BAD NEWS FOR HALLINGHAM.
"I say, Neal, what sort of a place is St. Paul's Churchyard?"
The questioner was Watton. She sat in the servants' room near the
window, against which the rain was pattering, some household sewing in
her hand. Neal, who had entered to get a glass he wanted was rather
taken with surprise, but he was not one to show it in his manner.
"Did you never see it?" he asked.
"I saw it in a picture once. I couldn't see it elseways; I've never
been to London?"
"It is a large space of land with houses round it and the cathedral in
the middle," explained Neal, who seemed always ready to oblige his
fellow-servants, especially Watton. "It's a thoroughfare, you know;
the road from Ludgate Hill to Cheapside winds round on each side the
cathedral, between it and the houses."
"Is it very noisy?"
"Pretty well for that. But the London people don't seem to care for
noise. I expect they are so used to it that they don't hear it."
"The houses round St. Paul's are warehouses, aren't they?"
"Warehouses and shops. The shops are mostly on one side and the
warehouses on the other."
"Do you know a place called Cannon Street?"
"I should think I do! It leads down from St. Paul's to King William
Street. Why do you ask?"
"Well," said Watton slowly, as if she mere deliberating something in
her mind, "I am not sure but I am going to live there."
"To live in St. Paul's Churchyard?" repeated Neal.
"I have had a place offered me there, and it seems to me to be a very
eligible one," said Watton. "It's to go as housekeeper in a house of
business; some large wholesale place, by what I can understand. I
should have two or three servants under me, and twenty-five pounds
a-year. It seems good, doesn't it?"
"Capital," assented Neal. "Is it in St. Paul's Churchyard?"
"It's either in St. Paul's Churchyard or Cannon Street. She isn't
quite sure which, she says. Anyway, it's close to St. Paul's."
"Who's 'she'?" questioned Neal.
"My sister. Her husband is in this establishment, a traveller, or
something of that. He has got on well: he was only day assistant in a
shop when she married him, fifteen years ago, and now he gets two or
three hundred a year. When Miss Bettina told me I should have to
leave, I wrote to my sister and asked her to look out for me, and she
has sent me word of this."
"But can she get the place for you?" inquired Neal, who was prompt at
weighing probabilities and improbabilities in his mind.
"It is in this way. The present housekeeper has been there a good
while, and is much respected by the masters, and they have asked her
to look out for somebody to take her place. My sister's intimate with
her, and has spoken to her about me."
"Why is she going to leave, herself?" questioned Neal, liking to come
to the bottom of everything.
Watton laughed. "She is going to begin life on her own score: she's
about to be married. I think it's rather venturesome those middle-aged
persons marrying: I wouldn't, I know."
"Wait until you are asked," returned Neal, not over gallantly.
"I have been asked more than once in my life," said Watton. "But I
didn't see my way clear. It's all a venture. A good many risk it, and
a few don't. I'd rather be one of the few. My goodness! how it rains!"
"When do you leave here?"
"When I get a comfortable place. Miss Bettina said I was not to hurry.
It isn't as if I were leaving for any fault, or to make room for
another. _She_ doesn't like my leaving at all, you know."
Neal nodded. "I heard her grumbling to the doctor, like anything,
about it. She talks loud, and one can't shut one's ears at will."
"She need not grumble to the doctor. It is not his fault. He spoke to
me himself, saying how sorry he was to part with me, but he could not
help it. 'He had had a severe loss of money,' he said, which rendered
it necessary that he should alter the rate of his expenditure. I
wonder," added Watton, musingly, "how he came to lose it?"
Neal coughed. "Perhaps some bank broke."
"Perhaps it did," answered Watton. "They are ticklish things, those
banks. I say, Neal, there's the doctor's bell."
Neal heard the bell for himself, and quitted the room to answer it.
Watton got up, put down her work, shook a few threads from her gown,
opened a drawer and took out a letter.
