Works of Ellen Wood, page 555
That the death of the Prince, brought so palpably, as may be said, before her, had taken a great hold on the mind of Mrs. Cray there was no doubt. Several times during her later weeks of illness she had alluded to it. Her principal feeling in relation to it appeared to be that of gratitude. Not gratitude for his death; there was only sorrow for that; but for the strange impression it had left upon her own mind, the vista of the Hereafter. For the good and great prince to be taken suddenly from the earthly duties so much needing him was only an earnest, had one been wanting, that he had entered upon a better and higher sphere. It seemed that he had but been removed a step; a step on the road towards heaven; and it most certainly in a measure had the effect of reconciling her to her own removal, of tranquillising her weary heart, of bringing her thoughts and feelings into that state most fitting to prepare for it. Often and often had she awoke from a deep sleep, starting suddenly up and calling out, “I thought I heard St Paul’s bell again!”
“I wish the Great Wheal Bang had been in the sea!” gloomily exclaimed Mark Cray, who was no more calculated for a scene such as this than a child, and had little more control over his tongue. “But for that mine turning out as it did your illness might never have come on.”
“Don’t regret it, Mark,” she feebly said. “God’s hand was in it all. I look back and trace it. But for the trouble brought to me then, I might never have been reconciled to go. It is so merciful! God has weaned me from the world before removing me from it.”
Mark Cray drew a little back and stood gazing at his wife, a gloomy helpless sort of expression on his countenance as his right hand nervously pushed back his hair. Oswald was at the head of the sofa, Sara near to him, and Miss Bettina was at the far end of the room, looking after some comforting medicine drops. Thus there was a clear space before the sofa, and the red light from the fire played on Caroline’s wasted features. That she was dying — dying suddenly, as may be said — there could be no doubt “If things had not turned out so crossly!” began Mark again. “I knew I should redeem the misfortunes of that Wheal Bang. I always told you I should extricate myself, Caroline.”
“We shall all be extricated from our misfortunes here,” came from her dying lips. “A few years more or less of toil, and strife, and daily care, and then redemption comes. Not the redemption that we work. O Mark, if you could see things as I now see them! When we are on the threshold of the next world our eyes are opened to the poor value of this. Its worst cares have been but petty trials, its greatest heart-ache was not worth the pang. They were but hillocks that we had to pass in our journey upwards, and God was always leading us. If we could but trust to Him! If we did but learn to resign our hands implicitly to his and be led as little children!”
Mark Cray felt somewhat awed. He began to doubt whether it were exactly the time and place to pour forth regrets after the misfortunes of the Great Wheal Bang, or enlarge on the future glories opening to him in the French capital.
“It is so much better for me to be at rest! God is taking me to the place where change and sickness cannot enter. I shall see Uncle Richard: I shall see poor Richard who went before him: I shall see papa and mamma, whom I have nearly forgotten. We all go, some sooner, some later. This world lasts but a little minute; that one is the home, the gathering-place. Mark, dear Mark! the troubles here are of so little moment; they are only trifling hindrances through which we must bear on to Eternity. Oh, trust God! They are all sent by him.”
There occurred an interruption. Mr. Welch, who had not been able to call before that day, came in, and the solemn feeling that had been stealing over those in the chamber gave place to the ordinary routine of every-day event.
“Before the morning,” the surgeon said when he left, in answer to a grave question put to him by Miss Bettina.
CHAPTER LXIII.
SIX MONTHS LATER.
THE first scenes of this story were laid in Hallingham, and it is only well that it should close there. Well or not, it cannot be helped; for the chief personages you have met in its coarse were now gathered in that town.
Caroline died in March, and this was the beginning of October; so you see several months have gone on in the year. The cold ungenial summer of 1862 had come to an end, and the Great Exhibition, characteristic of the year, was drawing to an end also. Ah! how we plan, and plot, and work, and a higher hand mars it! A higher wisdom than ours looks on, and overrules, and changes all things! The one brave, earnest spirit, who had worked with all the energy of his true heart to bring about and perfect that exhibition, was alone not spared to see its fruition. Was there a single heart, of all the multitudes that flocked to it, that was not weighed down with a latent sense of the something wanting, and of the exhibition’s failure? — of its failure in a general point of view, and of our own short-seeing helplessness? The gilt had been taken off the gingerbread.
