by Ellen Wood
“No!” he said, really wondering at the omission.
“I would not go to see him; I was too angry; I contented myself with writing to him, and telling him what I thought; and then, you know, until this blessed morning, when Jones came into the house with the news that the men were measuring the land, I never thought the thing would be really done. I will go to him now, Oswald Cray, and all you can say against it will not avail with me. If you had any courtesy you would accompany me, and add your voice to mine against this unjustifiable wrong.”
Courtesy was an adjunct in which Oswald Cray was not naturally deficient; in time, that day, he was. The business which brought him down was pressing, must have his full attention, and be finished so as to enable him to return to town that night. He had snatched these few minutes, while the clerks at the company’s offices were at dinner, just to see Lady Oswald.
“It would give me great pleasure to escort you anywhere, Lady Oswald, but to-day I really cannot absent myself from Hallingham. I have my hands full. Besides,” he added, a frank smile on his face, “have you forgotten how impossible it would be for me to go against the agreement made by the company with Mr. Low, by soliciting that gentleman to attempt to retract it?”
“I see,” said Lady Oswald, beating her foot pettishly on the carpet; “better that I had called anybody to my aid than you. Are you cherishing resentment against me, Oswald Cray?”
Oswald Cray opened his dark blue eyes in surprise.
“Resentment? — against you, Lady Oswald Ï Indeed I do not understand you.”
“I thought you might be remembering what I said at Dr. Davenal’s the evening of your brother’s wedding. I mean about the money; which I said I could not leave you,” she continued in a low tone. “You took me up so sharply.”
“I fear I did. I was Vexed that you could so misapprehend my nature. We need not recur to the subject, Lady Oswald. Let it pass.”
“I must say a word first, Oswald. I believe, with all your fiery pride, and your aptitude to take offence, that your nature is honest and true; that you would save me from annoyance if you could.”
“I would indeed,” he interrupted earnestly. “Even from this threatened annoyance I would doubly save you, if it were at all within my power.”
“Well, I want to say just this. I have always liked you very well; you have been, in fact, a favourite of mine; and many a time it has occurred to me to wish that I could put you down in my will” ——
“Lady Oswald, I pray you” —— —
“Now do be quiet, and hear me. I consider it a duty to myself to tell you this, and I always intended to tell you before my death. I fully believe what you say; that you do not wish for my money, that you would prefer to make your own way; I say I fully believe that, Oswald. There are some men — honourable to fastidiousness, I call them — who are utterly incapable of casting a thought or a wish to the money of others: you are one, as I believe; and there’s the additional bar in your case with regard to my money, that it comes from the Oswalds. I don’t think you would accept money in whatever form it came to you, from the Oswald family.”
“I don’t think I would,” replied Oswald. And he spoke the truth of his heart.
“Still, I judge it right to give you this little word of explanation,” she proceeded. “I daresay, whenever my will comes to be read, that you will feel surprised at its contents; may even deem that you had more legal claim upon me than he who will chiefly inherit I do not think so. I have left my money to please myself: he to whom it is left has the best claim upon me in my judgment. I am happy to know that he will be rewarded: and he knows it.”
Oswald felt a little puzzled: the words “and he knows it” somewhat excited his curiosity. With her own family, who alone (in Oswald Cray’s opinion) could be said to have claims on Lady Oswald, she held but little communication: and a conviction stole over him that she did not allude to them. He was destined (as it proved) never to forget those words; and the construction he put upon them was, that the future inheritor of the money knew he was named as the inheritor. He said nothing. It was not a subject he cared to pursue; he had neither right nor inclination to inquire as to the disposal of what Lady Oswald might leave behind her. Had he dreamt of the ill those words would work, he might have asked further particulars.
“I thought I’d say this to you some time, Oswald. Had you been less fiercely proud, and I more at liberty to dispose of what I have to leave, I should regret not remembering you. As it is, perhaps all’s for the best.”
That again struck upon him as strange: “I more at liberty to dispose of what I have to leave.” Was she not at full and entire liberty? — if so, why was she not? The question set Oswald thinking.
