Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  A charming room, nevertheless, on a sunny day. Water-coloured drawings and pencil sketches in plain frames lined the delicately-papered walls, loose music was strewed near the piano and harp, books lay anywhere, pretty little ornamental trifles met the eye, and fancy-work might be seen in more places than one. The glass doors at the window, large and high, stood open to the few wide steps that led to the green lawn — a lawn particularly grateful on a sultry summer’s day.

  For that lawn lay in the shade; the sun in the afternoon shone full on the front of the house, and the lawn was sheltered. The scent of the roses, the syringa, the heliotrope, and other powerfully-perfumed flowers, filled the air, and butterflies and bees flitted from blossom to blossom. It was quite a contrast to the other side of the house, with its busy street, its hot pavement, its jostling traversers, and its garish sunshine. Here lay the cool shade on the mossy lawn — the quiet and the repose of the tinted flowers.

  Seated on the lawn, on a garden-bench, was a young lady reading. A graceful girl of middle height, with large hazel eyes quite luminous in their brightness, a well-formed gentle face, rather pale, and brown hair that took almost a golden tinge when the sun shone through it There was no very great beauty to boast of in the face, but it was one of those that the eye likes to rest upon — and love. A far more beautiful face was that of another young girl, who was restlessly moving amidst the side clusters of shrubs and flowers, plucking the choicest. A face whose beauty could not be denied, with its dark violet eyes, its nearly black hair, and the damask complexion all too bright: these strangely brilliant complexions do not always go with the soundest of constitutions. She was little, fairy-like, somewhat pettish and wilful in her movements. A stranger would say they were sisters, and be puzzled to tell which of the two was the elder, which the younger. There was really no likeness between them, save in the dress — that was precisely similar: a thin gauzy silken material, cool but rich, and no doubt expensive, with a good deal of delicate coloured trimming upon it, and open sleeves over white lace. Sisters they were not — only cousins.

  Suddenly there was a scream from the midst of the flowers, and the young lady on the garden-bench raised her eyes to speak.

  “What is it, Caroline?”

  She came forth in her beauty, flinging down the flowers she had gathered, and holding out the back of her hand. A deep scratch lay right across it.

  “Just look! I am always tearing myself with those wild-rose brambles!”

  “Poor hand! Sit still, Carine; it is too hot for anything else to-day. What do you want with the flowers, that you need trouble yourself to get them?”

  “I don’t know what I want with them. Nothing. Picking them helped to pass away the time.”

  “Why are you so restless this afternoon!”

  “Am I restless? One can’t be always as quiet as you — read, read, read for ever.”

  An amused smile parted the reader’s lips, bringing to view the pretty teeth, so white and regular. “I will retort in nearly your own words, Carine — am I quiet? I think not.”

  “Yes you are, except when the boys are at home. You are noisy enough then. I shall go and eat some fruit.”

  “Lend me your pencil first, Caroline.”

  Miss Caroline Davenal put her hand into her pocket and could not find her pencil “I must have left it somewhere in-doors,” she said. “ You’ll see it if you look.”

  “I must mark a passage here.”

  “What will Mr. Oswald Cray say to your marking his book?”

  “Mr. Oswald Cray asked me to mark anything that struck me. It is a delightful book.”

  Caroline Davenal went joyously down the garden, singing a snatch of a song, as she put her handkerchief over her head to guard it from the sun. The upper half of the long piece of ground was all pleasure and flowers; the lower half all usefulness, vegetables and fruit-trees. Her cousin, book in hand, went up the steps and in at the glass doors to find a pencil She was bending over the centre table, searching for one, when Dr. Davanel entered the room.

  “Is Caroline here?”

  “She is in the garden, papa.”

  Dr. Davenal advanced to the window, and stood at it, ostensibly looking for Caroline. He could not see her; the fruit-trees in the distance had effectually hidden her, and the doctor appeared lost in thought Presently he spoke, without looking round.

  “Sara, did you know that — that — in short, have you ever observed that an attachment was arising between Mr. Cray and Caroline?”

  Sara looked up, but did not at once reply. The question was one, put from a father to a daughter, that brought up the blushes on her cheeks in her maiden modesty.

