The commotion in the town rose that morning to its height: it equalled the commotion at Miss Davenal's breakfast-table. But not from the same exciting cause. The one was led to by the curious absence of Dr. Davenal; the other had its source in the death of Lady Oswald.
She had lived so long amongst them--had been, so to say, the head of the social and visiting community of Hallingham! A great lady once, the Lady Oswald of Thorndyke. Had she died in the common course of nature, after weeks or months of illness, it would still have created a stir; but to have died from the inhaling of chloroform consequent upon the railway accident, did cause very great and unwonted excitement. People were shocked at her death: they mourned for the somewhat eccentric old lady who had been seen driven through their streets in her close carriage for years; but they never cast so much as a shadow of reproach towards the doctors who might be said to be, however unwittingly, the authors of it. They railed at the chloroform, calling it uncertain, dangerous stuff; but not the slightest reflection was thrown on the judgment which had caused her to inhale it.
Mark Cray was beset with questions and remarks, especially from his medical brethren in the town. In Dr. Davenal's absence, people flew to him for particulars. He remembered the doctor's caution, and said as little as possible. It was an unpleasant subject to speak of, he observed to them--they could understand that. But the curious questioners only understood it partially, and rather wondered why Mr. Cray should be so chary of his information.
The inquest took place on the Tuesday, as Dr. Davenal had surmised it would. It was held quite as a matter of course--not with a view to elicit the cause of death; that was already known--simply because the law rendered an inquest obligatory.
The doctor was not back for it, and Mr. Cray was the principal witness. The operation had been most satisfactorily performed by Dr. Davenal, he testified, but Lady Oswald did not rally from the effects of the chloroform. They had tried every means to arouse her without result. The coroner presumed the chloroform had been administered with all due caution: he felt persuaded it would be by so experienced a surgeon as Dr. Davenal. Certainly, was the answer of Mark Cray. It was given her with the best of motives: to spare her acute suffering: and no one could more bitterly regret the result than they did. It was impossible to foresee, he continued, that this great blessing--yes, he must still call it so--to suffering humanity, which had spared anguish to thousands, perhaps he might say had spared lives, would have an opposite effect upon Lady Oswald, and bring death to her instead of relief. He had never for one moment in his own judgment doubted the expediency of giving it to her: were the thing to come over again (the result being hidden from him) he should do the same.
Not a word that Mark Cray said but had its weight, and was appreciated. The death was regarded as a pure misfortune, a sort of accident that could not be prevented by poor human foresight, and for which blame was attachable to no one. And the verdict was in accordance with this.
The only one on whom the facts were yet destined to make an unpleasant and not satisfactory impression was Mr. Oswald Cray The first intimation of Lady Oswald's death reached him through the "Times" newspaper. As junior in the firm, he lived in the house in Parliament Street, the senior partners preferring residences out of town. The chief part of the house was devoted to their business purposes, and Mr. Oswald Cray had but two or three rooms for his private use. On the Thursday morning, the "Times" was brought to him as usual while he was at breakfast. It was folded with the supplement outside, the deaths uppermost; and on putting it aside to open the more important parts his eye caught the word Oswald.
He looked further: and nothing could exceed his surprise. He gazed at the announcement with a feeling of disbelief, almost as though he was in a dream: "At her residence in Hallingham, Susan Hannah Lady Oswald, aged seventy-one, widow of Sir John Oswald Thorndyke."
The date of her death, probably by an oversight, had not been put in, and Oswald Cray was left to conjecture it. Certainly he did not suppose it had occurred so far back as on the previous Sunday, the day after he left Hallingham.
What had killed her? The accident? He had been given to understand that night that she was not materially injured: he now supposed she must have been. Why had nobody written to acquaint him? He would have been glad to see her for a final farewell; would have thought nothing of his time and trouble in going down for it. Mark might have written: he could not remember having corresponded with Mark in all his life, half-brothers though they were; but still Mark might have gone out of his way to drop him a line now. Parkins might have written; in fact he considered it was Parkins' duty to have written, and he should tell her so: and Dr. Davenal might have written. Of the three mentioned, Oswald Cray would soonest have expected the doctor to write, and the omission struck him as being somewhat singular.
The post brought news. Amidst the mass of letters that came for the firm was one to himself, He saw the Hallingham postmark, and opened it at once.
A look of blank disappointment, mingled with surprise, settled on his face as he read. It was not from Dr. Davenal, from Mark Cray, or from Parkins; it gave him no details, any more than if he had been the greatest stranger to Lady Oswald. It was a formal intimation from the undertaker that her late ladyship's funeral would take place on Friday at eleven o'clock, and requesting his attendance at it, if convenient.
"Her funeral tomorrow!" ejaculated Oswald. "Then she must have died almost immediately. Perhaps the very night I came up. Why couldn't somebody write?"
He arranged business matters so as to go down that afternoon, and arrived at Hallingham between six and seven o'clock. Giving his portmanteau to a porter, he went on to his usual place of sojourn, the "Apple Tree." It was near to the terminus, a little beyond the town, one of the quiet country inns now nearly obsolete. An old-fashioned, plain, roomy house, whose swinging sign-board stood out before its door, and whose productive garden of vegetables and fruit stretched out behind it. No fashionable person would look at it twice. Oswald Cray had been recommended to it long ago as his place of sojourn in Hallingham, where his stay seldom lasted more than two days: and he had found himself so comfortable, so quiet, so entirely at home, that he would not have exchanged it for the grandest hotel in Hallingham, had the said hotel graciously intimated that it would receive him for nothing.