In the Abbey at Hallingham, settled in it, as she hoped, for life, was Miss Bettina. With the death of Mrs. Cray all necessity for Miss Davenal’8 remaining in London had ceased. In point of fact, it may be said to have ceased from the time Mark Cray and his wife went into Normandie; but she had stayed on. Very much disliking London, Miss Davenal made arrangements for leaving it as soon as she could do so with convenience, and in June had come back to Hallingham. Some difficulty arose about a residence; Miss Davenal was not one who could be put anywhere. She possessed some houses of her own in the town, good ones, but they were let Oswald Cray it was who directed her attention to the Abbey. It had never been occupied since Mark’s short tenancy of it; and at last, after some few alterations had been made in it, to the increase of its in-door comfort, Miss Davenal took it on a lease and entered into possession.
So far as human foresight may anticipate in this world of changes, she had settled down for life. The great bam of a drawing-room had been made into two apartments — handsome both, and of good proportions; the one was the drawing-room still, the other was Miss Davenal’8 bed-chamber. A quiet, tranquil life she might expect to live here with her two handmaidens, Watton and Dorcas.
For Watton had settled down also after her rovings, and come back to Hallingham. Watton had not lightly or capriciously resigned her superior situation in London; but ever since the past winter, Watton had been ailing. She tried three or four doctors; she took, as she said, quarts of physic; but Watton could not get strong. There was no particular disorder, and she came at length to the conclusion that it must be London that disagreed with her; and she gave notice to quit her place. So she was installed once more upper maid to Miss Davenal, and seemed since the change to have got well all one way.
She would have more to do than she had in the old days at the doctors, for there was no Neal now. Miss Davenal declined to try another man-servant, probably from a conviction that she should never replace the services of that finished and invaluable domestic. Miss Davenal was by no means convinced of the treachery attributed to him by Captain Davenal, and at odd moments was apt to look upon the charge as emanating solely from the gallant captain’s fanciful imagination.
Neal himself was flourishing. Considering the precaution he took to keep himself right with the world, there was not much probability that he would ever be otherwise. Neal had entered on a situation with one of her Majesty’s ministers; his lordship’s own personal attendant. It was to be hoped there’d be no opportunity afforded him of getting at any of the state secrets! Ah, how many of these rogues are there, besides Neal, filling confidential posts in the world! Will it be so to the end of their career? Will it be so with Neal? I sometimes wonder.
The Abbey was gay just now, in this same month of October, for Miss Davenal was entertaining a party in it. Sara had left it a fortnight past with Oswald Cray; and Captain Davenal, who had come down to give her away, had remained since, with his wife, on a visit to Miss Davenal. He called her Aunt Bett still: but she was more cordial with him than she used to be, for she had learnt really to love the sweet young wife. She was in the habit of assuring him that Rose was a greater treasure than he deserved; and in that he did not contradict her.
Two other visitors at the abbey were Dick and Leo. Poor Leo could not recover his health; Mrs. Keen grew timid about him, and it was decided that he should go back to his native place, Barbadoes, for a short while, and see what that would do. His father and mother felt persuaded it would effect wonders, and of course they thought nobody could take care of him as they could; so Leo was on the point of sailing. Mr. Dick, tolerated in the capacity of visitor as a necessary evil for his brother’s sake, had come home to Sara’s wedding, and was allowed to remain still, to see the last of Leo. Dick found the Michaelmas holidays delightful. What with getting inside the jam-closets, and making raids on sundry neighbouring gardens where the pears and apples grew too abundantly, and teasing Captain Davenal’s son and heir — a noisy young gentleman, who promised to be another wicked Dick — and taking stealthy rides on the tops of the railway engines (lying out all tempting on the opposite side to the pears and apples) Mr. Dick found the time pass charmingly.