She was going upstairs to Miss Bettina to show her the letter she had
received, and to ask her advice upon the situation mentioned in it.
She felt very much inclined to try for it; only she felt a shrinking
doubt of London. Many persons do who have lived to middle age in the
country.
Neal entered the room in answer to the ring. The doctor had been out
that morning, but returned earlier than usual, for it was not much
past twelve. It was the day subsequent to the departure for school of
Dick and Leo.
"What a poor fire you have got here, Neal!" said the doctor. "Bring a
few sticks and pile the coal on. I feel chilly."
"I hope you have not taken a fresh cold, sir," respectfully observed
Neal, as he stirred up the fire preparatory to getting the sticks.
Whether Neal was right or not as to the fresh cold, certain it was,
that before night unfavourable symptoms began to manifest themselves
in Dr. Davenal. And they increased rapidly.
A few hours and the news went forth to the town--Dr. Davenal was in
danger. The consternation it excited cannot well be described--and if
described would scarcely be believed. Numbers upon numbers in that
town looked upon Dr. Davenal in the light of a public benefactor: they
honestly believed that his death would be one of the greatest
calamities that could befall them; they believed that, if he went,
nobody else could bring _them_ through danger, should it come upon
them.
They hastened to the door with their anxious inquiries; they saw the
medical men of Hallingham pouring in. What was the matter with him?
they eagerly asked. How was he seized?
It was inflammation of the chest, or lungs, or both, they were told.
It was in fact an increase of the cold which had been so long hanging
upon him, and _which he had neglected_. Oh, only a cold! they repeated
carelessly as they listened--what a mercy that it was nothing worse!
And they went away reassured.
A day or two, and there came down a physician from London in answer to
a telegraphic dispatch. A day or two more and an ominous whisper went
forth to the town--that hope was over. The saddened inhabitants paced
to and fro, collected in groups about the door, and glanced up at the
doctor's windows, fearing if perchance the blind should have been
drawn since they last looked. They watched the medical men glide in
and out; they saw a lawyer go in with a bustling step, and came to the
conclusion that he went to make the will. Altogether Hallingham was in
a fever of excitement.
But there occurred a change; contrary to even the most sanguine
expectation a change seemed to take place for the better. Dr. Davenal
rallied. The most painful symptoms left him, and some of those around
him said he was getting well.
One evening at dusk Neal was observed to come out of the house with a
quick movement and hasten up the street. As usual he was instantly
surrounded, waylaid by anxious inquirers.
Yes, it was perfectly true, Neal answered, his master was so much
better as to surprise all who saw him. The change took place early
that morning, and he had been mending ever since. He was well enough
to sit up: was sitting up then.
Then there was a hope that he'd recover? the questioners rejoined,
scarcely daring to speak the joyful words.
O yes, there seemed every hope of it now. Mr. Cray, who had just gone
out, remarked to him, Neal, that he looked upon his master as cured.
But Neal couldn't stop to talk more with them then, he said; he was
hastening to the chemist's for a draught which the doctor himself had
sent him for.
Neal got the draught, imparted the news of the doctor's wonderful
improvement to the crowd collecting at the chemist's, for no end of
gossipers pressed into the shop when they saw Neal there--retraced the
streets with his soft tread, and arrived at home. Entering the
consulting-room, where the fire in the grate was getting low, he
passed on to his master's bedchamber. Quite a bright chamber for an
invalid's. The fire was blazing in the grate, and a handsome lamp,
shining through the ornamental pink shade that covered its globe,
stood on the small round table. The bed was at the far end of the room
in a corner, and Dr. Davenal sat in an easy chair near the fire. He
was dressed, all but his coat; in place of that he wore a warm quilted
dressing-gown of soft rich silk; one of those rarely handsome
dressing-gowns that seem made to be looked at, not to be worn.
