Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “Is this the room? Is he here?”

  To be interrupted by those words in a female voice close to her elbow brought Mrs. Benn to her legs at once. A lady in a gay white bonnet and violet-tipped feathers, with other attire on the same grand corresponding scale, stood confronting her. Mrs. Benn could only stare in the first moment from consternation. And the lady stared too, first at the room, then at Mrs. Benn, waiting for her question to be answered.

  “Is who here?” cried Mrs. Benn.

  “Mr. Oswald Cray. We were ushered up here by a young man whom we saw in the passage. He said this was Mr. Oswald Cray’s room, and he would send him to us. Is he well?”

  Mrs. Benn naturally looked round for some one to whom the “we” could apply, and saw a young lady at the door. A sweet-looking young lady whose manner was timid and hesitating, as if she did not like to advance further into the room. You need not be told that it was Sara Davenal. She had wished to remain in the fly while Mrs. Cray came up; but Mrs. Cray had insisted on being accompanied by her in-doors, and Sara was obliged to yield, for she was unable to give any good reason against it. How could she hint at the relations which had once existed between her and Mr. Oswald Cray? — at the love that lingered still?

  “He’s as well as a body can be; leastways if his luncheon’s anything to go by, which he have just eat,” replied Mrs. Benn in answer to the question of the lady, whom she had not taken a fancy to, as she was permitting her tone to show. “Did you want him?”

  “I have come to see him,” was the answer. “He is my stepson, and we have not met for a good while.”

  Mrs. Benn’s manner turned to a sudden thaw. In her crusty way she was fond of her master, Mr. Oswald Cray; and she thought she might as well be civil to the lady before her as his step-mother.

  “Take a seat, ladies,” she said, dusting two chairs with her white apron, and disposing herself to be cordial and confidential. Fate seemed to be against Mrs. Benn’s cleaning that day, and we most of us resign ourselves to what can’t be helped. This appearance of Mr. Oswald Cray’s step-mother Mrs. Benn regarded as an era in that gentleman’s life, for she could not remember that during his whole residence there any living relative had come to inquire after him, with the exception of his brother.

  “His step-mother,” cried she approvingly, as she stood behind a chair and rested her arms on the back of it, one hand grasping the brush. “And might your name be the same as his, ma’am — Mrs. Oswald Cray?”

  “I am Mrs. Cray,” replied the lady, with emphasis on the one word, and an impulse to resent the familiarity. But she felt inclined to encourage the woman in her sociability, feeling a curiosity as to the every-day movements and doings of Mr. Oswald Cray.

  Sara sat a little apart, near the centre table. Her cheek rested on her fingers, and her eyes were mechanically fixed on a small chart or plan, which lay at the end of the table opposite to where the luncheon-tray had been. Quite mechanically her thoughts were buried in the unhappy occurrence of that morning: the advent of the stranger at her house and the startling communication of Neal.

  The gossip of Mrs. Cray and the woman fell on her ear like the humming of gnats in summer; heard, but not heeded. Oswald did not appear; and Mrs. Cray, always restless, as Sara had that morning found out, started from her seat and said she should go to the rooms below in search of him.

  Mrs. Benn had this peculiarity — and yet, I don’t know that it can be called a peculiarity, since so far as my experience teaches me, it is characteristic of women in general — that however pressing might be her occupations, if once called off them and launched into the full tide of gossip, the urgent duties would give way, and the gossip be willingly pursued until night should fall and stop it. Mrs. Benn, deprived of her chief listener, the elder lady, turned her attention on the younger.

  “Would you believe it, miss,” she said, dropping her voice to a confidential tone, “his mother’s coming here this afternoon bears out some words I said to my husband only a day or two ago, just as one’s dreams gets bore out sometimes. I says to Benn, ‘Mr. Oswald Cray’s relations’ll be up, now there’s going to be the change.’”

  “What change?” asked Sara.

  “His marriage, miss.”

  Ah, she was all too awake to the present now. Her lips parted; her brow turned cold. “His marriage?”

  “It can’t be nothing else but his marriage,” repeated Mrs. Benn.

