NEAL'S VISIT.
Causing the sweeping crape to be taken from his hat, for he preferred
to depart on foot, Oswald Cray proceeded through the town to the house
of his brother. Just as he reached the door Mark rode up on horseback
and leaped off with a hasty spring, throwing his bridle to the man who
waited.
"Of course I am too late!" he exclaimed.
"Of course you are, by pretty near two hours. How did it happen,
Mark?"
"Well--I-can hardly tell how it happened," was the answer of Mark. "I
had a patient to see in the country--more than one, in fact--and I
thought I could do it all first and be back in time. But I suppose I
must have stayed later than I purposed, for before I was ready to
return I found it was half-past eleven, and the funeral no doubt over.
And then I did not hurry myself."
They were walking across the hall to the dining-room as he said this.
Caroline was seated at the table, her workbox before her, doing some
embroidery. She flung the work down, rose, and confronted her husband.
"Mark, why did you do this? You went into the country to avoid the
funeral!"
"I--I did what?" exclaimed Mark. "Nonsense, Carrie! Why should I wish
to avoid the funeral? I have attended plenty of funerals in my time."
Oswald turned quickly and looked at Mark. It was not the accusation of
Mrs. Cray that had aroused his attention--_that_ went for nothing; but
something peculiar in Mark's tone as he answered it. To Oswald's ears
it spoke of evasion. He could not see his face. It was bent, and he
was slapping his dusty boots with his riding-whip.
"But why DID you go into the country?" pursued Caroline. "It was
half-past ten when you were here, and I warned you then it was getting
time to dress. When I saw your horse brought to the door and you
gallop off on him, I could not believe my eyes."
"Well, I mistook the time, that's the fact. I am very sorry for it,
but it can't be helped now. Of course I should like to have attended
and paid her my last respects, poor lady. Not but that I daresay there
were enough without me. I was not missed."
"But you were missed," said Oswald, "and waited for too. It threw us
pretty nearly half-an-hour behindhand. I should not like to keep a
funeral waiting myself, Mark."
"Who was there?" asked Mark.
"The two relatives of Lady Oswald, Sir Philip and his son, Dr. Davenal
and myself."
"Davenal was there, then. But of course he would be. Then he served to
do duty for me and himself. And so Sir Philip came?"
"I should be surprised had he not come."
"Should you? He is a cranky sort of gentleman: an Oswald all over. You
are another of them, Oswald. I wonder if you'll get cranky in your old
age."
"Don't listen to him, Oswald," interposed Mrs. Cray. "He seems
'cranky' himself this morning."
Mark laughed good-humouredly, and tossed a late China rose to Caroline
which he had brought home in his button-hole. "Did you hear the will
read, Oswald?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Short and sweet!" cried Mark, alluding to the monosyllable, which it
must be confessed was given in a curt, displeased tone, as if its
speaker were himself displeased. "I think it is you who are cranky,
Oswald."
Oswald smiled. "A thought was causing me vexation, Mark."
"Vexation at me?"
"Oh, no."
"Well, and who comes in for the money? The Stephensons?"
"No. The Stephensons come in for a very poor portion. It is left to
Dr. Davenal."
"To Dr. Davenal!" echoed Mark in his astonishment. "No!"
"The bulk of the money is bequeathed to him. All of it, in fact, with
the exception of a few trifling legacies. The Stephensons have fifty
pounds each and the furniture."
Caroline had dropped her embroidery again and was gazing at Oswald,
apparently unable to take in the news. "Are you telling us this for a
joke?" she asked.
"The money is left to Dr. Davenal, Mrs. Cray," repeated Oswald, and
certainly there was no sound of joking in his tone. "It surprised us
all."
"What a lucky man!" exclaimed Mark. "I wonder if he had any prevision
of this yesterday? We were speaking of money, he and I. It was about
that field behind the doctor's stables, the one he has so long wanted
to buy. The owner's dead, and it is for sale at last. I observed to
the doctor that I supposed he'd secure it at once, but he said he
should not buy it at all; he had had a heavy loss, and could not
afford it----"
"It is not true, Mark!" interrupted his wife.
"It is true, Caroline. But don't you go and repeat it again. He said,
moreover, he had great need himself of a thousand or two, and did not
know where to turn to for it. Mind you, I believe he was betrayed, as
it were, out of the avowal, I had been saying so much about the field:
for he brought himself suddenly up as though recollection had come to
him, and said, 'Don't talk of this, Mark!'"
And Mark's long tongue _had_ talked of it! Oswald Cray listened to its
every word.
"If he could but have foreseen then that this money had dropped to
him! And yet--I should think he must have known it from Lady Oswald;
or partially known it. How much is it, Oswald?"