  “N — o,” she replied, at length. But the no, in its hesitation, sounded almost as much like yes.

  “My dear, I did not ask you to deceive me,” was the grave answer; “ I ask for the truth.”

  “O papa, you know — you know I would not deceive you,” she replied, quite in distress. And Dr. Davenal, pained by the tone, drew her to him and kissed her cheek. He knew how good, how loving, how dutiful, was this daughter of his.

  “The real truth is this, papa. Very recently, only since a day or two, a faint suspicion has arisen in my mind that it might be so. Caroline has not spoken, and I have had nothing to guide me to it, except the fact that Mr. Cray is so much here. Indeed, I do not know whether it is so or not.”

  “I believe I have been a little blind,” observed Dr. Davenal speaking quite as much to himself as to his daughter. “The fact is, Sara, I had a notion in my head that some one else had taken a fancy to Caroline; and I suppose I could see nothing beyond it. I speak of Mr. Oswald Cray.”

  It was well that Dr. Davenal’s eyes were fixed on the garden, or he might have wondered at the startled change in his daughter’s face. It had turned of one glowing crimson. She moved again to the table, and stood there with her back to the light.

  “I suppose I was mistaken; that there was nothing in it, Sara?”

  “Nothing, papa, I think; nothing whatever,” came the low-toned answer.

  “But Mr. Oswald Cray does come here a great deal when he is at Hallingham?” pursued the doctor, as if willing to debate the question.

  The crimson grew deeper. Dr. Davenal did not seem to observe that there was no answer.

  “How the idea came to arise, I do not understand. Heaven knows I should be the last man in the world to scheme and plan out marriages — for Caroline or for anybody else. Such matters are best left to come about of themselves. But, Sara, I wish one thing — that it had been Mr. Oswald Cray, instead of Mark.”

  “Do you, papa?” with the blushing face still turned from him. “Ay, I do. I could have trusted her to Oswald. How could she choose the other in preference to him?”

  Sara lifted her face. Eager words were on her lips — to the effect that perhaps Mr. Oswald Cray might not have chosen Caroline. But they died away unspoken.

  “I wish you would go and tell her I want her here, Sara.”

  Sara slipped by the doctor, passed over the cool lawn to the distant sunny paths, and met her cousin.

  “Papa wants you, Carine.”

  Caroline recoiled in her self-conscious timidity. “What about?” she whispered. “Did he say what about?”

  “I think,” said Sara slowly, scarcely knowing whether she was doing right to speak or not, “that it is something about Mr. Cray.” For a moment Caroline made no rejoinder, She walked on and had nearly gained the lawn when she turned her head again. Sara had lingered behind.

  “Sara! Sara! Did he seem angry?” she whispered.

  “Not exactly angry. Vexed, I thought.”

  Dr. Davenal stood at the glass doors still. He put out his hand as she approached him.

  “Did you want me, Uncle Richard?”

  “Mr. Cray has been making an application to me concerning you. Caroline, were you cognisant of it?”

  “Now, Uncle Richard! If you are going to be cross, I — I shall be so unhappy.”


  “When did you ever know me cross?” he gravely rejoined, and Caroline Davenal burst into tears.

  “Caroline, my dear, we must put away this childishness. You are but affecting it, and this is a serious moment I must talk to you very earnestly. Come in, Sara. It is cooler in-doors than out” Sara, who in her delicacy of feeling would have remained outside, went within the room and sat down to the table with her book. Caroline had dried her passing tears, and was stealing a glance at Dr. Davenal.

  “You are angry, Uncle Richard.”

  “If I am, Caroline, it is for your sake; a loving anger. My chief emotion, I believe, is surprise. I never gave a thought to this; not a suspicion of it crossed me.”

  “I fancied you must have guessed it,” was the murmured answer. “Guessed that! No, child. But the blindness was my own, I believe. When we ourselves place one view deliberately before us, it tends to shut out others. I had got it into my head, Carine, that it was to your score we were indebted for the frequent visits of Mr. Oswald Cray.”

  Caroline lifted her face, and Dr. Davenal observed how genuine was the surprise depicted on it “Uncle Richard!”