  “Benn was waiting on him at dinner, and he told him there was perhaps going to be a change, that he wouldn’t have him to wait on long, for he might be leaving. Joe Benn he comes down and repeats to me, all wondering, like the gaby he is, what his master meant by it Why, his wedding of course, says I; it don’t take a conjuror to tell that. Well, she’s a nice young lady.”

  Sara had her hand raised to her face, apparently pushing back her braided hair. “Who is she?” came breathing from her lips; and she could hardly have helped asking it had it been to save her life.

  “Well, it’s Miss Allister, if it’s anybody,” returned Mrs. Benn, in apparent contradiction of what she had just asserted. “They are as thick as two peas, and I know he goes there a’most every evening.”

  Sara had heard enough. In her confusion of mind she had scarcely noted a change taking place in the room. With the last words Mrs. Benn and her brush glided away, and Oswald Cray had come in. Some one had told him that a lady was waiting for him in his room, but he was busy at his desk at the moment and waited to finish what he was about. Nothing could well exceed his surprise when he saw seated there Miss Sara Davenal.

  Sara rose. She saw by his manner that he was ignorant of his step-mother’s visit, and she felt a little embarrassed as she explained. “She had only come with Mrs. Cray; Mrs. Cray had just gone down in search of him.”

  Oswald supposed she alluded to his brother’s wife, and made no answering comment. As he stood with Sara’s hand in his in greeting, he noted how pale she was; for the startling communication of Mrs. Benn had scared the blood from her face. It was somewhat singular that this was the first time they had been alone together since that memorable day of meeting in the Temple gardens: they had met once or twice casually at Mark’s in a full room, but not otherwise.

  “Have you been well?” he asked. “You are not looking very strong.”

  “Oh, quite well, thank you.”

  Oswald hastened to ask a question that had long been on his mind. One that had troubled him perhaps more than he cared to acknowledge to himself: but he had not felt justified in seeking a special occasion to put it.

  “Now that I have the opportunity, will you forgive me if I ask whether that unpleasant matter is settled that caused your visits to Essex Street? I still think you would have done wisely to confide it to me.”

  “It is quite settled,” answered Sara, her tone full of satisfaction.

  “Settled and done with.” Ah, poor thing, she forgot momentarily, as she spoke, the fresh grievance opened that morning, which was perhaps connected with it.

  “I am glad of it,” he heartily said. “I should not like to have gone away for an indefinite period knowing that you were in any dilemma, and no one perhaps to see you out of it. Friendship may still exist between us tacitly, if not yet actively,” he continued in a low earnest tone. “Nothing else is left to us.”

  She thought he alluded to his marriage. She stood something like a statue, feeling cruelly wronged, but loving him beyond everything in life. Not wronged by him: it was fate that wronged her: he would have loved her still, had he dared, and she felt that he honoured her in all tenderness. She felt — and the hot crimson came dyeing her face at the thought — that he loved her better than that other one.

  The rebellious tears welled up to her eyes, and she turned her face away. “Are you going to be absent long?” she asked, trying to speak indifferently.

  “I think so. How long I cannot tell yet. I am going to Spain.”

  There was a pause of silence. Sara, with an air of unconcern,
began putting straight the crape folds on her dress skirt. Oswald turned to the door.

  “Where can Caroline be?” he exclaimed. “Did you say she had gone down in search of me?”

  “Not Caroline. It is not Caroline. It is Mrs. Cray, Mark’s mother. I came out with her to show her the way to different places, but I did not know she was going to bring me here.”

  “Mark’s mother!” But ere Oswald could say more, Mrs. Cray appeared. She had found her way into Mr. Street’s room down-stairs, thinking it might be Oswald’s, and had remained making acquaintance with that gentleman. Oswald Cray the rising engineer, and Oswald Cray the interloping little son in her husband’s house, were essentially two people in the worldly mind of Mrs. Cray.

  CHAPTER XLVI.

  AN UNWELCOME VISITOR.

