Mrs. Henry Wood

“ But Dr. Davenal did not satisfy him: not that he had any particular motive for observing reticence on the point. "It is of no consequence. I must have been mistaken," was all he said.
"You will not forbid her to me, sir?" pleaded Mr. Cray.
A spasm of pain passed across the face of Dr. Davenal; the words had called up bitter recollections.
"So long as I live I shall never forbid a marriage to any over whom I hold control," he said, in a tone of subdued anguish; and Mark Cray knew where the sting had pointed, and wished in his good-nature he had not put the question. ”

“ For the last twelvemonth, since Oswald Cray had become intimate at their house, her love for him had been gradually growing into being: that subtle understanding, never to be explained or accounted for, which draws together two human hearts, and only those two, the one for the other, of all the whole world, life finding life, had arisen between them. Oswald Cray had never spoken or hinted at his feelings until the time when Dr. Davenal honestly avowed to him that he had fancied he cared for Caroline: that had brought forth the one word--and it was little more--to Sara. ”

“ But I have worked hard for my money, Mark, and don't care to lose it."
"Lose it!" scornfully returned Mark. "The Great Wheal Bang won't be a losing concern. Look here, Oswald! I have but one motive in pressing the matter upon you: this mine of wealth has come flowing into my hands, and I do consider it a great pity that you, my only brother, should not reap some benefit from it. Others, strangers, are making their thousands and thousands--or will make them; and it's nothing but wilful blindness for you to let it slip through your fingers. It's obstinate folly, Oswald. ”

“ Caroline, in her evening dress, has long put off the mourning for her good uncle, her more than father, dead though he has been but four months yet; but she is today a little ashamed of her haste, and she has assumed these black ribbons before these Hallingham friends and her aunt Bettina, to make believe that she still wears it. Her violet eyes are intensely bright, and her cheeks glow with their sweetest and softest carmine. Sara wears a black crape robe, a little edging of white net only on its low body and sleeves, and she wears no ornament, except the jet beads on her neck and arms. ”

“ But this very isolation from his mother's family had tended to foster his own pride--the mortification which it induced had fostered it--just as the isolation from his own home, from his father and the second family, had contributed to render him self-reliant. It is not your home darling, bred up in fond dependence, sheltered from the world's storms as a hothouse flower, who becomes the self-reliant man, but he who is sent out early to rough it, who has nobody to care for him, or to love him, in all the wide earth.
Not a more self-reliant man lived than Oswald Cray. ”

“ Caroline was on the sofa as before. Very quiet, save for her panting breath. Her white hands lay listless, her face, dreadfully worn though it was, was calm, tranquil. She looked at them one by one, and slightly raised her hand as Oswald entered. He bent down to her, taking it in his.
"Thank you for all," she whispered.
The change in her countenance struck them. It so far frightened Mark as to take from him his self-possession. He pushed Oswald away.
"O Carine, what is it? You cannot be going to die! You must not die, now that all this good luck is coming upon me!" ”

“ Sara gathered in the words of the letter in silence, with strained eyes and a beating heart.
"I'd have every blackberry-tree in the land rooted up, if I had my will," proceeded Miss Bettina. "Boys are as venturesome as monkeys when their mouths are in question. They don't care for their clothes or how they get torn; they don't care for their shirtfronts or how they get stained; they fight, and quarrel, and climb, and scratch their hands and faces with the thorns, and all for greediness--that they may fill themselves with those rubbishing berries. ”

“ It was the most mysterious, extraordinary proceeding she ever heard of. "Did you see or hear anything of a strange man coming in in the night?" she asked of Neal.
"No, ma'am," replied Neal, with his usual impassability. "I see my master's bed has not been slept in; and he has taken an overcoat with him."
Sara lifted her burning face. It was as one stricken with fever.
"Let it rest; let it rest, Aunt Bettina! Wait until papa is home, and ask particulars of him. If patients require him at a distance, it is his duty to go to them." ”

“ One of Mark's servants had entered with a telegraphic dispatch. It was addressed to Mr. Barker.
"Your man has brought it round from Piccadilly, sir. He thought it might be of moment."
"Let's see. Where's it from?--Wales? Ay. Another lode discovered, I'll be bound!"
Mr. Barker carried the paper across the room, and opened it under the lights of a girandole. He stared at it more than read it; stared at the words as if unable to understand them: and a curious expression of puzzled bewilderment, half wonder, half dismay, struggled to his face. ”

“ She knew now the cause of his absenting himself; and she knew that they were lost to each other for ever. It is the worst pain that a woman can be called upon to endure; no subsequent tribulation in life can equal its keen anguish.
Ten times in the night she prayed for help--for strength to support, and live, through her mind's trouble. She did not pray that it might be taken from her; that was hopeless; she knew that weeks and months must elapse before even the first brunt would lose its force; that years must roll on before tranquillity could come.
She did not blame Oswald Cray. ”

“ 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! ”

“ The bedchambers 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. ”

