The bedchamber of Sara Davenal was over the doctor's study, on the opposite side of the landing to the drawing-room. It was not a large room, but longer than it was wide, and the bed was placed at the far end of the room--the back. The chamber behind it was larger, and occupied by Miss Davenal. The room opposite Miss Davenal's, and behind the drawing-room, had been the bedchamber of Dr. Davenal in his wife's lifetime; since her death it had been kept as a spare room for chance visitors.
Sara did not begin to undress immediately upon entering the room. She put out the light, and sat down at the open window to indulge in a little quiet thought: it was rather a habit of hers to do so when the night was fine and she came up early. She liked to sit there and think of many things, to glance up at the clear sky in the bright moonlight. With all her practical good sense--and she had her full portion of it--she was of a somewhat dreamy, imaginative temperament; and since Richard's death she had grown to think more of that other home to which he was gone, the same to which we are all hastening, than it is perhaps usual for girls of Sara's age to think of it. As she had said to Dr. Davenal in the afternoon, she would wonder whether Richard and her lost mother--whom she but imperfectly remembered--could look down upon her: she was fond of fancying that they were looking down upon her: and she would lose herself in a maze of visionary imaginings.
Not on this night, however, did her thoughts turn to Richard. They were full of Lady Oswald and her unhappy death. That this fatal chloroform had been administered for the best, in accordance with Dr. Davenal's experienced judgment, Sara assumed as a matter of course; she never so much as thought of casting a doubt to it: but she knew enough of him to be sure that the fatal termination would cause him to repent of having given it--to blame himself bitterly, and she felt for him to the very depth of her heart. An uncomfortable sensation, as if her father had been guilty of some deliberate wrong, was pervading her, and she could not shake it off.
It should be observed that although Sara sat close to the open window, she was not liable to be seen by the passers-by in the street, did any cast their eyes that way. A small stand or ledge had been constructed round the window (a bay window, as was the one answering to it on the other side, the drawing-room), and this was filled with pots in flower. Geraniums of many species, fuchsias, heliotropes, heaths, wild thyme, the fine flowering cactus, and many others, raised their heads proudly, and formed a screen behind which Sara was securely sheltered from observation, and also from the rays of the gas-lamp at the gate, which otherwise would have lighted her up. So that, although she could see out perfectly well, sitting as she now was, she could not be seen. If she chose to stand at the window and lean out, her head was above the flowers; but at the same time they entirely prevented her from seeing anything immediately below her window. The ground for a yard or two beyond Dr. Davenal's study window was as completely hidden from her as though it had been a hundred miles off; and it is necessary to mention this. The bedroom above Sara's, occupied by Watton the upper maid, had a flat window, and its view underneath was in like manner obstructed by the extending bow and the plants in it of Sara's. These flowers at Miss Sara Davenal's window were quite the admiration of the pedestrian portion of Hallingham, and many a one would halt at the front railings to take a passing gaze at them. They were really beautiful, and Sara took a pride in them and liked to tend them.
She liked to inhale their sweet perfume, as she was doing now, sweeter and stronger in the night air than in the garish day. Perhaps the heliotrope was of all the most powerful scent: and somehow that heliotrope had become associated in her mind with Mr. Oswald Cray. She could not have told why or wherefore; she had never attempted to analyse the cause: she only knew that when she approached that window, and the perfume of the heliotrope was wafted to her senses, the image of Oswald Cray was, in like manner, by some mysterious instinct, wafted to her mind.
Perhaps it did not require any extraneous aid to bring him to her memory. He was already too securely seated there. For the last twelvemonth, since Oswald Cray had become intimate at their house, her love for him had been gradually growing into being: that subtle understanding, never to be explained or accounted for, which draws together two human hearts, and only those two, the one for the other, of all the whole world, life finding life, had arisen between them. Oswald Cray had never spoken or hinted at his feelings until the time when Dr. Davenal honestly avowed to him that he had fancied he cared for Caroline: that had brought forth the one word--and it was little more--to Sara. But she had known it just as surely as though he had spoken out all along.
Save for that shrinking reticence which would fain hide the secret, as the modest snowdrop hides its head, and which must always accompany the feeling if it be genuine, there was nothing to be ashamed of in this love. It is true that it had become entwined with every fibre of her heart, was a part and parcel of her very being. It would perhaps have been impossible--at least, it would have been very improbable--for Sara Davenal, with her right feeling, her powers of discernment, which she possessed in a high degree, and her sound good sense, to fall in love with an unworthy man. She could not have met with a more worthy one than Oswald Cray. He had his faults--ay, who has not?--but they were faults of what may be called a high order; not mean, drivelling, scandalising faults, that abound in the world. Each was suited and suitable to the other, in taste, in position, in moral goodness: and their love had been given for aye; beyond the power of circumstances or time to change. They might never be more to each than they were now. Untoward fate might separate them; the world's bitter tongues, expediency, the poison of misunderstanding; any one of these separating causes might part them; Sara's unbending principle, Oswald's wrong-headed pride--it was impossible to foretell: but of one thing both might rest assured, that unto their dying day that love could never be wholly extinguished in either heart, so as to give place to another.