Captain Davenal took him out shooting now and then, by way of a treat. One day that the captain was otherwise engaged, the gun disappeared, and Dick also; and Miss Bettina went all but into a real fit, expecting nothing less than to see him brought home with his head shot off. Dick, however, reappeared with his head on, and a pheasant and a partridge in his hand, which he had shot and brought home in open triumph, defying the game-laws. Miss Bettina wondered how long it would be before Dick came to the gallows.
There was one more visitor at the Abbey. And that was Mark Cray. Mark, however, had been there but for a day or two, not for the wedding. He had come to bear off Leo Davenal: for the compagnon de voyage and protector of Leo to the West Indies was to be no other than Mark.
Mark Cray was down in feather. Dreadfully so. After his wife’s death Mark had made his way to Paris, to enter upon the brilliant career he supposed to be in readiness for him. Not quite ready, however, he found when he got there; some trifling preliminaries had to be completed yet. Mark thought nothing of the check: he was sanguine: Barker was sanguine; it was only a little delay: and Mark amused himself most agreeably, looking at the houses in the Champs Elysées, against the time came that he should require to fix upon one.
Mark’s friends in England heard nothing of him until the middle of the summer; and then Mark himself appeared among them uncommonly crest-fallen. That something was wrong, appeared evident. Mark gave little explanation, but news was gathered from other sources. It appeared that Mr. Barker’s grand project, with “finance” for its basis, had come to grief. At the very hour of its (expected) fruition, the thing had in some ingenious manner dropped through, and thereby entailed some temporary inconvenience, not to say embarrassment, on its two warm supporters, Barker and Mark. Of course it was entirely undeserved; a most cruel stroke of adverse, ill-natured fate; but nevertheless both of them had to bow to it. Mark Cray came over to England; and Barker was compelled to go into ignoble hiding, nobody but himself knew where, while he smoothed his ruffled plumes, and gathered his forces for a fresh campaign.
Reposing in quiet was all very well for Barker, who appeared to have some perpetual fund to draw upon somewhere: though, in point of fact, the man had not a penny in the world, and how he managed to get along in his tumbles down from luck, he alone could tell: but it was not well for Mark Cray. Mark had not the grand genius of Barker — or whatever you may please to call it — the talent of extracting funds from some quarter or other for daily wants. If Mark was not “in luck,” Mark stood a chance of starving. When Mark went back to London he had no home, no money, it may be said no friends; and, but for his meeting Captain Davenal one day accidentally, Mark could not, that he saw, have gone on at all. Later, some real luck did come to Mark. His late wife’s friends — who had never been made acquainted with the grand expectations of the great Paris scheme — wrote to tell Mark that through the unexpected death of one of the medical men in Barbadoes, an excellent practice might be secured by him if he chose to go out and step into it Be you very sure, Mark Cray did not hesitate. Hating the profession though he did, feeling an innate conviction within himself that he was ill-qualified for it, he yet decided to embrace it again as his calling and occupation in life. When it comes to starving with a man, there’s not much choice. So the decision was made, and Mark Cray was going out immediately to Barbadoes, and was to take charge of Leopold Davenal.
Once before you saw Miss Davenal waiting in that Abbey for the return of a bridegroom and bride from their wedding-tour. She was so waiting in like manner now. Oswald Cray and his wife had stopped at Thorndyke for a day or two on their return, as they were now about to stop at Hallingham, on their way to their new home in London.
Not as the guests of Sir Philip Oswald. Sir Philip had gone to that place where visiting is not; and Sir Henry was the master of Thorndyke. He had wanted Oswald and Sara to stay the whole of their holiday there; but they had preferred a greater change.