But circumstances seemed inclined to prove themselves stronger than Lady Oswald’s will, in regard to this visit to her landlord. Her coachman made his appearance with hindering news; one of the carriage horses had fallen lame.
“Accept it as an omen that the visit would have brought forth no good luck,” said Oswald Cray, with a smile, while Jones stood, deprecating his lady’s anger.
A doubt flashed across her mind for a moment whether the excuse was real, and the amazed Jones had to repeat it, and to assure his mistress that he was going “right off” for the veterinary surgeon then.
“It will not avail,” said Lady Oswald. “I shall go by train. Perhaps you can tell me, Oswald Cray, at what hours the trains leave for Hildon?”
Oswald Cray said not another word of objection. To make use of the railroad, to which her dislike had been so insuperable, proved that she was indeed bent upon it He bade her good-day and left, and encountered Dr. Davenal’s carriage in the avenue. The doctor was arriving on his usual daily visit.—’
She was somewhat of a capricious woman, Lady Oswald. A few months before, in the summer-time, Dr. Davenal had been hoping, it may almost be said secretly plotting — but the plotting was very innocent — to get Lady Oswald to favour Mark Cray sufficiently to allow of his paying these daily visits. Since then Lady Oswald had, of her own accord, become excessively attached to Mark. That is, attached in one sense of the word. It was not the genuine esteem founded on long intimacy, the love, it may be almost said, that draws one friend to another; it was that artificial liking which suddenly arises, and has its result in praising and patronising; artificial because so shallow. In the new feeling, Lady Oswald had not only sanctioned Mark’s visits to her in the place of Dr. Davenal, but she had recommended him to everybody she knew as the cleverest young surgeon in Hallingham or out of it. It had been Mark’s luck speedily to cure some fancied or real ailment of Lady Oswald’s in a notably short space of time, and Lady Oswald, who set it down to skill, really had taken up the notion that he had not his equal We all know how highly-coloured for the time are these sudden estimations of a popular doctor’s skill None rejoiced more than Dr. Davenal, and he resigned Lady Oswald to Mark with inward satisfaction, and the best grace in the world. But during Mark’s absence on his wedding-tour the doctor had taken again the daily visits.
Roger pulled up in the gravel drive when he saw Mr. Oswald Cray; but Oswald, who had out-stayed his time, could only shake hands with the doctor and hasten onwards. Parkins met Dr. Davenal surreptitiously as he entered: she had seen his approach, and she stole forwards on tiptoe to meet him, her tears dropping. When Lady Oswald was in her fretful moods, Parkins generally found refuge in tears.
“What’s the matter now?” asked the doctor.
“The men have begun to measure the ground, and that stupid Jones came running open-mouthed to the house with the news, and my lady heard him,” explained Parkins. “I’d not have told her: if people held their tongues, the sheds might be built, and up, and she never know it. I thought she’d have gone out of her mind, sir; and then Mr. Oswald Cray came in, and he talked to her. I think she’s calmer now; I heard her talking quietly to Mr. Oswald Cray before he left. But she says she’ll go off by rail to Mr. Low’s.”
“Is she
in the drawing-room?”
“Yes, sir. So well, to be sure, as she was this morning!” continued Parkins, drying her tears. “I don’t know when she has been in such spirits, and all because Mr. Cray was coming home to-night with his wife. The fancy she has taken for him is extraordinary: she has been counting the days off since he was away, like a schoolgirl counts them off before her holidays.”
Dr. Davenal entered. He did not attempt to reason Lady Oswald out of the visit to Mr. Low. Quite the contrary. He told her the short trip by rail would do her good: and he thought, which he did not tell her, that the interview with Mr. Low might set the affair at rest sooner than anything else would, by convincing her that there could be no appeal against the fiat, no delay in the carrying out of the work.
When Lady Oswald reached the station, it happened that Oswald Cray was there. He was emerging from one of the private rooms with some plans under his arm when he saw her. She looked scared at the bustle of the station, and was leaning helplessly on her maid’s arm, uncertain where to go, what to do. Oswald hastened to her and took her on his arm. Parkins slipped behind, quite thankful to see him: she was as little used to the ways and confusion of a station as her mistress.