Somehow the thoughts of Sara Davenal had wandered from the painful subject of Lady Oswald to this brighter one: wandered unwittingly, against her will. She would not havechosento dwell upon her love that sad night, or on the one sweet word of Oswald when he last parted from her: but there it was, sounding in her ears and her heart: and she lost herself in one of the sweetest reveries that ever maiden pictured of the future.
Suddenly she was aroused from it. Not by any thought of poor Lady Oswald, or of her father's sorrow, or of the minutes that were hurrying on, or that it was time she prepared for bed; but by the sight of some one coming in at the front gate. It was nothing unusual for that gate to be invaded at night, by messengers summoning Dr. Davenal to some urgent bed of sickness. But this intruder had something peculiar about him, or about his movements, which attracted her eye.
He was a tall man, wearing a cap and a grey Scotch plaid scarf. The cap, which had a peak to it, appeared to be tied down over his ears, and the scarf was worn in a droll fashion, one at least that Sara had never seen in Hallingham. It was put lengthways over the shoulders, as a lady puts on a scarf; it came down to the waist behind, and was held very much up to the neck in front. Sara naturally looked at the man, looked keenly with a view of distinguishing his features. In her sympathy with the sick, she thought to learn, by him, who was ill that night and wanted her father. But she was unable to do this, and the first thought that struck upon her as curious was, that a man should be so completely wrapped up on that genial night. The next curious thing that struck her was--the man's movements.
He had come up to the gate with very quick steps--as messengers from the sick often did come--opened it, and gave a sort of dart or spring to his right, which brought him under the shade of the laurels and hid him from the moonlight. There he stopped, reconnoitring the house, so far as could be seen, but really it required a quick eye to distinguish him at all from the dark shrubs. That was not precisely the way in which night applicants came to Dr. Davenal's house; and Sara, very much astonished, rose quietly from her seat, to see the better.
He came on at last, creeping close to the shrubs, stooping under their shade, until he gained Dr. Davenal's window. With all Sara's endeavours to look, she there lost sight of him, because he was beneath, but she heard a gentle tapping at the window. Not the quick imperative noise of one in haste, demanding instant attention, but a covert, stealthy tapping, which seemed afraid of being heard. More and more astonished, Sara leaned out further; but she could not lean far enough to see.
The window was opened instantly; therefore it was to be supposed that Dr. Davenal had not retired from the room; that his light had probably guided the stranger to apply at the window, instead of at the door. The first sound, after the opening of the window, was a warning hush-sh-sh-sh! but whether it came from the applicant or from her father she could not tell. A short colloquy followed, only a word or two in the most covert tones, and then Dr. Davenal went to the front door and admitted the visitor. Sara sat down overwhelmed with amazement.
Somebody else was overwhelmed with amazement unfortunately--or perhaps the better word forhimwould be curiosity--and that was Mr. Neal. Neal had been a witness to it all. When it struck half-past ten--and this mysterious visit occurred some five minutes subsequent to that time--Dr. Davenal had opened his study door, called to Neal, and told him to put the gas out. Which was equivalent to telling him to go to bed: the putting out of the gas being the last service usually required of Neal. Neal came forward and did as he was bid--he put out the hall-lamp and any other burners that might be alight, with the exception of the one in the doctor's study. Dr. Davenal always took that upon himself, and he put out the burner as he spoke to Neal, and lighted his candle for bed, no gas being laid on in the bedrooms. Neal then went downstairs and turned the gas off at the main; so the house was safe.
But Neal, as a matter of taste was not fond of retiring early. And when he came up again, and had shut himself into his pantry, instead of passing into his sleeping-room he blew out his candle, opened the door on the side, and, dexterously avoiding contact with the shrubs, he stole to the front. There he stood, amidst the shrubs, near the doctor's window, with a view possibly of giving himself a little fresh air.
He glanced at the window; the half-shutters were not drawn up, a thing the doctor did himself the very last thing, and he could see the wax candle on the table through the Venetian blinds. The upper shutters of the window were closed; Neal always closed those when he lighted the gas; but his orders were to leave the lower ones open. It was a fancy of the doctor's the being able to take a look out at the street until the last, if he chose to do so. The upper shutters being closed did not prevent the window being opened at will. It is as well to give these details, for this was an eventful night in the existence of Dr. Davenal: and of others besides.
Neal could see the candle, and he could see his master. Dr. Davenal was seated at the table, his head leaning on his hand. Whether he was reading, or whether he had merely bent his head in thought, Neal could not discern, but he thought he had never in his life seen a countenance so troubled.