He did not appear very ill. Wan and worn certainly, but not so ill as
might have been expected. His breath and voice were the worst: both
were painfully weak. The table had been drawn close to him, and he was
writing at it. A tolerably long letter it looked like, covering three
sides of large note-paper. Perhaps if the truth had been declared, he
had got up purposely to write this letter.
Sara sat on the other side the fireplace, ready to wait upon him. How
she had borne the agony of the last few days and been _calm_, she did
not know, she never would know: it was one of the sharp lessons learnt
from life's necessities. "You may be with him," the physician in
London bad said to her, "provided you can maintain composure in his
presence. The witnessing of a child's grief is sometimes the worst
agony that the dying have to bear. I cannot sanction your being in the
room unless you can promise to be calm."
"I will promise it," replied Sara in a low tone; but that one
expression "the dying" had turned her whole heart to sickness.
Yes, it was one of the lessons that must be learnt in the stern school
of life--the maintaining a composed exterior when the heart is
breaking. That she was given to reticence of feeling by nature, was of
service to Sara Davenal then. But surely the trials that had latterly
fallen upon her were very bitter; the battle just now was sharp and
keen.
She sat there in her soft dress of violet merino, so quiet and
unobtrusive in the sick-room, with its little white lace collar and
the narrow lace cuffs turned up on the bands of the sleeves at the
wrist. The first day of his illness she had on a silk dress rustling
against the chairs and tables, and she had the good sense to go and
change it. The chair she sat in was an elbow one, and her hot cheek
rested on her fingers as she strove to drive back the inward question
that _would_ intrude itself, whether this improvement was for good, or
only a fallacious one. She sat perfectly still, her eyes following the
motion of his feeble fingers, and it was thus that Neal interrupted
them.
"The draught, sir," he said, laying it on the table.
"Set a wine-glass by it," said the doctor. "That will do."
So slowly and feebly! The voice seemed to come from deep down in
his chest, and not to be the doctor's voice at all; Neal put the
wine-glass as desired, and quitted the room; and the doctor wrote on.
Only for a minute or two: the letter was drawing to a close. Dr.
Davenal pressed it with the blotting-paper, read it to himself slowly,
and then folded it and put it in an envelope. In all this, his fingers
seemed scarcely able to perform their office. He fastened it down, and
wrote on the outside his son's name. Then he looked at Sara, touching
the letter with his finger.
"My dear, when the next mail goes out, should you have occasion to
write of me, let this be enclosed."
"To write of you, papa?" she repeated in a faltering tone. But she
need not have asked the question--its meaning had only too surely
penetrated to her.
"Should the worst have happened."
"Oh, but--papa--you are getting better!"
She checked the wailing tone; she remembered how necessary, as she had
been warned, was calmness in that room; she remembered her promise to
maintain it. She pressed her hands upon her bosom and remained still.
"I will take that draught now, Sara, if you will pour it out."
She rose from her seat, undid the paper, poured the contents of the
small bottle into the glass, and handed it to him. The doctor drank
it, and gave her back the glass with a smile.
"Not one of those clever fellows thought of ordering me this; yet it's
the best thing for anybody suffering as I am. Ah! they have got
something to learn yet. I don't know how they'll get on without me?"
"Papa, you may get well yet!" she interrupted; anti she _could not_
prevent the anguished sound with which the words were spoken.
He turned and looked at her; he seemed to have fallen into a momentary
reverie. But he made no direct answer.
"Can you draw the table away, Sara? I don't want it so close now.
Gently; take care of the lamp."
"Where shall I put this, papa?" she asked, referring to the letter.
"In my desk in the next room. You'll know where to find it in case of
need. My keys are here, on the mantelpiece."
She stopped to ask one question which seemed to be wrung from her in
her pain. "Is it to go all the same if you get better, papa?"
"No. Not if I get better."
Passing into the other room, which was lighted only by the fire, she
drew the desk from underneath the table, knelt down, unlocked it, and
put in the letter. It was addressed: "For my son, Edward Davenal."