  MARK CRAY and his wife were attiring themselves by gas-light for some scene of evening gaiety. The past fortnight — for that period had elapsed since the arrival of Mrs. Cray in London — had brought nothing else but gaiety. Shopping in the morning, drives in the afternoon, whitebait dinners at Blackwall or Greenwich, dinners at Richmond, theatres in the evening, receptions at home, parties out; noise, bustle, whirl, and cost, Caroline loved the life; were it taken from her, she said randomly to Mrs. Cray one day, she could not survive, she should die of ennui; and the Miss Crays had never been so happy in their lives, or their mother either.

  Their visit had come to an end now, and they had left for home that morning. Unwillingly; it is true, but Mrs. Cray had deemed it wise not to wear out their welcome. They were a large party; and she privately contemplated a longer visit in the spring, during the glories of the London season. Mark had treated them right regally, and had contrived to screw out from some impossible pocket a twenty-pound note, which he put into his mother’s hands for the journey. “ I shall be able to allow you and the girls something worth having next year, when the ore’s in the market regularly,” he said to her. Altogether, Mrs. Cray was well satisfied with her impromptu visit.

  “I say, Carine,” cried Mark, coming forth from his dressing room, “what’s gone with my diamond studs?”

  “Where’s the use of asking me?” was Carine’s answer, who was turning herself slowly round before the large glass, to contemplate the effect of a new dress which her maid had just finished fixing upon her. “You must make haste, Mark, or we shall be late. The dinner’s at seven, mind; and I know it does not want above a quarter.”

  “We shall get there in five minutes,” carelessly answered Mark. “I can’t find my diamond studs.”

  “I think they are in your dressing-case, sir,” spoke up the maid. “I saw them there a day or two ago.”

  Mark went back, and found he had overlooked them. He finished dressing himself, all but the coat, and come into his wife’s room again.

  “Carry, isn’t it old what’s-his-name’s affair to-night in Kensington Gardens? We promised to go, didn’t we?”

  “Of course we did, Mark. I intend to go, too. He says it will be a charming party in spite of the world being out of town. We shall get away from the dinner by ten o’clock, I daresay. Shall I do!” She was turning herself round before the glass, as before. Between two glasses, in fact, one in front, one behind. Her dress was some beautiful fabric, white and mauve; and her violet eyes and her glowing cheeks spoke all too plainly of her besetting vanity. Certainly, if vanity is ever pardonable, it was in Caroline Cray as she stood there, so radiant in her youth and beauty.

  “Oh, you’ll do,” returned Mark, with scant gallantry; but his white necktie had been refractory, and he was resettling it again. At that moment he beard a knock at his dressing-room door.

  “Who’s there? Come in,” he called out, stepping into his own room.

  One of the men-servants entered and presented a card to him. Mark, whose hands were busy with his necktie, bent his head to read it as it lay on the silver waiter. “Mr. Brackenbury.”

  “Mr. Brackenbury!” repeated Mark to himself. “Who on earth’s Mr. Brackenbury? I can’t see anybody now,” he said to the servant. “Tell him so. I am just going out.”

  “I told the gentleman you were on the point of going out with my mistress, sir, that the carriage was waiting at the door; but he insisted on coming in, and said you would be sure to see him.”

  “Who is it?” cried Caroline, stepping forward.

  “Some Mr. Brackenbury. Don’t know him from Adam. Go down, George, and say that I can not see him, or any one else, this evening.”

  “The idea of strangers intruding at this hour!” exclaimed Caroline. “Mark, I daresay it’s somebody come to worry you to get them shares in the mine.”

  Mark made no reply. He was in enough “worry” just then over his necktie. “Bother the thing!” he cried, and pulled it off entirely with a jerk.

  The servant came back again. He bore another card, a few lines added to it in pencil.

  “I must and will see you. Denial is useless.”

  Mark Cray read the words twice over and decided to go down. They almost seemed to imply a threat, and he did not understand threats. Mr. Brackenbury had arrived in a Hansom cab, the horse reeking with the speed it had made; but Mark did not know that yet “I won’t be a minute, Caroline. The fellow insists on seeing me. I’ll just see what he wants.”