There was nothing in all that, however, to afford particular gratification to Neal's curiosity, and he drew cautiously away from the window, and turned his attention on the street. It was necessary to be cautious, for the least stir of the shrubs would have been heard by Dr. Davenal on that still night; sitting as he did with the window a little open, his custom until he retired. Neal stood watching the passers-by. Stay; watchingforany passers-by; but he had not seen one yet. Sunday evening hours were early at Hallingham, and people were mostly indoors and abed. Now, in point of fact, Neal had no particular motive in stealing out and standing there; he was not expecting any one or anything; but he had a habit of peering about him a great deal more than most people have, and Neal rarely went finally to rest without coming out to take a general glance round, and see anything there might be to see.
Little did Neal anticipate the reward his curiosity was to receive this night. He was taking a last look previous to retreating, thinking it rather slow work standing there with nothing to see, not even a passing passenger on that quiet Sunday night, when the man who had so surprised Sara Davenal darted in at the gate. Neal strained his eyes in a vain attempt to discover who it was, and backed into safe quarters.
He heard the covert tapping at the window; he heard the warning hush when the doctor opened it, and he could not say for certain, any more than Sara could, which of the two it was who had given that warning hush; and then after a short whispering, the purport of which he was entirely unable to make out, the doctor's tones were a little raised:
"I will open the door for you."
The stranger made his way to the front door. Neal, in the swift, unerring, covert manner which practice had rendered facile, stole back to his pantry with incredible speed, and was in time to peep out of it, and to see the visitor admitted.
But he gained nothing by his movement. The hall was in the dark: Dr. Davenal had not brought his candle out, and Neal could not see more than the very faintest outline of their forms. They passed into the room in silence, and Neal heard the door closed quietly and cautiously; another minute and the bolt was slipped. He took off his shoes and stole on tiptoe in his stockings to the door, and put his ear to it.
No, not a word could he hear. That door was a sound door, a close-fitting one: Neal had tried it before in his life, and obtained no more result than he was obtaining now. He made his way back through the pantry to the window again, and there Neal could have groaned in impotent rage had he dared, for Dr. Davenal had shut it.
But he had not closed the shutters. Neal, if it was any good to him, could still get a glimpse in through the upright staves of the green dwarf blinds. It was but a glimpse, for they were turned all but close together, the one stave nearly lying on the other, and it did not afford him satisfaction, for he could see neither Dr. Davenal nor his visitor, who were seated at the side of the room close together where the angle of view obtainable by Neal would not reach them. A very faint hum of voices penetrated his ear, and he was not sure whether that was not fancy. Their conversation was being carried on in the lowest tones.
Unsatisfactory as was this result as a whole, Neal waited with patience. Such men as Neal are always patient The clock struck eleven, and the clock struck half-past eleven, and Neal was still there.
Then there occurred a change. Dr. Davenal rose from his seat and began pacing the room. His whole face was working with agitation. Neal caught a sight of it occasionally as he paced, and was struck by the troubled expression, nay, by thedreadthat pervaded it. Neal had long ago made up his mind as to the purport of the visit--that it was in some way connected with the catastrophe of the evening, the death of Lady Oswald.
Suddenly Neal was startled. His nose was uncommonly close to the window, and the window was abruptly raised; raised without the slightest warning some half-dozen inches. Neal believed his nose was off.
When he came to himself, which he really did not for a few minutes, some words in a wailing tone were issuing from the lips of Dr. Davenal. "Silence must be purchased at any price; at any price. If it takes the whole of my fortune, I must purchase silence." Neal pricked up his ears.
Dr. Davenal was walking still; the visitor, whoever he might be, never moved from his seat. It was only when the doctor came near the window that Neal caught an occasional word. "Yes, Lady Oswald herself. She wished it," were the next words he heard, and then there was another temporary lull.
"I am aware of that. Murder? yes, the world would look upon it as such. I felt certain that Lady Oswald was one to whom chloroform, if administered, would prove fatal. Heaven help me! What have I done that the trials of this day should fall upon my head?"
Dr. Davenal was standing at the window as he said this, had halted there with his voice close to Neal's face, and Neal's hair stood on end as he heard it. From that moment the man believed--fully believed in his inmost heart--that his master had purposely destroyed Lady Oswald. Perhaps the belief, judging from these disconnected and certainly ominous words, was excusable.
For a short while Neal heard no more. His master had halted opposite the stranger and was talking fast, but nothing came to Neal but a confused sound. Then he advanced again.
"I tell you it shall be done. If it costs every penny piece that I have saved, this horrible secret must be bought up--if money will buy it. I shall never know another happy moment: I shall live as with a sword of disgrace hanging over me, ever expecting it to fall."
Some murmured words came from the stranger, and Neal stretched his ear to its utmost tension. Whether in doing so he made the least noise, touched the window, rustled the shrubs, he could not tell, but Dr. Davenal turned and shut the window down as swiftly and suddenly as he had put it up.
