up in the gravel drive when he saw Mr. Oswald Cray; but Oswald, who had out-stayed his time, could only shake hands with the doctor and hasten onwards. Parkins met Dr. Davenal surreptitiously as he entered: she had seen his approach, and she stole forwards on tiptoe to meet him, her tears dropping. When Lady Oswald was in her fretful moods, Parkins generally found refuge in tears.
"What's the matter now?" asked the doctor.
"The men have begun to measure the ground, and that stupid Jones came running open-mouthed to the house with the news, and my lady heard him," explained Parkins. "I'd not have told her: if people held their tongues, the sheds might be built, and up, and she never know it. I thought she'd have gone out of her mind, sir; and then Mr. Oswald Cray came in, and he talked to her. I think she's calmer now; I heard her talking quietly to Mr. Oswald Cray before he left. But she says she'll go off by rail to Mr. Low's."
"Is she in the drawing-room?"
"Yes, sir. So well, to be sure, as she was this morning!" continued Parkins, drying her tears. "I don't know when she has been in such spirits, and all because Mr. Cray was coming home tonight with his wife. The fancy she has taken for him is extraordinary: she has been counting the days off since he was away, like a schoolgirl counts them off before her holidays?"
Dr. Davenal entered. He did not attempt to reason Lady Oswald out of the visit to Mr. Low. Quite the contrary. He told her the short trip by rail would do her good: and he thought, which he didnottell her, that the interview with Mr. Low might set the affair at rest sooner than anything else would, by convincing her that there could be no appeal against the fiat, no delay in the carrying out of the work.
When Lady Oswald reached the station, it happened that Oswald Cray was there. He was emerging from one of the private rooms with some plans under his arm when he saw her. She looked scared at the bustle of the station, and was leaning helplessly on her maid's arm, uncertain where to go, what to do. Oswald hastened to her and took her on his arm. Parkins slipped behind, quite thankful to see him: she was as little used to the ways and confusion of a station as her mistress.
"Will you venture still, Lady Oswald, with all this turmoil?"
"Will you cease worrying me!" she answered, and the tone was a sharp one, for she fancied he still wished to stop her, and resented the intermeddling with her will.
Didhe wish to stop her? If any such feeling was upon him, it must surely have been instinct: a prevision of what the ill-fated journey would bring forth; of the influence it would indirectly bear on his own future life.
He said no more. He led Lady Oswald at once to a first-class carriage, placed her and Parkins in it, procured their return tickets, and then leaned over the carriage-door and talked to Lady Oswald, ill as he could spare the time. No man had kinder feelings at heart than Oswald Cray, and it seemed to him scarcely courteous to leave her--for she was in a tremor still--until the train should start.
He talked to her in a gay laughing tone of indifferent subjects, and she grew more at ease. "Only think!" she suddenly exclaimed, "I may return with Mr. Cray and his wife! Dr. Davenal told me today they were expected early in the evening; and this is the way they must come. I shall be so glad when he is home!"
Oswald shook his head at her with mock seriousness. "I'd not acknowledge my faithlessness so openly, were I you, Lady Oswald. To turn off Dr. Davenal for Mark, after so many years' adhesion to him!"
"You know nothing about it, Oswald. I have not turned off Dr. Davenal. But you may depend upon one thing--that Mark is a rising man. He will make a greater name than you in the world."
"Very likely. I hope he will make a name. For myself"----
The whistle sounded, and Oswald drew away from the door. Lady Oswald put out her hand, and he shook it warmly. "Shall I see you on my return!"
"Possibly, just a glimpse," he answered. "I'll look out for you when the train comes in. Goodbye."
"But you'll wish me luck, Oswald--although you may be bound in honour to the interests of the enemy and those wretched sheds."
"I wish it you heartily and sincerely; in all ways, Lady Oswald."
His tone was hearty as his words, his clasp sincere. Lady Oswald withdrew her hand, and left him a pleasant, cordial smile as the train puffed on.
"One can't help liking him, Parkins, with all his obstinate contrariness," she cried. "I wish he had been the surgeon! Only think what a name he would have made, had he possessed his brother's talent!"
"So he would, my lady," dutifully acquiesced Parkins.
"What a good thing we are alone! Most likely he contrived it. I declare I don't dislike this," continued Lady Oswald, ranging her eyes round the well-stuffed compartment. "It is almost as private as my own carriage."
"So it is, my lady," answered Parkins. And the train went smoothly on, and in twenty minutes' time Lady Oswald was deposited safely at the Hildon station.