The host, whose name was John Hamos, came forward to receive him; a respectable, worthy man, with a portly person and red face, who might be seen occasionally in a white apron washing up glasses, and who waited on his guests himself. He and Oswald were the best of friends.
"Good-evening, sir. My wife said you'd be down tonight or in the morning. We were sure you'd attend the burying. A sad thing, sir, is it not?"
"It is a very sad thing, John," returned Oswald; "I seem as if I could not believe it. It was only this morning that I received the tidings. What did she die of? The accident to the train?"
"No, sir, she didn't die of that. Leastways, that was not the immediate cause of death, though of course it must be said to have led to it. She died from the effects of chloroform."
"Died from--what did you say?" asked Oswald, staring at the man.
"From chloroform, sir."
"From chloroform!" he repeated, "I don't understand."
And he looked as if he did not. As if it were impossible to take in the words or their sense. John Hamos continued.
"It seems, sir, that on the Sunday it was discovered that her ladyship had sustained some internal injury--to the ribs, I believe, or near-abouts--and she had to submit to an operation. Chloroform was given her while it was performed, and she never rallied from it."
"Who gave her the chloroform?"
"Dr. Davenal"
"Dr. Davenal!" echoed Mr. Oswald Cray, and his accent of astonishment was so great, so unmistakable, that the landlord looked at him in surprise. "Why, he--he----"
"What, sir?"
Oswald had brought his words to a sudden stand-still. His face was one picture of doubt, of bewilderment.
"It could not have been Dr. Davenal."
"Yes it was, sir," repeated John Hamos. "Who else would be likely to undertake the operation but him? He and Mr. Cray were together, but it was the doctor who performed it. As of course it would be."
"But he did not give the chloroform?"
"Why, yes he did, sir. He gave it for the best. As was said afterwards at the inquest, they could not possibly foresee that what saved pain and was a blessing to thousands, would prove fatal to her ladyship."
"Who said that at the inquest? Dr. Davenal?"
"Mr. Cray, sir. The doctor wasn't present at the inquest; he was away from the town. He went away in the night, somebody said, just after the death: was fetched out to some patient at a distance, and didn't get back here till--Wednesday morning, I think it was."
"And she never rallied from the chloroform?"
"Never at all, sir. She died under it."
Oswald Cray said no more. He went up to the bedroom that he always used, there to wash off some of the travelling dust. But instead of proceeding at once to do so, he stood in thought with folded arms and bent brow, John Hamos's information respecting the chloroform troubling his brain.
Why should it trouble him? Could not he believe, as others did, that it was given in all due hope and confidence, according to the best judgment of the surgeons? No, he could not believe it, so far as regarded the chief surgeon, Dr. Davenal: and the reason was this.
On the night of the accident, when Dr. Davenal jumped into the carriage that was about to proceed to the scene, he jumped into a seat by the side of Oswald Cray. They entered into conversation, and the topic of it was, not unnaturally, accidents in general. It led to the subject of chloroform, and Dr. Davenal expressed his opinion upon that new-fashioned aid to science just as freely as he afterwards expressed it to Mark Cray.
How strange are the incidents, the small events that shape the course of human destiny. But for that accidental conversation--and may it not be called accidental?--half the trouble that is about to be related never would have taken place. And the cruel shadow, that was waiting to spread its wings over the days of more than one wayfarer on the path of life, would have found no spot to darken with its evil.
Dr. Davenal spoke his opinion freely to Oswald Cray with regard to chloroform. He did not deny its great boon, sparing pain to many whose sufferings would otherwise be almost intolerable; but he said that there were some few to whom he would as soon give poison as chloroform, for the one would be just as fatal as the other. And he instanced Lady Oswald.
The unfortunate fact of Lady Oswald being in the disabled train to which they were hastening, possibly one of its wounded, no doubt suggested her name to Dr. Davenal as his example. There were other people whom he attended--a slight few--to whom he deemed chloroform would be as pernicious as to Lady Oswald: but she was in question, as it were, that night, and he cited her. There must have been some fatality in it.
"She is one, if I am any judge, who could not bear it; who would be almost certain not to survive its effects," were the words he used to Oswald. "I would as soon give Lady Oswald a dose of poison as suffer her to come near chloroform."
The words, spoken to Oswald only, not to the other inmates of the carriage who were busy talking on their own score, had not made any particular impression upon him at the time, but they returned to his memory now with awakened force. He asked himself what it could mean. Dr. Davenal had distinctly told him, or equivalent to it, that the inhaling of chloroform would be as poison to Lady Oswald; he was now assured by John Hamos that, not four-and-twenty hours subsequent to that conversation, he, Dr. Davenal, had himself administered chloroform to her. And the result was death. Death--as Dr. Davenal had expressed his firm conviction it would be.
Mr. Oswald Cray could only come to the conclusion that there must be some mistake in the statement of the facts to him. It was impossible to arrive at any other conclusion. That there was no mistake on his own part, as to the opinion expressed to him by the doctor, he knew; he recalled the very words in which it was spoken; spoken deliberately and elaborately; not a mere allusion or sentence. About that there was no doubt; but he felt that a mistake must lie somewhere. The chloroform could not have been given by Dr. Davenal; perhaps he had not even been present at the operation.