So, hearing was cut off. But Neal could see still--just a glimpse. He saw Dr. Davenal go out of the room with the candle and bring back a plate of biscuits and a decanter of wine. He knew he must have gone to the dining-room sideboard for them. A wish crossed Neal's mind to go indoors, make the excuse that he had heard his master stirring, and dash into the study on the pretence of inquiring if he could do anything. But he did not dare. Neal would have given a whole year's wages to get one good look at the visitor. Presently all sight was cut off. Barely had Dr. Davenal put down the decanter and biscuits than he turned to the window and pulled up the shutters.
It was a checkmate for Neal. He went in and stood just outside his pantry, hesitating whether to go close to the room door or not. A good thing he did not, for Dr. Davenal came out almost immediately, and went upstairs to his daughter's room.
Neal heard him knock at it very softly; he heard him ask in a whisper whether she was in bed yet. That she was not in bed the immediate opening of the door proved.
Dr. Davenal went in and closed the door. Neal could hear the murmur of his voice, as if he were explaining something to his daughter, and then they came down together, treading softly, not to arouse the house. Neal could see that she was fully dressed, in the same silk she had worn in the day. They went in, and the door was closed, and the bolt slipped as before.
Ten minutes, and Sara came out again alone. Neal could tell who it was by the rustling of the silk, but there was no light. She returned upstairs to her room, but not before Neal thought he had caught the sound of a sob.
The next to come forth was the visitor, without a candle still. Dr. Davenal opened the hall door and let him out. Neal, with his quick movements, glided round to his post of observation in the front garden, and was just in time to see him go through the gate, the cap drawn over his face, and the grey woollen scarf muffled around him.
If ever the signs of misery, of despair, of terror, were depicted on a human face, they were on Dr. Davenal's as he sat that night in his study. He was as a man who has received some great shock; a shock that strikes a species of paralysis alike to the heart and to the frame. His arms hung down listlessly, his head was bent, his fixed eyes had a wild anxious look, most foreign to the usually calm orbs of the composed surgeon. An hour and a quarter had he thus sat since the departure of that midnight visitor who had brought with him so much apparent mystery, so much woe, and the house clock was striking one. The sound did not arouse Dr. Davenal; he sat on with his face of terrified despair.
The wax taper, unheeded, unlooked at, stood on a side-table where it had been accidentally put. It had burnt nearly to the socket, and it now began to spurt and gutter with a great light; the signs of its end. That awoke Dr. Davenal from his reverie. The prospect of being left in the dark was not a convenient one; and he tore a bit of paper from a journal lying near and essayed to light the gas, completely forgetting that it had been turned off at the main.
Finding his mistake, he stood a moment with his hand to his temples, as if endeavouring to collect thought, and then opened the door of his bedroom. Candles always stood there on the mantelpiece ready for lighting, and he brought one forward and succeeded in catching a light for it from the dying taper.
This had the effect of effectually arousing him. He looked at his watch, and then held the candle to a book-shelf, whence he selected a local railway guide, and sat down to the table to consult it.
"Nothing until the morning!" he exclaimed in a tone that might have been one of vexation but for its deeper pain. "Stay, though! Yes, there is. There's the train that passes here at 3.20 for Merton: and I should find a train on from thence. Then I must go by it: there's no time to be lost, once the morrow has dawned, if this unhappy business is to be suppressed. Twenty minutes past three; and now it is one; I can lie down for an hour and a half."
He went at once into his bedroom, took off his coat, and lay down on the outside of the bed. There was no fear of his oversleeping himself; sleep for a troubled mind in its first shock, troubled as was Dr. Davenal's, is out of the question.
Rest also seemed to be. He could not lie. He tossed and turned on the uneasy counterpane, and finally sprang off it with a wail of agony, and took to pacing the room. Neal, who was regaling his ear at the chamber door, could hear every footfall of the slippers, every groan of the distressed heart. Never more, never more in this world, would the heart of Richard Davenal lose its care.
Neal was not in the habit, with all his ferreting propensities, of sitting up at night to pursue them; but this night was an exceptional one. To say that Neal had been astonished, confounded at what had taken place, at the knowledge he believed he had acquired, would be saying little, in comparison with its effect upon his mind. He did not love his master; he did not like him; it may not be going too far to say that he hated him; for Neal's instinct had taught him that his master partially saw through him, partially suspected him to be the villain that he was; but to believe him capable of deliberately destroying one of his patients, was in truth almost too great a stretch for even Neal. Until that night, Neal could not have believed him capable of any wrong act: he gave him credit, for he could not help doing so, for his honour and his virtues, while he disliked him: but he did in truth now believe that Dr. Davenal had wilfully killed Lady Oswald. That is, that he had given her the chloroform deliberately, knowing it would probably take her life.