“ It was neither his fault nor mine; it--it was the fault of circumstances."
"Ah!" said the doctor, "a foolish quarrel. But I had thought both of you superior to it. Should the cloud ever pass away, and he wish to make you his wife, remember that you have my full and free approbation--that my blessing would go with it. In spite of his pride and his caprice, I like Oswald Cray."
"It never will pass away," she interrupted, almost with vehemence. "It is a thing impossible. We have bidden adieu to all that for ever." ”

“ How do your studies get on, Dick?"
"Oh--middling," acknowledged Dick, a remarkably candid lad. "Uncle Richard, I'm the best cricketer in the whole school. There's not one of the fellows can come up to me."
"The best what, Richard?" said Miss Bettina, bending her ear to the lad.
"Cricketer, Aunt Bett," repeated Richard.
"Good boy! good boy!" said Miss Bettina approvingly. "Resolve to be the best scholar always, and you will be the best. You shall have a pot of fresh jam for tea, Dick."
Dick smothered his laughter. "I am not a good scholar at all, Aunt Bett. Leo is: but he's a muff at cricket." ”

“ Mark Cray stepped into his handsome hall and was received by a couple of footmen. Flinging his hat to one, his gloves to another, he bounded upstairs to his dressing-room, conscious that he was keeping the dinner and his guests waiting.
Did Mark Cray ever cast a sigh of regret to the simple life at Hallingham, when he and his wife used to sit down to mutton cutlets and a pudding, and think the fare good enough? Did she regret it at any odd moment? Not yet. Dress and dinners, with expense of other sorts, bring a fascination with them all too enthralling to the senses. ”

“ The night stands out in my memory like a frightful dream. Think what it was. When I was lingering in that front room there, full of the trouble brought to me by the death of Lady Oswald, not yet cold, there came a tapping at the window, and I looked out and saw Edward. Edward, my son!--disguised, as may almost be said, for he did not care to be recognised in Hallingham; and in truth recognition might have been dangerous. 'Let me in quietly, father,' he said, 'I am in danger.' Sara, were I to live to be an old man, could not forget the effect those words had upon me. ”

“ Of Oswald's mother; of the conduct of her family towards her; of the insensate folly--it was his son called it so--that still estranged Sir Philip from Oswald Cray. They talked freely and fully as though they had been intimate for years--far more confidentially than Oswald had ever talked to his half-brother.
"I shall be proud of your friendship, Oswald," cried the young man, warmly; "if that's not an ominous word for one of us. But I fancy you inherit the family failing far more than I. You will be one of the world's great men yet, making yourself a name that the best might envy." ”

“ But I shall be left!"
"Ah, child, but you are young; life for you is only in its morning, and though clouds have gathered overhead, they may clear away again, leaving only brightness behind them. Think what it has been for me! To wake from troubled sleep in a night of pain to the dread that ere the day closed the name of my only remaining son might be in the mouths of men--a felon! Child, no wonder that I am dying."
Sara could not speak. She lifted her arm and let it fall across him. Dr. Davenal laid his hand lovingly on the bowed head. ”

“ You have given him no grief in all your life; I and poor Dick have: plenty. It is best as it is, Sara."
She could scarcely speak for the sobs that were rising. She strove bravely to beat them down, for Sara Davenal's was an undemonstrative nature, and could not bear that its signs of emotion should be betrayed outwardly. She loved her brother greatly; even the more, as the doctor did, for the loss of Richard; and this going abroad for an indefinite period, perhaps for ever, rang in her ears as the very knell of hope. He might never return: he might go away, as Richard had, only to die. ”

“ Mark was asleep now. He was dreaming a charming dream of greatness--in which some grand scheme of Barker's had succeeded, and he and that gentleman were sailing about the atmosphere in a triumphal car of gold, looking down with complacency on the poor toiling mortals in the world below--when Dorcas came in with a whisper, and aroused him. Mr. Oswald Cray was in the dining-parlour waiting to see him, she said: and Mark, after a stare at the girl, descended, pushing back his clustering hair, which had disarranged itself in his sleep. ”

“ I pray your ladyship to understand me in the fullest sense of the words--from whom I would never accept it."
Never had he looked so like the Oswalds as he looked then. The red colour came into Sara's cheeks, and a faint sense of dread (did it come as a prophetic warning?) stole into her heart--that that pride might prove her deadliest enemy; perhaps his. Lady Oswald's mood changed, and she laughed.
"You are independent, Oswald."
"I am self-dependent," was his answer. "A fair field and no favour are all I ask. I believe I can make my way in the world far better than money could make it for me. ”

“ Oswald Cray and Sir Philip are proud enough, both of them; but they are gentlemen--you forget that, Bettina. I think Oswald Cray is about the least likely man to quarrel that I know, whether with Sir Philip or with anybody else. Your proud man washes his hands of people whom he despises; but he does not quarrel with them."
How singularly true were the words in regard to Oswald Cray! It was as though Dr. Davenal had worn in that moment the gift of prevision; "Your proud man washes his hands of people whom he despises." ”