He quitted the "Apple Tree," and bent his steps to Lady Oswald's. Parkins came to him in a burst of grief. Parkins was--it has been said so before--genuinely grieved at her lady's death, and it showed itself chiefly by breaking into a shower of tears with every fresh person she saw. One of the first questions put to her by Mr. Oswald Cray was as to her not having written to inform him of the death. He wished to know why she had not.
"I don't know why, sir," she sobbed, "except that I have been bewildered ever since it happened. I have been as one out of my mind, sir, with the shock and the grief. I'm sure I beg your pardon for the neglect, but it never so much as struck me till yesterday, when the undertaker was here about the funeral. He asked who was to be invited to it, and then it came into my mind that you ought to have been wrote to, but I said perhaps Mr. Cray had done it."
"Well, sit down while you talk, Parkins," he said in a kind tone. "I can understand that you have been very much shocked by it. Are any of Lady Oswald's relatives here?"
"There's that nephew of hers, sir, the parson; the poor gentleman that she'd send a little money to sometimes. He heard of it accidental, he says, and came off at once with his brother. They got here this morning. Very nice people, both of them, sir, but they seem poor. They think no doubt that my lady's money is left to them, as I daresay it is. She----"
"I wish to ask you a question or two about the death, Parkins," he interrupted in a pointed manner. None could check undue topics with more dignity than he. "When was it discovered that Lady Oswald was seriously injured?"
"Not until the Sunday, sir. When Mr. Cray came home with her here on the return from Hildon, he wanted to examine into her state, but she was very obstinate, and persisted in saying she'd not be touched that night; that she wasn't hurt. I fancy Dr. Davenal thought it was wrong of Mr. Cray not to have insisted upon it--but Mr. Cray himself did not think there was any grave injury: he told me so then. The next morning I thought they'd both be here, Dr. Davenal and Mr. Cray; but Mr. Cray came alone, the doctor it appeared had been sent for to Thorndyke----"
"To Thorndyke?" involuntarily interrupted Oswald.
"Yes, sir, somebody was ill there. However, he, the doctor, was back and up here in the afternoon. He had seen Mr. Cray, and he came to examine into her state for himself: for it had been discovered then that she was worse injured than they thought. At first my lady said she'd not submit to the operation, which Mr. Cray had already told her must take place; but Dr. Davenal talked to her, and she consented, and they fixed half-past five in the afternoon. Have you heard how she died, sir?" broke off Parkins abruptly.
"I have heard since I got here this evening that she died from the effects of chloroform."
"And so she did, sir. And it's a thing that I shall never understand to my dying day."
Parkins spoke the last words with a vehemence that superseded the sobs. Mr. Oswald Cray thought he did not understand it either; but he did not say so.
"In what way don t you understand it?" he asked quietly.
"How it was they came to give her the chloroform. I am quite certain, sir, that up to the very moment that the operation was ready to be begun, there was no thought of chloroform. It was not as much as mentioned, and if any chloroform had been in the room amidst the preparations, I must have seen it."
"Were you present during the operation?"
"I was to have been present, sir; but at the last moment I fainted dead off, and had to be taken from the room. We knew no more, any of us, till it was all over. Then we were called to by the gentlemen, and told what was the matter: that my lady was sinking under the influence of the chloroform they had administered, and could not be rallied from it. And, a few minutes after, she died."
Oswald Cray remained for some moments silent. "Was it Dr. Davenal who administered it?" he resumed.
"No doubt it was, sir; they were together. It was Dr. Davenal who performed the operation. My lady said nobody should do it but Mr. Cray, and it was settled that it should be done by him; but I suppose they thought at last it would be better to entrust it to the doctor. Anyway, it was he who performed it."
"What did Dr. Davenal--did Dr. Davenal say anything about the chloroform afterwards, or why they had used it?"
"He didn't say much, sir. He said what had been done was done for the best: but he seemed dreadfully cut up. And so did Mr. Cray. The strangest thing to me is, why they used chloroform, when I saw no signs of their attempting to use it."
"But they must have had it with them?"
"Well, of course they must, sir. It was not produced, though, while I was there. They said my lady grew agitated--it was Mr. Cray said that--that my falling down helped to agitate her; but it will take a great deal to make me believe there was anyneedfor them to use chloroform. It has cost a good lady her life; I know that. She had her little tempers and her fidgety ways, poor dear lady, but she was one of the best of mistresses. It's just as if they had done it to kill her."
Did the words grate on the ear of Oswald Cray?--as though they bore all too significant a meaning. Not yet; not quite yet. This testimony of the maid's had confirmed beyond doubt that Dr. Davenal had been the chief and acting surgeon: how then reconcile that fact with the opinion expressed to him not many hours before the death? He could not tell; he could not think; he could not account for it by any reasoning of any sort, subtle or simple. He was as one in a mazy dream, seeing nothing distinctly.
When he quitted the house, he turned again and bent his steps to the Abbey. Possibly he deemed Mark could solve his difficulties. Mark was not in, however, when he got there, only Caroline.