The faintest possible doubt of this had been first caught from the words of Parkins. Not real doubt, but a sort of angry feeling of the extreme imprudence of the doctor in having given it: Neal no more believed then that Dr. Davenal had done it, or was capable of doing it, than he could have believed the most monstrous improbability in the world. Still theideahad been admitted: and when that strange visitor was with his master afterwards, and Neal heard, with his own ears, the suspicious words that fell, he could put upon them but one interpretation--that, incredible as it seemed, his masterwasguilty, and not unintentionally, of the death of Lady Oswald. Neal hoped to arrive at the why and the wherefore, and he thought nothing of sitting up the night to do it: if by that means he might gain any satisfactory solution. Neal, it must be confessed, was utterly stunned with the affair, with the belief; and could hot see or understand yet with any clearness: like a man who is struck violently on the head, and looks around him in stupid helpless maze, as if he had a dead wall before him. A shock to the head and a shock to the mind will bear for the passing moment the same apparent result.
Dr. Davenal paced his room, his two rooms in fact, for the door was open between them, and he passed from one to the other in his restless wanderings, his mental agony. Soon after two he began to wash and dress himself; that is, he changed some of his clothes, and poured out a wash-hand basin of cold water and splashed his face with it. He put on a pair of boots; he searched for his gloves; he looked out an overcoat; and then he stood for a few minutes and thought.
Lifting the writing-desk from underneath the table, where you may remember it was kept, he unlocked it, and was for some little time examining certain papers it contained. Some of these he put in his pocket, and then he locked the desk and replaced it. Next he sat down to write a note; just a line or two.
It was getting on past the half-hour then. He opened the door and went forth from his room. Neal, who had heard him coming, peeped from his pantry and saw him turn to the stairs, the candle in one hand, a note held in the other. Neal cautiously stole forward a step or two, and looked and listened.
He was downstairs again instantly; he had only gone to the first floor, and had not opened any door, or Neal must have heard it: had not, in fact, been long enough to open one. The note was gone from his hand, and Neal wondered where he had left it.
He went into the study, and came out without the light, an overcoat on, and his hat in his hand. The moonlight shone in now through the fan-light over the front door, and Neal could see so much. He appeared to be coming towards the pantry; Neal silently closed the door and slipped the noiseless bolt. Neal took very good care to keep his own locks and bolts well oiled.
Dr. Davenal essayed to open the pantry-door and found it fastened. He shook it, knocked at it, not over gently. Neal, too great a diplomatist to be taken at a loss, flung off his coat, waistcoat, and slippers, threw back his braces, rumpled his hair, and opened the door to his master with the air of a man just aroused from his bed.
"Why do you sleep with the door locked, Neal?"--and the question was put in an imperative tone.
"I--it is but very rare that I do, sir. I must have shot the bolt last night without thinking of it."
"I won't have it done. Nobody shall sleep in my house with a locked door. It is a dangerous habit. Were a fire to take place, and the sleeper a heavy one, he might not be aroused in time. Don't do it again. Neal," he continued, changing his tone, "I am summoned out farther away than usual. I don't care to disturb Miss Davenal--you can tell them tomorrow morning. I shall not be home all day."
"Have you to go far, sir?" inquired Neal.
"Yes. I don't expect to be home all day, I tell you, and that's why I bid you inform them. Nobody is to sit up for me tomorrow night; I may be detained longer. Tell Miss Davenal so."
"Very well, sir," replied Neal. "Is the carriage ready for you?"
Neal put this cunningly. He felt sure his master was not going in the carriage.
"I don't require the carriage. That's all, Neal; you can go to bed again. I was obliged to disturb you."
Dr. Davenal turned, walked straight to the front door, and let himself out at it, closing it securely after him. Neal waited a moment, rearranged his attire a little, and then stepped also to the front door and drew the heavy bolt across it. No danger now of his master's coming in with his latch-key to pounce upon him.
Neal got a light, went into the study, and took a leisurely survey. He was scarcely rewarded. There was nothing whatever about, more than on other mornings: no signs remained of the stranger's visit, not a trace that could betray any disturbance on the part of Dr. Davenal. The sherry and biscuits were put up: Neal walked across to the dining-room and found them in the sideboard, just as he had left them on the previous night. The glass, used, stood on it. Neal solaced himself with some of the sherry, and went back to the study.
The old cloth was undisturbed on the table, the blotting-book and inkstand lying on it. Neal looked through the book, but received no satisfaction. He examined the pens, and saw that in one the ink was not yet dry. In the bedroom the clothes which his master had taken off lay about; Mr. Nealen passantvisited the pockets and found them empty; and the bed was pressed on the outside, but had not been slept in. That curious visit in the night might have been a dream, for all there was left to tell of it.
"But there's that note yet," thought Neal. "What did he take it upstairs for, and where did he leave it?"
Stealing up the stairs in his stockinged feet, shading the light in his hand, Neal came to the vestibule, and looked on the table. He looked on the stand which held a beautiful statue in marble, he looked up even at the frames of the pictures; he looked everywhere. But there was no letter.
"I'm positive he did not stop long enough to open a door!" ejaculated Neal, rather at a nonplus.