Miss Davenal sat in her drawing-room. The October sun was getting low, but still the expected guests had not arrived. Near to Miss Davenal, nursing a dancing baby that would not be coaxed to stillness, was a pretty, gentle woman — Mrs. Davenal. Leo stood at the window, looking out, and Mark Cray sat in a distant chair, restless, and pushing back his hair as usual. Mark did not altogether relish the expected presence of his half-brother; but there was no help for it They had not met since Mark went off to Paris in the spring, largely telling Oswald that his debt to him would be paid with interest ere the year was out.
“Is not that a carriage, Leo?”
“No, Aunt Bettina, it’s a baker’s cart going by.”
Miss Davenal caught enough of the reply to know that it was not what she asked after. “Where’s Richard?” she presently said.
“I saw him over there on an engine just now,” was Leo’s answer, pointing towards the station.
“He’ll be brought home on one some day, blown up. Rose, my dear, that baby is tiring you. Let Leo ring for the nurse.”
Mrs. Davenal laughed, and was about to say that the baby did not tire her and she would rather keep him, when Dick burst in.
“It’s coming down the road; it will he here in a minute. Look, Aunt Bett!”
He dashed across the room to the window as he spoke. Example is contagious, and they all followed him. One of the Thorndyke carriages was drawing up to the door. Excitable Dick quitted the window and flew down again.
They were soon in the room. Sara, with her sweet face at rest now, and Oswald behind her. A few moments given to greeting, and Sara had taken the baby, and Oswald was shaking hands with his brother.
“I had no idea we should find you here, Mark.”
Mark answered something which nobody could catch, and Captain Davenal came in.
“Is Henry Oswald with you?”
“No,” said Oswald. “He will be in Hallingham to-morrow. He sadly wanted us to stay longer with him, Miss Bettina, and go on straight to London from Thorndyke. What would you have said to that?”
“Thank you,” said Miss Davenal, hearing it was impossible to say what. “I shall be happy to see him.”
“Have you seen your old friends, Mark?” asked Oswald; “have you been out much?”
“I have not been out at all, and I have seen none of them,” responded Mark, gloomily. “I don’t want to see them.”
“How’s Mr. Barker? Have you heard from him lately?”
“I heard the day before I came here,” replied Mark, a shade of brightness rising to his countenance. “Barker has all the luck of it in this world. He is in something good again.”
“Again!” repeated Oswald, suppressing his strong inclination to laugh.
“So he writes me word. It’s something he has taken in hand and is going to perfect. If it comes to anything I shall return from Barbadoes and join him.”
“Oh,” said Oswald. “Well, Mark, I hope you will have a pleasant voyage out there, and that you will find your journey all you can wish.”
Dinner would soon be ready, and Sara was shown to her room. It overlooked the Abbey graveyard. She took off her bonnet and stood there, lost in many reminiscence of the past, in the changes that time had wrought, in the uncertain contemplation of the future. What would be poor Mark Cray’s future? Would he abide at Barbadoes, applying himself as well as his abilities allowed him to the pursuit of his legitimate profession? — or would his unstable, weak mind be dazzled with these illegitimate and delusive speculations to the end, until they engulfed him?
How strangely, how wonderfully had they been brought through changes and their accompanying trials! In this very room, where she now stood, Oswald had been born. The poor little boy, sent adrift as may be said without a home, motherless, as good as fatherless, had worked out his own way in the world, striving always to make a friend of God. Ah, when did it ever fail? It is the only sure help in life.
And what had her own later troubles been; her cares, anxieties, sorrows? Looking back, Sara saw great cause to reproach herself: why had she so given way to despair? It is true that she had never, in a certain sense, a degree, lost her trust in God: but she had not believed there could be this bright ending. A little ray of the setting sun was reflected on the tombstone formerly noticed; it fell on the significant inscription, “Buried in misery.” Sara wondered whether he, the unhappy tenant, had never learned to abide in God.
So absorbed was she in thought that she did not notice any one had come into the room, until a hand was laid upon her shoulder. It was her husband’s. He put some letters down in the broad, old-fashioned window-seat “They have been sent on to me here from the office,” he explained, as Sara glanced at them. “Business letters, all. In one there’s a bit of gossip, though: in Allisteris.”