Mrs. Cray was in the large drawing-room. She and the tea-table, at which she sat waiting for Mark, looked quite lost in its space. The thought struck Oswald as he entered. It had been the home of his early childhood, the scene of occasional visits since that period, but Oswald always thought that room larger and larger every time he entered it. It was at its window that he, a baby in arms, had been held by the side of his mother, when the grand people from Thorndyke in their carriage and four,herfather and mother, would drive past and cast up their faces of stone. He had been too young to know anything then, but afterwards, when he could begin to understand, these stories of the passing by of Sir Oswald Oswald were impressed upon him by his nurse. They remained amidst his most vivid recollections. But that he knew it was impossible to have been so--for his mother had died when he was too young, and there was no more standing there after her death to watch for Sir Oswald--he could have affirmed now that he remembered those times in all their full detail: the steady pace of the fine horses, the bedizened carriage--in those days it was the fashion to have carriages bedizened--the servants in their claret liveries, the impassive faces of Sir Oswald and his lady. The fact was, it had all been described so often and minutely to the young child Oswald, that it remained on his memory as a thing seen, not heard.
Mrs. Cray, gay in attire, wearied in countenance, was quite alone. She wore a low evening dress of blue silk, with lace and fringes and trimmings; and blue ribbons in her hair. Rather more dress than is necessary for a quiet evening at home; but she was young and pretty and a bride, and--very fond of finery in any shape. Her weary face lighted up with smiles as she saw Oswald and rose to greet him: very, very pretty did she look then.
"I am so glad to see you! I had grown tired, waiting for Mark. He went out the moment he had swallowed his dinner--before he had swallowed it, I think--and he is not in yet. Shall I tell you a secret, Oswald?"
"Yes, if you please."
"I am quite disappointed. I shan't at all like being a doctor's wife."
Her dark blue eyes were dancing with smiles as she spoke. Oswald smiled too--at the joke.
"It is true, Mr. Oswald Cray. I don't speak against my own dear Mark: I'd not part withhim: but I do wish he was not a doctor. You don't know how little I see of him. He is in just at meals, and not always to them."
Oswald smiled still. "You had lived in a doctor's house, Mrs. Cray, and knew the routine of it."
"My uncle's house was not like this. Who can compare the great Dr. Davenal at the top of the tree, waiting at home for his patients to come to him, to poor Mark Cray at the bottom, just beginning to climb it? It's not the same thing, Mr. Oswald Cray. Mark has to be out, here and there and everywhere. At the Infirmary, dancing attendance on interminable rows of beds one hour; in some obscure corner of the town another, setting somebody's leg, or watching a case of fever. Mark says it won't go on quite as bad as it has begun. This has been an unusually busy week with him, owing to the doctor's absence. He left home on Sunday night, and was not back until Wednesday. A great portion of Sunday also the doctor passed at Thorndyke."
"His patient must have been very ill to keep him away from Sunday until Wednesday," remarked Oswald.
"To tell you the truth," said Caroline, dropping her voice in a manner that sounded rather mysterious, "we don't think he was with a patient. We can't quite make out why he went or where he went. He came here in the middle of the night and rang up Mark. It was the night subsequent to Lady Oswald's death--oh, Oswald! was not her death a shocking thing?"
"Very," was the answer, gravely spoken.
"When Mark came home that Sunday evening and told me Lady Oswald was dead, I cannot describe to you how I felt. At first I could not believe it; and then I went--I went into hysterics. It was very foolish of course, for hysterics do no good, but I could not help it. You have come down to attend the funeral tomorrow, I suppose?"
"Yes."
"Well--I was telling you about my uncle. He came here in the middle of the night and rang up Mark, who went down to him. When Mark came upstairs again, he said Dr. Davenal was going away on some private errand which he had made a sort of secret of to Mark. I fancy Mark was only half-awake and did not hear him clearly; all he understood was, that the doctor was going somewhere by train unexpectedly; and Mark was to let it be assumed in the town that he was visiting a patient at a distance. Mark declared that he believed the doctor was only absenting himself to avoid attending the coroner's inquest."
"Why should Mark think that?--Why should Dr. Davenal wish to avoid attending it?" reiterated Oswald, strangely interested, he scarcely knew why.
"I cannot tell you. I fancy the admission slipped from Mark inadvertently, for he would not say a syllable more. The next day, Monday, I saw Sara. I asked her point-blank where my uncle had gone, remarking that there seemed to be some little mystery connected with it, and she turned as white as the grave and whispered to me not to talk so, to hold my tongue for the love of Heaven. You'll take some tea, won't you; Oswald? I shall be so glad of an excuse for making it."
Oswald, almost mechanically, said he would take some, and she rang the bell for the urn. He began to think all this strange and more strange; to ask himself: what it tended to. Dr. Davenal had gone away to avoid the inquest?--and his daughter when spoken to upon the subject had turned as white as the grave? What did it mean?
"Do you know the particulars of Lady Oswald's death?" he inquired as he stirred his tea.
"Yes. Don't you! She died from chloroform. They deemed it necessary to give it her, and she never rallied from it."
"Who gave it to her? Which of them?"
"Which of them?" repeated Caroline, lifting her eyes, thinking no doubt the question a superfluous one. "They were both present; they would act in concert one with the other. If you mean to cast blame on them, Oswald, I should say you must cast it conjointly. But they acted for the best."
"I do not cast blame on them," he answered. "I don't understand the affair sufficiently yet to cast blame anywhere. It is a riddle to me."
"What is a riddle?"