A bright thought struck him. He bent down, shading still the light with his hand, and peered under Miss Sara Davenal's door. And then came Neal's reward. He saw the corner of something white quite close to him, not pushed entirely beyond the door. Dr. Davenal, not to disturb his daughter, had pushed his letter to her in that way.
Neal took out his penknife, and, with its help, by dint of perseverance and ingenuity, succeeded in drawing back the note, which he stole downstairs with, and into his own chamber. A little more ingenuity with the penknife, and the envelope, not yet fully dry, came open. Neal had obtained an insight into some secrets in his life, but never one so weighty as this, never one had touched on that ugly word "murder" which was running through Neal's mind: and his usually impassive face grew streaked with scarlet in excitement.
"My Dear Child,
"Business connected with this most unhappy secret obliges me to go out for a day, perhaps two. I shall leave a message with Neal. Do not appear to know anything when he delivers it: hear it as though you were a stranger to everything. Don't talk of my absence to any one if you can help it. People will conclude I have gone to see some patient at a distance, as will your aunt: it is not necessary to undeceive them.
R. D."
There was not so very much to be made out of that, and the scarlet streaks faded again from Neal's disappointed face. "This most unhappy secret," he repeated over twice, as if the words bore some euphonious sound. Whatever it might be, the secret, it was evident that Miss Sara Davenal had been made cognisant of it; and Neal rather rejoiced in the pill it must be for her, for he liked his young mistress not one whit better than he liked his master. He read the note again, refastened it in the envelope, stole upstairs to push it under the door, and then retired to his late bed.
Meanwhile Dr. Davenal was walking along the streets of the town, lying so calm, so still in the moonlight. Not with any hurried tread; rather with a slow one. In his restlessness of mind, he had come out sooner than he need have come; but bodily action is a relief to mental anguish.
"Goodnight, doctor! or rather morning--for that's what it is."
The salutation came from one of the general practitioners of the town, a hard-worked apothecary, whose business took him abroad a good deal at night. He was hastening up a side street, near the town-hall, and Dr. Davenal had not observed him.
"Ah, is it you, Smithson? A fine night, is it not?"
"All nights are pretty near the same to me," returned Mr. Smithson. "I see too much of them. I wish folks would be so accommodating as to choose the day to be ill in. I don't know who'd be one of us. It's not often that we see you abroad at night, though, doctor?"
"Not often. We can't help it sometimes, you know. Goodnight."
They were bound different ways. The doctor had walked on his, when Mr. Smithson came running back.
"Dr. Davenal, whatisthe truth about Lady Oswald? I hear she's dead."
"She is--unhappily."
"And the report going about is, that she died from the effects of chloroform! Could not rally after inhaling it."
"Ah, it's a sad thing," replied the doctor; "a grievous thing. There's the dark side in these new discoveries of our practice: sacrificing the few while blessing the many. Goodnight, I say. I can't stop."
"It's true, then, that it was the chloroform?"
"Yes, it's true." Dr. Davenal increased his pace: he was in no mood for questioning, and this in particular was painful to him. A short while, and he stood before the Abbey, looking up at its windows. He was sorry to disturb Mark, but he deemed it was necessary, and he rang the night bell.
A new bell which Mark Cray had caused to be placed in the house since he took it, and which rang himself up, not his household. Dr. Davenal waited, but the ring was unanswered, and he rang again, with the like result.
A third summons brought Mark to the window, which he threw up, half-asleep still. "If that's the way you are going to let your night applicants ring, Mark Cray, almost as good not put up the bell."
Mark Cray could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw who was the speaker. "I was in a heavy sleep," he answered. "Did you ring more than once?"
A heavy sleep! Truly Dr. Davenal marvelled at the words. He marvelled that sleep could have visited Mark Cray that night, after his share in its fatal work.
"What is the matter?" asked Mark. "Am I wanted?"
"It is I who want you," said the doctor. "I must say a word to you if you'll come down. I am called out of town."
Mark attired himself sufficiently to descend, which he did in a state of wonder. He had never received a night visit from Dr. Davenal; it was quite out of the usual order of things, and he would about as soon have expected to see a live kangaroo wait upon him. He opened the front door, and they stepped into the large parlour.
"Who is ill?" inquired Mark. "Are you called out far?"
"I am going out on a little private business of my own. The train for Merton will be through presently, and I shall take it. If"----
"Why did you not tell me last night?" interrupted Mark.
"Because I did not then know I should have to go. You must take my patients for me. What I wished particularly to say to you was about the inquest. They can't call it for tomorrow--that is, today--Monday; but I think they are sure to hold it on Tuesday. If I am not back"----
"What inquest?" interrupted Mark, wonderingly.
"The inquest on Lady Oswald."
"My goodness! Do you think they'll get up an inquest over her?"