"Six or seven thousand pounds. It would have been a great deal more
but for certain losses. Wedderburn said she was persuaded to embark
money in some speculation; and it failed."
"How stupid of her!" exclaimed free Mark. "I wonder, now whether the
doctor did know of this! If he did he'd keep his own counsel. Did he
appear surprised, Oswald?"
"He was not there. He left before the will was read, saying he had to
attend a consultation."
"Well, so he had," said Mark; "I happen to know that much. It was for
half-past twelve."
So far, then, Dr. Davenal had spoken truth. A doubt had been crossing
Oswald's mind, amidst many other curious doubts, whether Dr. Davenal
had made the excuse to get away, and so avoid hearing the will read,
and himself named chief legatee.
He remained some time with Mark and his wife. They asked him to stay
for dinner, but he declined. He had ordered a chop to be ready at the
"Apple Tree," and was going back to London early in the evening--by
that seven o'clock train you have before heard of.
"Had you any particular motive for absenting yourself from Lady
Oswald's funeral!" he asked of Mark, as the latter accompanied him to
the street-door on his departure.
"Not I," answered Mark, with the most apparent readiness. "It was very
bungling of me to mistake the time. Not that I like attending funerals
as a matter of taste: I don't know who does. Good-afternoon, Oswald.
You must give us a longer visit when you are down next."
He stood at the Abbey door, watching his brother wind round the
branching rails, for Oswald was taking the station on his way to his
inn. Very cleverly, in Mark's own opinion, had he parried the
questions of his purposed absence. His absence _was_ purposed. With
that chloroform on his conscience he did not care to attend the
funeral of Lady Oswald.
And the afternoon went on.
It was growing dusk, was turned half-past six, and Oswald Cray was
beginning to think it time to make ready for his departure. He had not
stirred from the chair where he ate his dinner, though the meal was
over long ago; had not called for lights; had, in fact, waved John
Hamos away when he would have appeared with them. His whole range of
thought was absorbed by one topic--his doubts of Dr. Davenal.
Yes, it is of no use to deny it; it had come to that with Oswald
Cray--doubts. Doubts he scarcely knew of what, or to what extent; he
scarcely knew where these doubts or his own thoughts were carrying
him. On the previous night he had for a few moments given the reins to
imagination; had allowed himself to suppose, for argument's sake only,
that Dr. Davenal had given that chloroform knowing or fancying it
might prove fatal, and he had gone so far as to ask what, then, could
be his motive. There was no motive; Oswald glanced on each side of him
to every point, and could discover no motive whatever, or appearance
of motive. Therefore he had thrust the doubts from him, as wanting
foundation.
But had the revelations of this day supplied the link that was wanting
Had they not supplied it? _The death of Lady Oswald brought a fortune
to Dr. Davenal_.
Almost hating himself for pursuing these thoughts, or rather for the
obligation to pursue them, for they would haunt him, and he could not
help himself, Oswald Cray sat on in the fading light. Ha said to
himself, how absurd, nay how wicked it was of him, and yet he could
not shake them off. The more he strove to do so, the more he brought
reason to his aid, telling him that Dr. Davenal was a good and
honourable and upright man, as he had always believed, the less would
reason hold the mastery. Imagination was all too present in its most
vivid colouring, and it was chaining him to its will.
What were the simple facts? asked reason. Dr. Davenal had caused Lady
Oswald to inhale chloroform, having only some hours previously avowed
to Oswald his belief that she was a most unfit subject for it, was one
of those few to whom the drug proves fatal. It did prove fatal. There
had next been some equivocation on the part of Mark, when questioned
about it, and there had been the positive refusal of Dr. Davenal to
afford any explanation. Next, there had been the discovery of the
day--that Dr. Davenal was the inheritor. Well, it might all be
explained away, reason said; it was certainly not enough to attribute
to Dr. Davenal the worst social crime contained in the decalogue. But
the more Oswald Cray dwelt on this view, or tried to dwell upon it,
the more persistently rose up imagination, torturing and twisting
facts, and bending them as it pleased.
There had been that hint of Neal's too! Oswald Cray honestly believed
that Neal was one of those servants incapable of speaking ill for
ill's sake; and he could not help wondering what he meant. Neal was
not an ignorant man, likely to be deceived, to take up fancies: he was
of superior intelligence, quite an educated man for his class of life.
If----
Oswald's thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of his landlord. "I
don't want lights, John; I told you I did not. I shall be going
directly."
"It is not lights, sir. Mr. Neal, Dr. Davenal's servant, is asking to
see you."
"Neal! Let him come in."
Neal came forward into the dusky room. He was the bearer of a note
from his master. Oswald had a light brought in then, and opened it. It
was written in pencil.