"How Dr.--how they came to use chloroform at all."
"Why, it is in almost universal use now!" exclaimed Mrs. Cray, surprised at the remark. "There is no riddle in that."
Oswald did not press it. In his opinion therewasa riddle; one he began to think would not be easy of solution. He finished his tea in silence. By and by Mrs. Cray resumed.
"Mark seems not to like to talk of it. I asked him a great many questions, as was natural, but he put me off, saying I should be falling into hysterics again. I told him that was nonsense, now the shock was over; but he would not talk of it, seemed quite to wince when I pressed it. It was not a pleasant subject for him, he said. And of course it is not: and still less so for my uncle, whose authority sways Mark. However good their intentions were, it did kill her."
"Will Mark be long, do you suppose?" inquired Oswald, breaking another long pause.
"As if I could tell, Oswald! I have been expecting him every minute this hour past. When I grumble at Mark for staying out so, he tells me I must blame his patients. Nay, but you are not going yet?" she added, as he rose. "Mark is sure to be in soon."
"I cannot well stay longer now," he answered. "I shall see Mark in the morning. I suppose he attends the funeral?"
"Of course he will. They will both attend it. I wish you would not hurry away!"
He repeated his apology, and Caroline rang the bell. In point of fact he wanted to call on Dr. Davenal.
Scarcely had the servant closed the door on Mr. Oswald Cray than he met his brother. Mark was coming along at a quick pace.
"Oswald, is it you? Have you been to the Abbey?"
"I have been taking tea with your wife, and waiting for you. She is nearly out of patience. Mark!" he continued, passing his arm within his brother's and leading him a few steps away while he talked, "what a shocking thing this is about Lady Oswald!"
"Ay, it is that. So unexpected. Won't you come in?"
"Not again tonight. I want to know, Mark, how it was that chloroform was given to her!"
"If we had not deemed it for the best, we should not have given it," was Mark's answer.
"But--surely Dr. Davenal did not deem it would be for the best?"
Mark turned and looked at him: a quick, sharp glance. "What do you know about it?" he asked.
"I? I know nothing about it: I want to know," replied Oswald, thinking the remark strange. "I wish you would give me the full particulars, Mark. I cannot understand--I have a reason for not being able to understand--why chloroform should have been given to Lady Oswald----"
"We use chloroform very much now," interrupted Mark.
"Why it should have been given toLady Oswald," went on Oswald, with pointed emphasis.
"It was given to her as it is given to others--to deaden pain."
"Who performed the operation?"
"The doctor."
There was a pause. When Oswald Cray broke it his voice was low, his manner hesitating. "Mark, will you pardon me if I ask you a peculiar question?--Do you believe from your very heart that when Dr. Davenal administered that chloroform to Lady Oswald hedidthink it would be for the best?"
Hesitating as Oswald's manner had been. Mark's was worse. He grew on a sudden flushed and embarrassed.
"Won't you answer me, Mark?"
"I--yes--of course we thought it would be for the best."
"I asked, didhethink it?"
Mark plunged into an untruth. Somewhat afraid of Oswald at the best of times, conscious that he was of a far higher standard in moral and intellectual excellence than himself, he desired to stand well with him, to enjoy his good opinion; and perhaps there was not a single man in Hallingham to whom Mark would not have preferred his unhappy mistake in all its wilfulness to become known than to his brother. They were also playing at cross-purposes: Oswald was seeking to learn how far Dr. Davenal had been to blame. Mark believed it was his own share of blame that was sought to be arrived at.
"Yes, he thought it. Dr. Davenal would not use chloroform, or anything else, unless he believed it would be beneficial," rapidly went on Mark. "I never knew a man more successful in his treatment in a general way than he." But for all the apparent readiness of the words, they bore a certain evasion to Oswald's ears.
"Tell me the truth, Mark; tell it me frankly," he rejoined. "Is there not some--some secret--I don't know what else to call it--connected with this business? Somethingwrongabout it!"
For a moment Mark Cray had to deliberate. He was driven at bay by the straightforward questions of his brother. And his brother saw the hesitation.
"Oswald, it is of no use to press me upon this matter. You will readily conceive how sore a one it is to myself and to Dr. Davenal. Had it been some poor rubbishing patient who had died through it, that poor stoker at the Infirmary for instance, it would not have been of so much account: but"----
"Be silent, Mark!" burst from Oswald with a flash of anger. "I will not listen to such doctrine. The lives of the poor are every whit as valuable as are the lives of the rich. You did not learn that from Dr. Davenal."
"What I meant was, that there'd not be half the public fuss," said Mark, looking little, and doing his best to explain away the impression given by his words. "I'm sure therehasbeen enough fuss in the town since her death was known, but I have not heard of one single person in it casting blame on us. Why should you seek to cast it? Errors in judgment are committed now and then in medical practice, just as they are in everything else and there's no help for it; they happen to the very best of us. If we could see the end of a thing at the beginning it would be different: but we can't. Could its effects on Lady Oswald have been anticipated, we'd have seen chloroform in the sea before it should have been given her. It was done for the best."
"You think, then, that Dr. Davenal believed the giving it her would be for the best?" persisted Oswald, after listening patiently to the excited answer.
Again came the perceptible hesitation in the manner of Mark; again the flush of embarrassment rose to his cheek. Oswald noted it.