"Of course they will. What are you dreaming of? The remote cause of her death was the accident to the train. I am not quite sure of being back. I expect to be home on Tuesday morning early; but it is possible I may be detained a little longer. If I am not back, Mark, you will be the only witness--at least the only one who can speak to the facts of the death. Let me advise you to say as little as possible. Volunteer no information; answer their questions briefly; and don't get into a long-winded narration, as you are apt to do, otherwise you may betray yourself. You will not mistake me;" Dr. Davenal added. "I have always been open, truthful, candid as the day; and if I so speak now it is in your interest. I was thinking this over a great deal last evening after I left you, and I see that it is essential for your good name in your profession that the facts of the case should not be made known. Do not suppose I advise you to a direct deviation from the truth; nothing of the sort. 'Chloroform was exhibited with a view to lessen her sufferings, and she never rallied from it,' is all you need say. Similar cases are unhappily not unknown; I fear not very uncommon; and the coroner will not be likely to exact minute particulars, or inquire whether you gave it her, or whether I did. He will assume that we acted in concert."
Mark Cray nodded. He was nervously and incessantly pushing back his hair.
"I know how fond you are of talking," resumed Dr. Davenal, "therefore I deemed it well to give you this caution. To tell you the truth, I had rather not be at the inquest, and shall not be sorry if I can't get back."
"Are you going away on purpose?" suddenly asked Mark, who was much given to leap to conclusions.
"Certainly not. I am going on an important matter of my own. Look here, Mark Cray: one good turn deserves another. It will be concluded in the town that I am called to a patient at a long distance: as I have been before, you know, and detained out two or three days. People will be sure to think it now, and there's no necessity to undeceive them. You will oblige me in this. I don't want the town to concern itself with my private affairs: let people think I am with a patient. They don't know to the contrary at home."
"I shan't say anything to the contrary," said Mark. "Let people think what they will; they are a set of busybodies at the best."
Dr. Davenal departed. And Mr. Cray went back to his room, sleepy still, but wondering in the midst of it what could have called away the doctor suddenly to a distance. No letter could have arrived in the middle of the night, Mark argued: and a suspicion crossed his mind that he was, in spite of his denial, going away to avoid the inquest.
The doctor walked over to the station, there to await the train. He had given this caution, as to Mark's testimony at the inquest, entirely in his good feeling towards him, his solicitude for his welfare. For himself, he did hope he should not be back for it. Inconvenient questions might be asked, and he did not relish the idea of standing up and avowing that he had so far helped on Lady Oswald's death as to have joined in giving her the chloroform; he could not avow it without testifying to a deliberate falsehood: yet he must do it, or betray Mark Cray. But he had a matter of greater importance to think of than the inquest: a matter that was weighing down his heart with its dread. Of all the passengers that train contained, soon to be whirling on its way to Merton, not one had the sickening care to battle with that was distracting the flourishing and envied physician.
The first to enter the breakfast-room that morning at his residence was his sister. The meal was always laid in the dining-room. Miss Davenal wore her usual morning costume, a gown of that once fashionable but nearly obsolete material called nankin--or nankeen, as some spell it. It was not made up fashionably, but in the old scant style, and it made Miss Davenal's tall spare form look taller and sparer. She wore it for breakfast only, generally dressing for the day as soon as the meal was over. Sara followed, in a flowing dress of delicate sprigged muslin, and she took her seat at once at the breakfast-table.
"Is your papa out of his room yet, do you know?"
"I have not seen him," replied Sara, a faint red tinging her pale face at the half-evasive answer. Very pale she looked: ominously pale. Had Miss Bettina been gifted with preternatural penetration, she might have detected that some great dread was upon her.
But Miss Bettina was on that morning especially self-occupied. On the previous Saturday Dr. Davenal had told her that certain country friends were coming into Hallingham on that day, Monday, and he should invite them to dinner; or else that he had invited them: in her deafness she did not catch which. She had replied by asking him what he would have for dinner, and he said they would settle all that on Monday morning. Monday morning was now come; and Miss Bettina, a punctilious housekeeper, choosing to have everything in order and to treat visitors liberally, was on the fidget to make the arrangements, and waited impatiently for Dr. Davenal Watton, a fidget also in the domestic department, liking at any rate to get her orders in time, had come in with Miss Davenal.
Miss Davenal rang the bell: an intimation to Neal that they were ready for the coffee. She turned to the table, and the first thing that struck her sharp eyes in its arrangements was, that only two breakfast cups were on it.
"What is Neal thinking of this morning?" she exclaimed.
"I don't fancy my master is stirring yet," observed Watton. "I have not heard him."
"Nonsense!" returned her mistress. "When did you ever know your master not stirring at eight o'clock?"
"Not often, ma'am, it's true," was Watton's answer. "But it might happen. I know he was disturbed in the night."
Sara glanced up with a half-frightened glance. She dropped her head again, and began making scores on the cloth with her silver fork.