“ Where circumstances do not justify it, a man should wait. I don't mean waiting on to an unreasonable time, until the sear and yellow leaf's advancing; nothing of that: but there's a medium in all things. I am sure you would not rush into an imprudent marriage: you'd wait your time."
A smile parted Oswald Cray's lips. "I am obliged to wait, sir."
"That is, prudence obliges you?"
"Yes; that's it."
"And I make no doubt your income is a good deal larger than the present one of Mark?"
"I believe it is."
Dr. Davenal stood in silence, twirling his watch chain. ”

“ O Carine! don't leave me just when I am able to surround you with wealth and luxury again! This will be a greater and a surer thing than the Great Wheal Bang."
"Don't, Mark! I am going to a better home."
"But I can't let you go until I have atoned for the past! I----"
"Hush, hush!" she interrupted. "O Mark! if you only knew how welcome it is to me! I am going to be at peace after all the turmoil. I am going to rest."
"Do you want to go?" pursued Mark, half-resentfully. "Don't you care to get well?" ”

“ Those poor creatures that shut themselves up with the fumes of charcoal are not so much to blame, after all."
"Caroline!"
"Well, I mean it," returned Caroline, a sullen tone beginning to mingle with her sobs. "It is all very well for you to exclaim 'Caroline!' as if I were mad; but you don't know what sorrow is. Nobody does until poverty comes."
Sara thought that there were worse sorrows to be borne in the world than poverty. And she was right; bad as poverty, to those unaccustomed to it, undoubtedly is. "What can I do for you?" ”

“ Richard Davenal raised his honest, wide-open eyes to his uncle, some surprise in their depths. "It didn't get to Keen's ears, Uncle Richard! He knew nothing of the boat-race; we had it out of bounds. As if Keen wouldn't have stopped it for us, if he had known. He thought we were off to the cricket-field."
"Well, you must be a nice lot of boys!" cried Dr. Davenal, quaintly. "Does he give a prize for honour? You'd get it, Dick, if he did."
Dick laughed. "It's the same at all schools, Uncle Richard. If we let the masters into the secret of all our fun, mighty little of it should we get." ”

“ There stood Sara Davenal. She had stayed with Mrs. Cray later than she intended, and was hastening home to dinner: in leaving the Abbey by this back entrance a few minutes of the road were saved.
They met face to face. Sara's heart stood still, and her countenance changed from white to red with emotion. And Oswald?--all the love that he had been endeavouring to suppress returned in its deepest force.
Ah, it is of no use! Try as we may, we cannot evade the laws of nature; we cannot bend them to our own will. ”

“ Mr. Barker advanced to the stairs, and leaned over the balustrades. "Williams," he called out to an attendant official below, "you can open the doors. The gentlemen may come up."
It was curious to note the difference in the two men. Barker was as cool as a cucumber; self-possessed as ever he had been in his life; ready to make the best of everything, and quite equal to the emergency. Mark Cray, on the contrary, seemed to have parted alike with his wits and his nerves. Not more completely did he lose his presence of mind in that long past evening which had been so fatal to Lady Oswald. ”

“ Davenal. "Were I to take this money, it would only lie like a weight upon it for my whole future life. I believe--and, Sara, I wish you to believe it and treasure it as an assured truth--that money appropriated by ourselves, which in point of right, of justice, belongs to others, never comes home to us with a blessing. However safely the law may give it us and the world deem our claim to it legitimate, if we deprive others of it, whose it is by every moral and--may I say it?--divine right, that money will not bless us or our children. ”

“ When you shall come to be as old as I am, Sara, you will have learnt how full of mercy are the darkest troubles, if we will but open our eyes to look for it."
Sara Davenal, in her keen distress, could not see where the mercy lay for her. To lose her father seemed to be the very consummation of all earthly misery. How many more of us have so felt when stern death was taking one we loved better than life! ”

“ Be my wife, Sara. I can then take these troubles upon me as my legal right. On my sacred word of honour, I will never cast a reproach to the past, so much as in thought. No! I will not let your hands go until you tell me by word of mouth what I know--that your heart is mine still; that we cannot be faithless one to the other. ”

“ Bettina Davenal fully understood the words and what they implied. But she was not a demonstrative woman, and the rubbing together of her white and somewhat bony hands was the sole sign of the inward aching heart.
"And I am thankful for the improvement," added the doctor. "It is not all who are permitted this freedom from pain in their dying hours."
"O Richard! is there no hope?"
"I fear not," he gravely answered. "I am accustomed to impress upon my patients the great truth that while there is life there is hope, and I should be worse than a heathen to ignore it in my own case. ”

“ Sara could not forbear a smile: Dick would have gone to the other end of the kingdom for half-a-dozen pots of assorted jam: but it changed to gravity as she turned to Watton.
"Watton, do you know I have been so great a coward as not to ask my aunt decisively whether she intends to have them up for the holidays. I very much fear she does not; and therefore I shrink from asking, lest the fear should be made a certainty."
"Poor boys!" ejaculated Watton. "Well, of course it's all very different from what it was. Ah, Miss Sara! there are too many will find cause to miss the good Dr. Davenal!" ”