“Will you venture still, Lady Oswald, with all this turmoil?”
“Will you cease worrying me?” she answered, and the tone was a sharp one, for she fancied he still wished to stop her, and resented the intermeddling with her will.
Did he wish to stop her? If any such feeling was upon him, it must surely have been instinct: a prevision of what the ill-fated journey would bring forth; of the influence it would indirectly bear on his own future life.
He said no more. He led Lady Oswald at once to a first-class ‘carriage, placed her and Parkins in it, procured their return tickets, and then leaned over the carriage-door and talked to Lady Oswald, ill as he could spare the time. No man had kinder feelings at heart than Oswald Cray, and it seemed to him scarcely courteous to leave her — for she was in a tremor still — until the train, should start He talked to her in a gay laughing tone of indifferent subjects, and she grew more at ease. “Only think!” she suddenly exclaimed, “I may return with Mr. Cray and his wife! Dr. Davenal told me to-day they were expected early in the evening; and this is the way: they must come. I shall be so glad when he is home!”
Oswald shook his head at her with mock seriousness. “I’d not acknowledge my faithlessness so openly, were I you, Lady Oswald. To turn off Dr. Davenal for Mark, after so many years adhesion to him!”
“You know nothing about it, Oswald. I have not turned off Dr. Davenal. But you may depend upon one thing — that Mark is a rising man. He will make a greater name than you in the world.”
“Very likely. I hope he will make a name. For myself” —
The whistle Bounded, and Oswald drew away from the door. Lady Oswald put out her hand, and he shook it warmly. “Shall I see you on my return?”
“Possibly, just a glimpse,” he answered. I’ll look out for you when the train comes in. Good-bye.”
“But you’ll wish me luck, Oswald — although you may be bound in honour to the interests of the enemy and those wretched sheds.”
“I wish it you heartily and sincerely; in all ways, Lady Oswald.”
His tone was hearty as his words, his clasp sincere. Lady Oswald withdrew her hand, and left him a pleasant, cordial smile as the train puffed on.
“One can’t help liking him, Parkins, with all his obstinate contrariness,” she cried. “ I wish he had been the surgeon! Only think what a name he would have made, had he possessed his brother’s talent!”
‘So he would, my lady,” dutifully acquiesced Parkins.
“What a good tiring we are alone! Most likely he contrived it. I declare I don’t dislike this,” continued Lady Oswald, ranging her eyes round the well-stuffed compartment. “It is almost as private as my own carriage.”
“So it is, my lady,” answered Parkins. And the train went smoothly on, and in twenty minutes’ time Lady Oswald was deposited safely at the Hildon station.
CHAPTER XII.
WAITING FOR NEWS.
MARK CRAY and his wife had not indicated the precise hour of their return: “early in the evening, but not to dinner; have tea ready,” bad been Mrs. Cray’s words to her servants in the letter received by them on Friday morning. Sara Davenal went to the Abbey about five o’clock to wait for them.
Mark and Caroline were beginning as prudently as their best friends could desire; two maid-servants only, engaged under the careful eye of Miss Bettina, comprised their household. The large heavy door of the Abbey opened to a large stone hall; on the left of this was a large sitting-room, with cross-beams in its ceiling and deep-mullioned windows, looking on to the branching lines of rails and the station in the distance; not so pleasant a view as had been the gay Abbey gardens. Indeed, with the doing away of those gardens, the pleasantest part of the Abbey as a residence, had gone. It was a rambling sort of place inside, with very little comfort This room and the drawing-room above were the only good-sized rooms in the house; four modem rooms might have been put into that drawing-room, and what its carpeting had cost was something to be talked of. The bed-chambers were pigeon-holes, the domestic offices dark closets paved with stone; in short the Abbey was a grander place in sound than it was pleasant for use. The Crays, who had lived in it so long, were party-giving people, thinking more of show than comfort; the pigeon-holes were good enough for them; the dark stone kitchens might be made the best of by the servants; the great drawing-room, larger than anybody else’s in Hallingham, gladdened their hearts. It was certainly an imposing room when filled with company and lights.