"I am quite sure that all the doctor ever did for Lady Oswald he did for the best," and Mark Cray plucked up courage and spirit as he said it: "that night as well as other nights which had gone before it I cannot think what you are driving at, Oswald."
Oswald Cray determined to "drive" no more. He believed it would be useless, so far as Mark was concerned. He could not quite make him out: but he believed it would be useless. That there was something concealed, something not quite open, he saw; Mark's manner alone would have told him that: and he came rapidly to the conclusion that Mark had been cognisant also of his partner's opinion of chloroform as connected with Lady Oswald, and could not tell why he had tried it upon her, but did suppose, in spite of the face of affairs, that he had done it for the best. All Mark's embarrassment, his evasion, his crusty unwillingness to speak frankly, Oswald set down to an anxiety to screen Dr. Davenal from the reproach of imprudence. One more remark he did make. It arose to his mind as he was about to depart, and he spoke it on the spur of the thought.
"I understand you fancy that Dr. Davenal absented himself from Hallingham to avoid attending the coroner's inquest."
"Where on earth did you hear that?" shouted Mark, with a stare of surprise.
"Your wife mentioned it to me just now."
Mark Cray waxed wroth. "What idiots women are! The very best of them! I shan't be able to think my own thoughts next. Caroline knows I did not wish that repeated: it slipped from me without reflection."
"It is quite safe with me, Mark. She looks upon me, I suppose, as one of yourselves. But why should Dr. Davenal have wished not to attend the inquest?"
"Oh, for nothing, only he thought they'd be putting all sorts of questions," carelessly replied Mark. "It was a disagreeable thing altogether, and one of us was quite enough to attend. But, mind you, Oswald, I don't really suppose he went for that: I make no doubt he had business out."
"Well, goodnight, Mark."
"Goodnight. I wish you had come in."
Mark Cray stepped on to his house, and let himself in with his latch-key, thinking how much better the world would go on if women had not been endowed with tongues, and wondering excessively what possessed Oswald to be taking up the death of Lady Oswald and putting these mysterious questions upon it.
Dr. Davenal was alone in his study, pacing the carpet with heavy steps and a face that seemed to have all the care of the world marked on it, when Mr. Oswald Cray was shown in. Oswald could not avoid being struck with that expression of care; he had never seen the like upon the countenance of Dr. Davenal.
Turning his head, he looked at Oswald for the space of a minute as if not recognising him. He was too deeply buried in his own thoughts immediately to awake from them to everyday life.
"Good-evening, Dr. Davenal."
He took Oswald's outstretched hand, and was himself again. Oswald sat down and the doctor too. But after a few words, he rose, apparently in restlessness, and began to pace the room as before.
"Are you in any grief, doctor?"
"Well--yes I am," was the reply. "Or perhaps I should rather say in vexation, for that is chiefly it. We have had a line from Edward by the day post, and he expresses a doubt whether he shall be able to get down to say farewell. These young soldiers grow careless of home ties, Mr. Oswald Cray."
"Not soldiers in particular, do they, sir? It is a reproach that can be cast upon many others who live in the world."
"And get enslaved by it. True."
"I did not mean altogether that, Dr. Davenal. When does your son sail?"
"On Sunday morning, he says. He does not positively say he is not coming down, only gives a hint that he fears he cannot. What did I do with the letter?" continued the doctor, looking round. "I brought it in with me after dinner. Oh, there it is," he added, seeing it on a side table, and giving it to Oswald. "You can read what he says. Sara won't mind. It is written for us all as well as for her, I expect Edward was never a voluminous correspondent; his letters are generallypro bono publico."
Oswald saw it was addressed to Miss Sara Davenal, and began to read it. It was dated the previous evening.
"My Darling Sister,--"
We are in all the bustle and hurry of the start. Orders have come at last, and we embark from Southampton on Sunday morning. IhopeI shall get down to you to say goodbye. I am not unmindful of my promise to do so, and will do all I can to keep it; poor Dick used to tell me that I knew how to break promises better than I knew how to make them, but it shall not be my fault if you have to east that on me as a last reproach. To absent one's-self, even for an hour, is a difficult task now, but I will manage it, if possible. We have been worked off our heads and legs for the last few days.
"Love to all. I suppose Carry is fairly installed at the Abbey; wish her all good luck for me.--Ever yours, in much haste,
"E. F. Davenal."
"You see," said the doctor, halting and pointing to the letter, "he emphasises the word 'hope.' 'IhopeI shall get down.' That very fact is sufficient to tell me that he knows he shall not get down, and these lines have been sent as a sort of preparation for the final disappointment. And he is going out for years! But I won't blame him; perhaps it is an impossibility to him to get away. He should have remained longer when he came down for the wedding--have made it his farewell visit. I said so then."
Dr. Davenal began his walk to and fro again,--a very slow, thoughtful walk. Oswald folded the letter and laid it on the table.
"I have ever loved my children--I was going to say passionately, Mr. Oswald Cray. I believe few parents can love as I have loved. I have made--I have made sacrifices for them which the world little reeks of, and anything like ingratitude touches me to the heart's core. But in the midst of it I am the first to find excuses for them, and I say that Edward may not be at all to blame in this."
"I think it very likely that he is quite unable to get away, however much he may wish it," observed Oswald.
"I think so too. I say I don't blame him. Only one feels these things."