"My Dear Mr. Oswald Cray,--
"I very much wish to see you if you can spare me an hour. I thought
perhaps you would have dropped in this lonely day and taken a knife
and fork with us. Will you come down this evening?--Ever sincerely
yours, Richard Davenal."
"Neal, will you tell Dr. Davenal--he is expecting me, I find?"
"I think so, sir. He said to me before dinner that he thought you
might be coming in. When he found you did not, and they were sitting
down to table, he wrote this in pencil, and bade me call one of the
maids to wait, while I brought it up to you."
"Tell the doctor that I am quite unable to come down. I have to return
to London by the seven o'clock train."
"Very well, sir."
Neal was leaving the room, but Mr. Oswald Cray stopped him. He had
taken a sudden resolution, and he spoke on the spur of the moment,
without reflection. The perplexity of his mind may be his excuse.
"Neal, have you any objection to tell me what you meant last night by
hinting that Lady Oswald had not come fairly by her death?"
Neal paused. He was a man of caution; he liked to calculate his words
and his ways before entering on them. Neal would certainly speak if he
dared. He was in a very bitter mood, for the day's doings had not
pleased him. The news had reached him that her ladyship's money had
been all left to Dr. Davenal; that he, Neal, was not so much as named
in the will. And Neal had looked forward as confidently as had the
Reverend Mr. Stephenson to the hope of some little remembrance being
left to him. In his terrible anger, it seemed to him that the one
enemy to prevent it had been the great inheritor, Dr. Davenal.
"Sir, if I speak, would you give me your promise first, to hold what I
say sacred to yourself; to let it go no further? I know, sir, it is
not the place of a servant to ask this confidence of a gentleman, but
I should be afraid to speak without it."
"I will give it you," said Mr. Oswald Cray. "You may rely upon me."
And Neal knew that if there was one man more than another on the face
of the earth who would never forfeit his word, upon whom implicit
trust might be placed, it was Oswald Cray. Neal set himself to his
task. First of all opening the door to make sure they were entirely
alone, he dropped his voice to a safe whisper, and described what he
had seen and heard on the Sunday night. It was certainly a startling
narration, and as Oswald Cray listened to it in that darkened
room,--for the one candle, now placed on a side-table behind, only
served to throw out the shadows,--listened to the hushed tones, the
unexplainable words, a curious feeling of dread began to creep over
him. Neal, you may be very sure, did not disclose anything that could
bear against himself; he contrived to come out well in it. He was
standing outside for a moment before going to bed, hoping the air
would remove the sad headache which had suddenly seized him upon
hearing of the death of his late lady, when he saw the man come in in
the extraordinary manner he had just described. Believing him to be
nothing less than a housebreaker (and Watton, who had seen the man
from her room upstairs, had come to the same conclusion), or an evil
character of some sort, getting in plausibly on false pretences to
work harm to Dr. Davenal, he had gone to the window to look in out of
anxiety for his master's safety, and there had heard what he had
stated, for the window was thrown open. He could not see the visitor,
who was seated in the shade: he only heard sufficient to tell him that
the business he had come on was Lady Oswald's death; and he heard Dr.
Davenal acknowledge that it was murder, and that it must be hushed up
at any price, even if it cost him his fortune. He, Neal, described the
utterly prostrate condition of his master that night; both before and
after the interview with the visitor, he was like one who has some
dreadful secret upon the mind, some heavy guilt; Neal had thought so
before ever the man, whoever he might have been, entered the house.
Will it be forgiven to Oswald Cray if in that brief confused moment he
believed the worst--believed all that Neal said to him? His mind was
in a chaos of perplexity, almost, it may be said, of terror. Nothing
was clear. He could not analyse, he could not reason: Neal's words,
and the doings of the night which the man was describing, seemed to
dance before his mind in confused forms, ever changing, as do the bits
of coloured glass in a kaleidoscope. Neal continued to speak, but he
did not hear him distinctly now; the words reached his senses
certainly, but more as if he were in a mazy dream. He heard the man
reiterate that, wherever it was his master had gone to that night,
remaining away until the Wednesday it was connected with the death of
Lady Oswald; he heard him say that, whatever the mystery and the
guilt, Miss Sara Davenal had been made the confidant of it by her
father, he, Neal, supposed front some imperative motive which he did
not pretend to understand. Oswald heard like one in a dream, the words
partially glancing off his mind even as they were spoken, only to be
recalled afterwards with redoubled force.
In the midst of it he suddenly looked at his watch, suspecting--as he
found--that he had barely time to catch the train.
And he went out in a sort of blind confusion, his brain echoing the
words of Dr. Davenal, only too accurately remembered and repeated by
Neal. "Murder? Yes, the world would look upon it as such. I felt
certain that Lady Oswald was one to whom chloroform, if administered,
would prove fatal."