  “I see. I see now, child, that the idea was void of foundation. But, Caroline,” he gravely added, “I would rather it had been Oswald than Mark. All the world must respect Oswald Cray.”

  “I should think it was void of foundation!” indignantly returned Caroline, resenting the disparagement cast on Mark. “Why, Uncle Richard, Oswald Cray likes Sara a thousand times better than he likes me! But not with that sort of liking,” she hastened to add, lest a construction should be put upon the words which most certainly she never meant to put “General liking, I mean. Oswald Cray’s heart is buried in his ambition, in his busy life; he gives little thought to aught else. Uncle Richard, I would not marry Oswald Cray if he were worth his weight in gold. He would find fault with me all day long.”

  “Well, well; let us drop Oswald Cray, and return to the point, Caroline. If” —

  “Lady Oswald, sir.”

  The interruption came from Neal. They had not heard him open the door, and the announcement was the first intimation of his presence. Of course all private conversation was at an end, and the doctor half groaned as he turned to Lady Oswald. She came in, her warm cashmere scarf drawn round her, and her purple gown held up gracefully on the right side, after the style of walking in the fashionable world in the days when Lady Oswald was young.

  Lady Oswald was one of those imaginary invalids who give more trouble to their medical attendants than a whole score of patients with real maladies. Fussy and fidgety, she exacted constant attendance from Dr. Davenal. She paid him well; but she worried him nearly out of his life. On his leisure days, when he could really afford the visit to her, and the quarter-of-an-hour’s chat spent in condoling with her upon her array of ailments and in giving her the gossip of Hallingham, he spared the time with a good grace; but in a season of pressure he did chafe at having to pay this daily visit, when dying men were waiting for him. He had been with her that morning between ten and eleven: Neal had said she called while he was out; and now here she was again! Once or twice latterly he had sent Mr. Cray in his stead, and she had not seemed to object to it But she had come for a different object now.

  “Only two minutes’ conversation with you, doctor,” she said, in a voice naturally feeble. “You must spare it me, though it is Tuesday afternoon, and I see your dining-room’s getting full. Neal said you were here, so I came in straight, not to be confounded with the patients. Only look at this letter which was delivered to me this morning, and see what it must have been to my nerves. Parkins has been giving me red lavender ever since.”

  “But you know, Lady Oswald, that I object to your taking red lavender.”

  “What am I to do when a shock like that comes to me? Do read it, doctor.”

  Dr. Davenal, feeling that he had no time for letters or nerves just then, was yet compelled in good manners to accede. He opened the note, which was a very short one, and ran his eyes over the contents; once and then again; the first time he did not quite master them.

  It was written to Lady Oswald by her landlord, a gentleman of the name of Low. It appeared that Mr. Low had some little time back received an intimation from the railway company that they should require to take a small portion of the grounds attached to the residence occupied by Lady Oswald, for the purpose of erecting certain sheds necessary at that bend of the line. This note was to inform her that he had given his consent, and it ended with a polite hope and belief that neither the sheds nor the process of their erection would prove any annoyance to her.

  Dr. Davenal folded the letter when read. Lady Oswald looked at him. “What would you advise me to do?” she asked in a fretful tone.

  “Indeed, Lady Oswald, I do not see what you can do,” he thoughtfully answered, “except submit to it.”

  “Submit to it! submit to their erecting railway sheds in my very garden!” she ejaculated in astonishment “From the very first hour that I knew they were carrying that new line of rail close to your grounds, I felt sure it would prove an annoyance to you in some shape or other,” observed Dr. Davenal, speaking more to himself than to Lady Oswald. “It is a great pity, but we all have to submit occasionally to these untoward things, Lady Oswald, as we go through life.”

  “I shall not submit to this,” she resolutely returned. “They have no more right to erect sheds on my grounds, than they have to erect them upon me. I shall forbid it.”

  “But the power to do so does not lie with you,” objected Dr. Davenal. “You are but a tenant on lease. In point of fact, I do not suppose such power lies with any one, not even with Low himself. The railway companies seem to do pretty much as they please in the kingdom. Mr. Low will be sure to get well paid, and his consent, according to the tenor of this note, is already given.”