There ensued a silence. A feeling of dislike had come over Oswald (and he could not trace it to any particular cause) to enter upon the subject of Lady Oswald. But he was not one to give way to these fanciful phases of feeling which appear to arise without rhyme or reason, and he was about to speak when the doctor forestalled him.
"Lady Oswald's death has brought you down, I presume?"
"Yes. I was in ignorance of it until this morning, when a formal invitation to attend the funeral reached me from the undertaker. I had just read the announcement of the death in the 'Times.' How shocked I was, I cannot well express to you."
"It has shocked us all."
"Of course its reaching me in that abrupt manner, in the public column of deaths, did not tend to lessen the shock. I rather wonder you did not drop me a line yourself, Dr. Davenal."
"I was away afterwards. Called out to a distance, I did not get back for a day or two. Did Mark not write?"
"Nobody wrote. Neither Mark nor Parkins; nor anybody else. As to Mark, he is careless as the wind; and Parkins excuses herself on the plea of having been so bewildered. I can readily believe her. Dr. Davenal, she died, as I am given to understand, from the effects of chloroform!"
"We thought, on the night of the accident, you know, that she was not seriously injured," said Dr. Davenal. "At least, Mark thought it: I had my doubts: but I left him to see to her at her own desire. Unfortunately I was called out early on Sunday morning. I was wanted at Thorndyke: and when I got back the injury had been ascertained, and an operation found necessary. It was under that operation she died."
"But the operation was performed successfully?"
"Quite so."
"And what she died of was the inhaling of the chloroform?"
"It was."
"But--I cannot understand why chloroform should have been given to her?" deliberately proceeded Oswald.
"Itwasgiven to her," was all the reply he obtained.
"But--pardon me for recalling it to you, Dr. Davenal--do you remember the very decided opinion you expressed to me, when we were going down to the scene of accident, against giving chloroform to Lady Oswald? We were speaking of its opposite effects upon different natures, and you cited Lady Oswald as one to whom, in your opinion, it might prove dangerous. You stated that, so far as you believed, it would be neither better nor worse to her than poison."
Oswald waited for a reply, but the doctor made none. He was pacing the small room with his measured tread, his hands in his pockets, his eyes bent on the carpet.
"Have you any objection to explain to me this apparent contradiction? It is impossible to believe that one, whose opinion of chloroform in relation to her was so fatal, would in a few hours cause her to inhale it."
Dr. Davenal stopped in his walk and confronted Oswald.
"Have you seen Mark since you came down?"
"Yes."
"And what does he say?"
"Well, I don't fancy he understands it much better than I do. He reiterates that it was given her for the best. In his opinion it may have been. But it surely could not have been in yours, Dr. Davenal."
Dr. Davenal turned from Oswald to his pacing again. A strong temptation was upon him to tell Oswald the truth. O that he had! that he had!
There were few people in the world whom he esteemed as he esteemed Oswald Cray. There was no one else in the world to whom he had expressed this opinion of the unfitness of Lady Oswald as a subject for chloroform, and the wish to explain, to exonerate himself, arose forcibly within him. The next moment he asked himself why Mark Cray himself had not spoken. As he had not, it seemed to Dr. Davenal that it would be a breach of friendship, ofpartnership, for him to speak. Oswald was connected, too, with Lady Oswald, and might take up the matter warmly. No, he felt in his ever-considerate heart that he could not betray Mark, could not set one brother against the other. And he put the temptation from him.
Oswald watched him as he walked, wondering at the silence. A silence which the doctor evidently did not feel inclined to break.
"Do you remember expressing this opinion to me, Dr. Davenal?"
"Yes, I believe I did so express it."
"And yet you acted in diametrical opposition to it immediately afterwards, and caused Lady Oswald to inhale chloroform? Will you forgive me for again asking how it could have been?"
"The very best of us are led into error sometimes," replied Dr. Davenal.
"Why, that is one of the remarks Mark has just made to me in connection with this case! I cannot recognise it as applying to it. You spoke so firmly, so positively, that I should have believed there was no room for error to creep in. I feel that there is something to be explained, Dr. Davenal."
Dr. Davenal wheeled round in his walk and confronted Oswald.
"There are circumstances connected with this case, Mr. Oswald Cray, which I cannot explain to the world; which I cannot explain even to you; although I would rather tell them to you than to any one. Let it suffice to know thatI could not save Lady Oswald. It was not in my power."
"But you could have saved--you could have helped giving her the chloroform?" returned Oswald, wonderingly.
A slight pause. "Will you oblige me by asking no further questions on the subject--by allowing it to drop, to me and to others? Believe me, I have no selfish motive in pressing this. No one living can regret more than I the fatal result to Lady Oswald; perhaps nobody regrets it so keenly. Could I have saved her, no care, no skill, no labour, should have been spared. But I could not. I can only ask you to be satisfied with this meagre assurance, Mr. Oswald Cray and to believe me when I state that I have private reasons for declining to pursue the topic."
"And--pardon me--one more question: To what am I to attribute her death in my own mind? Or rather this giving of the chloroform?"
"You must look upon it as an error in judgment. It was such."
It was impossible for Oswald Cray, as a gentleman, to press further the matter. Dr. Davenal was an old man compared with him; one of high reputation, skill, position. He could not understand it, but he could only bow to the request--nay, to the demand--and let the subject sink into silence. An awkward pause ensued. The doctor had not resumed his promenade, but stood under the gas-lamp, twirling a quill pen in his fingers which he had taken up.