"It was the oddest thing," began Watton--and she was speaking in the low clear tones which made every word distinct to Miss Davenal. "Last night I was undressing with the blind up, without a candle, for the moon was light as day, when I saw a man turn in at the gate, and I said to myself, 'Here comes somebody bothering for master!' He made a spring to the side, and crouched himself amid the laurels that skirt the rails by the lane, and stopped there looking at the house. 'Very strange!' I said to myself again; 'that's not the way sick folk's messengers come in.' After a minute he walked on, brushing close to the shrubs, afraid I suppose of being seen, and I heard him tap at the window of the doctor's consulting-room. Ma'am, if ever I thought of a robber in my life, I thought of one then, and if it hadn't been for my presence of mind, I should have rose the house with my screams"----
"Be silent, Watton!" sharply interrupted Miss Davenal. "Look there! You are frightening her to death."
She had extended her finger, pointing at Sara. Sara, her face more like death than life, in its ghastly whiteness, was gazing at Watton, her eyes strained, her lips apart, as one under the influence of some great terror. Was she afraid of what might be coming? It looked so.
"There's nothing to be alarmed at, Miss Sara"----
"Don't tell it; don't tell it," gasped Sara, putting up her hands. "It does frighten me."
"But indeed there is nothing to be frightened at, as you'll hear, Miss Sara," persisted the woman. "It's a fact that I was a little frightened myself; one does hear of housebreakers getting into houses in so strange a manner; and I went out of my room and leaned over the banisters and listened. It was all right, for I heard the doctor open the hall door and take the man into his consulting-room, and shut himself in with him. How long the man stopped, and who he was, I can't tell; he did not go away while I was awake--but, ma'am, that's how I know my master was disturbed in the night."
"Watton!"--and as Sara spoke her cheeks became crimson, her voice imperative,--"do you deem it lies in your service here to watch the movements of your master, and to comment upon them afterwards?"
The moment the words had left her lips she felt how unwise they were; but she had so spoken in her perplexity, her soreness of heart. Watton turned her eyes on her young mistress in sheer amazement.
"Watch my master's movements! Why, Miss Sara, you can't think I'd do such a thing. I watched to--if I may so express it--protect my master; to protect the house, lest harm should be meant it. Decent folk don't come in at night as that man came in."
Neal had entered, and was disposing his eatables on the table. Miss Davenal drew his attention to the shortness of the cups.
"It is quite right; ma'am. The doctor went out in the middle of the night; at least about two in the morning; and he charged me to tell you he should not be at home all day; perhaps not all night. Nobody is to sit up for him."
"Where's he gone?" asked Miss Bettina.
Neal could not tell. His master had said he was going to a distance. But Miss Bettina could not make it out at all, and she asked question upon question. How had he gone?--the carriage was not out. Walked away on foot, and said he was going to a distance, and might not be home for a day and a night? It was the most mysterious, extraordinary proceeding she ever heard of. "Did you see or hear anything of a strange man coming in in the night?" she asked of Neal.
"No, ma'am," replied Neal, with his usual impassability. "I see my master's bed has not been slept in; and he has taken an overcoat with him."
Sara lifted her burning face. It was as one stricken with fever.
"Let it rest; let it rest, Aunt Bettina! Wait until papa is home, and ask particulars ofhim. If patients require him at a distance, it is his duty to go to them."
The last words were spoken defiantly; not at her aunt, but at the servants. She felt on the very verge of desperation. What disastrous consequences might not this proclamation of the night's work bring forth!
"Let it rest!" retorted Miss Bettina. "Yes, that is what you young and careless ones would like to do. Look at my position! The responsible mistress of this house, and left at an uncertainty whether people are coming to dinner or whether they are not. Your papa must have gone clean out of his wits to go off and not leave word."
"You can fix upon a dinner as well as papa can, Aunt Bettina."
"Fix upon a dinner! It's not that. It is the not knowing whether there's to be a dinner fixed upon; whether people are invited, or not, to eat it."
When Miss Davenal was put out about domestic arrangements, it took a great deal to put her in again. Neal and Watton were questioned and cross-questioned as to the events of the night, and breakfast was got over in a commotion. Sara shivered with a nameless fear, and wondered whether that dreadful secret might not become known.
A secret which bore for Sara Davenal all the more terror from the fact that she was but imperfectly acquainted with its nature. Dr. Davenal had seen fit for certain reasons to call her down to his room, and she had there seen the ominous visitor: but the particulars had been kept from her. That there existed a secret, and a terrible one, which might burst at any hour over their heads, bringing with it disgrace as well as misery, she had been obliged to learn; but its precise nature she was not told; was not allowed, it may be said, to guess at. Dr. Davenal so far spared her. He spared her from the best of motives, forgetting that suspense is, of all human pain, the worst to bear.
With the exception of what that little note told her, which she saw lying inside her door when she rose in the morning, she knew nothing of the motives of her father's journey; where he had gone, or why he had gone. She only knew it was imperative that that night's visit to the house should remain a secret, uncommented upon, unglanced at. And now the servants knew of it--had seen the stranger come in--might talk about it indoors and out! No wonder that Sara Davenal shivered!--that she grew sick at heart!