  Lady Oswald pushed her grey hair nervously from her brow. “Dr. Davenal, I don’t believe that the law has power so to annoy innocent people and drive them from their homes. Do you know how long I have lived in that house?”

  “A great many years now. Ever since the death of Sir John.”

  “I have lived in it fourteen years, and I will not be driven forth at their pleasure. I expected to die in it, and I will die in it. If they attempt to touch my grounds, I shall have them warned off as trespassers, and I will keep a couple of policemen on the watch day and night.”

  Dr. Davenal did not then dispute the policy of the avowed plan with her, or point out its futility. In her present mood he knew it would be useless, even if he had the time, to attempt it “Because I am a widow woman they think that they can put upon me with impunity,” she resumed; “but they will find their mistake. I have telegraphed for Mr. Oswald Cray, and expect him down by night-time.”

  “You have telegraphed for him?” cried Dr. Davenal. “Of course I have. Who else is there to take my part, doctor, save him or you? That letter was delivered just after you left me this morning, and I sent to the telegraph at once. Oswald can fight them; and he has influence: they will be clever to overreach him?

  Dr. Davenal opened his mouth to speak, but suppressed the impulsive words upon his tongue. To what end recall to Lady Oswald’s attention the fact that Mr. Oswald Cray, as one of the engineers to the line, must necessarily be against her, if she had not the sense to remember it? He said a few words to the effect that he must go to his patients, gave Lady Oswald a half promise to see her that night, and left her to be entertained by his daughter.

  “My dear, why need Miss Carine have rim away from me the moment I came in?”

  Sara smiled. “Not from you, Lady Oswald; I think she wanted to run from us all. And perhaps she thought your visit was only to papa.”

  “How is Miss Davenal?”

  “Quite well Will you see her? She is in the drawingroom.”

  Lady Oswald hesitated.

  “My dear, of course I should be glad to see her; I wish to pay her every respect; but — you know it
is so great a trial to me — with my little weak voice. However, I will go up, as I am here. Is her deafness better?”

  “Not at all,” was Sara’s answer. “I don’t suppose it ever will be better. It gets worse, we think, as she grows old.”

  “Grows what?” cried Lady Oswald.

  Sara had quick perceptions, and she felt that the word old, as applied to her aunt, had offended Lady Oswald’s ear. How changed do our ideas of age become as our own years change! To Sara Davenal, with her twenty years, her aunt, verging on fifty, was old; to Lady Oswald, who would count seventy-one her next birthday, Miss Davenal seemed but as a youngish woman!

  Lady Oswald stepped slowly up the wide staircase, one foot at a time. Sara followed her, and threw open the door of the handsome drawing-room. A large square room, beautiful as a show place; and to keep it beautiful was the hobby of Miss Bettina Davenal.

  CHAPTER III.

  MISS BETTINA DAVENAL.

  Miss DAVENAL sat in her usual seat near the window, her straight figure bolt upright, her knitting needles plying fast their work, the small inlaid table at her right hand holding the open pearl basket of wool. How many stockings, socks, sleeves, and chest-protectors, were knitted by Miss Davenal in the course of the year, the poor alone could tell — for they were the recipients. Hallingham surmised that she must spend half her income upon wool. There’s no doubt she was a charitable well-meaning woman at heart, but she did not always show it in her manner.

  A beautiful woman in her day must have been Bettina Davenal, with her pure complexion and her classical features. But the grey eyes had a cold hard look in them now; and the nose, across the high bridge of which the delicate skin was drawn so tightly, was almost painfully thin. The name Bettina had been bestowed on her at the request of a godmother, a lady of Italian origin; not an ugly name, but somewhat long for the everyday use of English tongues, and those familiar with her occasionally shortened it into “Miss Bett,” a liberty that was resented by Miss Davenal. She laboured under that troublesome defect, intense deafness, and also under the no less troublesome conviction (not unfrequently accompanying it) that she was not deaf at all. Her hair of a pale flaxen, soft and abundant still, was worn in smooth braids, and was surmounted by a rich lace head-dress, very high.