"How are the other sufferers from the accident getting on?" inquired Oswald, when the silence was beginning to be heard.
"Oh, quite well. Poor Bigg the fireman is nearly the only one of them left in the Infirmary, and he will soon be out of it. The rest came off mostly with a few cuts and bruises. There's a summons for me, I suppose."
The doctor alluded to a knock at the hall-door. Neal came in.
"Mr. Wheatley, sir. He wishes to know if you can spare him ten minutes."
"Yes," replied the doctor, and Oswald rose.
"Will you walk upstairs and see them?"
"Not tonight, thank you."
"I won't press you," said the doctor. "Sara is cut up about this news from Edward, terribly disappointed; and Aunt Bett is as cross as two sticks. She is fond of Edward, with all her ungraciousness to him, and she looks upon this hint of not coming down as a slight to herself. In manner she was always ungracious to the boys, from some idea I believe that it tended to keep them in order. But she loved them at heart. Goodnight."
Dr. Davenal clasped his hand with a warm pressure, warmer than usual; Oswald could not but feel it, and he went out perfectly mystified.
Neal stepped on to open the front gate. Neal was always remarkably courteous and deferent to Mr. Oswald Cray. Oswald, who had only seen the best side of Neal, and never suspected there was a reverse one, looked upon him as a man to be respected, a faithful old retainer of the Oswald family. Lady Oswald had sung his praises times out of number in Oswald's ear, and she once told Oswald to try for Neal should he ever require a servant about his person, for he would find Neal a man of fidelity, worth his weight in gold. Oswald believed her. He believed Neal to be faithful and true; one whom doubt could not touch.
"This death of your late mistress is a very sad thing, Neal."
"O sir! I can't express to you how I have felt it. I'm sure I can say that my lady was a true friend to me, the only one I had left."
"No, no, Neal. Not the only one. You may count a friend in me--if only in respect to the regard you were, I know, held in by Lady Oswald."
"Thank you, sir, greatly;" and honest Neal's eyes swam in tears as he turned them to Mr. Oswald Cray under the light of his master's professional gas-lamp. "Sir," he added, swaying forward the gate and dropping his voice as he approached nearer to Oswald, "how came that poison, that chloroform, to be given to her?"
"I cannot tell; I cannot understand," replied Oswald, speaking upon impulse, not upon reflection.
"Sir, if I might dare to say a word"--and Neal glanced round with caution on all sides as he spoke--"I'd ask whether it was given in fairness?"
"What do you mean, Neal?"
"There's not a person in the world I'd venture to whisper such a thing to, sir, except yourself; but I doubt whether itwasgiven in fairness. I have a reason for doubting it, sir; a particular reason. It makes me sick, sir, to think that there was some unfair play brought to work, and that it took her life."
"Unfair play on the part of whom?" asked Oswald.
"I am not sure that I dare say, sir, even to you. And it might be looked upon as--as--fancy on my part. One thing is certain, sir, that but for that chloroform being given to her, she'd be alive now."
"Dr. Davenal and Mr. Cray gave the chloroform, Neal," observed Mr. Oswald Cray, in a somewhat distant tone--for it was not to Neal he would admit any doubt, scarcely condescend to hear any, of the judgment of the surgeons. "They know better about such things than we do."
"Yes, sir," answered Neal, as drily as he dared. "Mr. Cray, I am sure, didhisbest, but he has not had the judgment and experience of my master. Anyway, it seems it was the chloroform that killed her."
"As it has killed others before her--when administered in all deliberate judgment by surgeons of as high repute and practice as Dr. Davenal. The issues of life and death are not even in a doctor's hands, Neal. Goodnight."
"Goodnight to you, sir."
Oswald Cray walked slowly towards his temporary home, the "Apple Tree," half bewildered with the conjectural views opened out to him, and not the least with that last hint of Neal's. He could not get over that giving of the chloroform by Dr. Davenal in the very teeth of his expressed opinion against it. He had supposed, when he first heard of the cause of death, that this contradiction would be explained away: but, instead of that it was more unexplainable than before. There was Mark's confused manner, his covert attempts to avoid inquiry; there was Dr. Davenal's positive denial to satisfy it; there was the man Neal's curious hint. Oswald Cray felt as one in a maze, trying to get at something which eluded his grasp.
How the imagination runs riot, how utterly unamenable it is to the rules and regulations of sober control, we most of us know.
Oswald found his mind balancing the question, "Did Richard Davenal give that chloroform in his calm deliberate senses, believing that it might take her life? If so, where was the motive?" Men don't do such things in these days without a motive; the greatest criminal must havethat. Oswald Cray could see none. There was no motive, or shadow of motive, for Dr. Davenal's wishing for the death of Lady Oswald. Quite the contrary; it was his interest--if so worldly a plea may be brought into proximity with these solemn thoughts--to keep her in life. Of all his patients, she perhaps was the most profitable, paying him a good sum yearly. Then--with the want of motive, those dark doubts, born of his imagination, fell to the ground, and he had the good sense to see that they did.
They fell to the ground. And Oswald Cray, as he awoke with a start, and shook himself clear of them, pinched his arms to see whether he was awake. Surely only in his sleep could doubts such as those have arisen of Dr. Davenal!