  Tying on a black necktie temporarily — the one he had taken off earlier — and putting on his morning coat as he descended the stairs, Mark entered the room where the visitor was waiting. And then Mark recognised Mr. Brackenbury as a gentleman who had recently purchased a few shares in the mine. Amidst the many, many shareholders, it was not surprising that Mark had forgotten the name of one of them. In point of fact these few shares had been Mark’s own. Being excessively pressed for ready money he had ordered his broker to sell them out.

  “Oh, Mr. Brackenbury!” said Mark, shaking hands with him in a cordial manner. “Do you know, your name had completely escaped my memory. I have not a moment to spare for you tonight I am going out with my wife to dinner.”

  “Mr. Cray,” said the visitor, a middle-aged, solemn-looking man, “you must return me my two hundred pounds. I have come for it.”

  “Return you your two hundred pounds!” echoed Mark. “My good sir, I don’t understand you. What two hundred pounds?”

  “The two hundred pounds I paid for those shares. They were transferred from your name to mine; therefore I know they were your own.”

  “They were my own,” said Mark. “What of that?”

  “Well, I must have the money returned to me, and you can receive back the shares. I have brought them in my pocket I am of a determined spirit, sir, and I will have it returned.”

  Mark flew into a rage. He was a great man now, and great men do not take such words with impunity. “You can have your money back to-morrow,” he said, with haughty contempt “Take the shares to my broker — if you don’t possess one of your own — and he will repurchase them of you.”

  “Ah,” said Mr. Brackenbury. “But I want the money from you to-night I want it now.”

  — “Then you can’t have it,” returned Mark.

  Mr. Brackenbury advanced — both of them were standing — and laid his finger on Mark’s arm. “Mr. Cray, I have not come to you as an enemy; I don’t wish to be one, and there’s no occasion for unpleasantness between us. I want my money back, and I must have it — I must have it, understand, and to-night After that, I will hold my tongue as long as it will serve you.”

  Was the man talking Greek? was he out of his mind? What did it mean? Mark’s indignation began to lose itself in puzzled curiosity.

  “I have had a private telegram to-night from the mine,” resumed Mr. Brackenbury, dropping his voice to a cautious whisper. “Something is amiss with it I jumped into a Hansom—”

  “Something amiss with it!” interrupted Mark, cutting short the explanation, and his tone insensibly changing to one of dread; for that past summer’s night which had brought the telegram to Mr. Barker recurred vividly to
his mind. “Is it water?” he breathed.

  Mr. Brackenbury nodded. “An irruption of water. I fear — you’ll see, of course — but I fear the mine and its prosperity are at an end. Now, Mr. Cray, you repay me my money and I’ll hold my tongue. If this does not get about — and it shall not through me — you’ll have time to negotiate some of your shares in the market tomorrow morning, and put something in your pocket before the disaster gets wind. I only want to secure myself. Trifling as the sum of two hundred pounds may seem to you, its loss to me would be utter ruin.”

  Mark felt bewildered. “And if I do not give you the two hundred pounds to-night, what then?”

  “Then I go out with the dawn of morning and publish the failure of the mine to the City. I’ll publish it to-night But you’ll not drive me to that, Mr. Cray. I don’t want to harm you; I have said it; but my money I must have. It would not be pleasant for me to proclaim that there has already been one irruption of water into the mine, which you and Barker kept secret. I happen to know so much; and that the shares were sold to me after it, as I daresay shares have been sold to others. Perhaps the public might look on that as a sort of fraud. I do; for I consider a mine never is safe, once the water has been in it.”

  Mark paused. “It is strange that news of this should have come to you to-night and not to me.”

  “Not at all,” said Mr. Brackenbury. “I am having the mine watched. It is only lately that I heard about that first irruption of water: I did not like it; and as I happen to have a friend down there I got him to be on the look-out.”

  “Is it any one connected with the mine?” asked Mark, sharply.

  “Yes, it is; no one else could do it But that’s of no consequence. I had a telegram from him to-night—”

  “Will you let me see it?” interrupted Mark.

  “I did not bring it with me. It told me that the water was flowing into the mine; flowing, mind; and it added these words, ‘Not known here yet.’ I infer, therefore, that the men had left the mine for the night, that the mischief will not be generally known there until the morning, and consequently cannot be known here. You will have time to save something.”