Sara Davenal waited and waited in the downstairs room. She had taken off her things, and made herself at home. Her dress was of dark-blue silk, the bands of her brown hair were smooth and silken, and excitement had brought a colour to her cheeks. She had never before been parted from Caroline since the latter arrived, years ago, from the West Indies. The tea was on the table in readiness, with a cold fowl and tongue, thoughtfully ordered to be provided by Miss Davenal.
Five o’clock; half-past five; six o’clock; half-past six; seven o’clock; and still they had not come. Sara grew impatient — it is of no use to deny it — and blamed them for want of punctuality. They had not bargained for her feverish longing.
She stood at the window, looking still, as she had done since five o’clock. It had grown into night since she stood there; would have grown to dark, but for the brilliant moon that lighted the heavens. A servant came in.
“Shall I bring lights, miss?”
“Not yet I want to watch for the train.”
The maid retired. Sara waited on — waited and waited, until she felt sure that it must be half-past seven; but then she was counting time by her own impatience, not by the clock. Her eyes began to grow weary with the intense and incessant gaze at the station, and she could see a good many people standing at its entrance in the moonlight — stragglers, no doubt, waiting for the train. wondering, like herself, that it was not in, and what had become of it.
As she thus stood, there was a loud ring at the door-bell. Sara flew into the hall in glee, thinking how stupid she must have been not to observe them crossing the bridge round by the lines; flew into the hall, and was met by her aunt Miss Davenal! when she had expected the bridegroom and bride! but Sara had to make the best of it, and she did so in her pleasing, graceful manner, drawing her aunt in by the hand to the dark room.
“They have not come yet, Aunt Bettina.”
“Whatever’s the meaning of this?” was the surprised question of Miss Davenal. “All in the dark? and where are they?”
“They have not come yet,” repeated Sara. “Bring the lights,” she added in a low voice to the servant.
“Not come! Where are they stopping?”
“The train is not in, Aunt Bettina.”
“The what’s not in?”
“The train.”
“
Why, what has come to it?”
Miss Bettina, all amazed, and scarcely believing the information, went hastily to the window, and looked towards the station. At that moment the other servant, Dorcas, came into the room. She was not a stranger to the family, having once lived with Miss Davenal, before that lady took up her abode with her brother. Dorcas was getting on to be middle-aged, — a sensible-looking woman, with a turned-up nose and reddish hair.
“Miss Sara,” she whispered, “they are saying there’s been an accident to the train.”
Sara Davenal’s heart seemed to stand still and then bound on again as if it would break its bounds.
“Who says it?” she gasped.
“I saw the folks standing about, and talking one to the other; so I opened my kitchen winder, and asked what was amiss, and they said the seven o’clock train was not in, that it had met with an accident. Miss Sara” —
But Miss Sara had turned from her. Silently snatching her shawl and bonnet from the sofa where she had laid them, she quitted the room, the unconscious Miss Davenal standing yet at the window. Dorcas followed her, and, by the lights that were now being carried in, she saw how white she looked.
“Miss Sara, I was about to say that it may not be true,” continued Dorcas, as Sara hastily flung on her things. “ I don’t think it is: there’d be more uproar at the station if any news of that sort had been brought in.”
“I am going over to see; I cannot remain in this suspense. Not go by myself?” she repeated, in reply to the woman’s remonstrance; “nonsense, Dorcas! Everybody knows me: I am Dr. Davenal’s daughter. You stay with my aunt Bettina, and be sure don’t alarm her if you can help it.”
Pulling the door open with her own hand, she passed under the red light of Mr. Cray’s professional lamp, and hastened by the side-path and the bridge round to the station. Her face was pale, her pulses were beating. Sara Davenal had a quick imagination, and all the horrors of accidents by rail that she had ever heard seemed to rise up before her.