Sara was locking the desk again, when some one entered the room and
came round the table to where she knelt.
"My goodness! are you saying your prayers?"
Wrapped in silks and ermine, her lovely face peeping out from a
charming pink bonnet, was Mrs. Cray. The doctor had expressed a wish
to Mark Cray that afternoon that Caroline would come to him, and Mark
had delivered the message when he got home.
"Mark says Uncle Richard wants to see me," she explained, "so I
thought I'd run down at once. I can't stop; Berry and another friend
or two are going to dine with us. I am so delighted to hear of the
improvement in Uncle Richard! Mark says the danger is quite over."
"If I could but be sure it was!" was Sara's answer.
"There you are, with your doubts and fears! Never was anybody like
you, Sara. Don't I tell you Mark says it is? Yes, I'll take my cloak
off for the few minutes that I stop."
She threw off her bonnet, and let the cloak slip from her shoulders,
displaying her evening attire, for she had dressed before she came
out: a silk, so light as to look almost white, that stood on end with
richness and rustled as she walked; the dazzling necklace, given by
Captain Davenal, on her white neck; a dewdropped pink rose in her
gleaming hair.
Utterly unaccordant looked she with the chamber of the dying, as she
stepped into the other room. Dr. Davenal's eyes were fixed on her for
a moment in simple wonder, as if he saw a vision. Then he recognised
her, and held out his hand, a glad look pervading his countenance.
"Well, Uncle Richard! I am so rejoiced that you are getting better.
You'll come and dance at our housewarming yet."
"Are you going to hold one?" asked the doctor, as he held her hand in
his, and gazed up at her beauty.
"Mark and I are thinking of it. We can do everything, you know, now
that that money's coming to me."
"Ah," said the doctor, "it's about that money I want to talk to you.
Sit down, Caroline. How smart you are, my dear!"
"Nay, I think it's you who are smart uncle," she returned with a gay
laugh. "So it has come into use at last!"
Caroline touched the dressing-gown as she spoke. There had always been
a joke about this dressing-gown. A patient of the doctor's, as
fanciful as Lady Oswald and nearly as old, had made it with her own
hands and sent it to him. It had remained unused. For one thing, the
doctor was too plain in his habits and too busy a man to require a
dressing-gown at all; for another he had looked upon the garment as
extravagantly fine.
"Yes," said he, in answer to Caroline's remark, "I have found it
useful today. It is very warm and comfortable. Caroline, I have been
talking again to Mark about the money."
"Well, uncle?"
"I don't know that it is well. Mark does not appear inclined to make
me any promise that it shall be settled upon you when it comes. I
urged it upon him very strongly this afternoon, and he answered me in
his light careless manner, 'Of course. O yes doctor, I'll remember;'
but he did not give a specific promise; whether by accident or design,
I cannot say. So I told him to send you down to me."
"Yes, uncle," she said, thinking more of the weakness of the voice to
which she was listening, than of the import of the words.
"This money must be settled upon you, Caroline, the instant that you
touch it. It is essential that a married woman should, if possible,
have some settlement. If I recover, I shall take care that this is so
settled, but----"
"_If_ you recover!" she interrupted. "Why, Uncle Richard, you are
getting well as fast as you can. Mark says so. You are sitting up!"
"True; I am sitting up; and I could not have sat up two or three days
ago. Still, I am not sure about the getting well."
"But Mark says so; he says you are," reiterated Caroline.
"And Mark's opinion, as a medical man, must be infallible, you think?"
rejoined the doctor, with a momentary look in his face that Caroline
did not understand. "At any rate, my dear, it is well to remember all
contingencies. 'Hope for the best, and prepare for the worst,' was one
of your grandpapa Davenal's favourite maxims. You must have the money
settled upon you----"
"But, Uncle Richard, are you quite sure that it would be for the
best?" she interposed. "If the money is settled in that way, it would
be all tied up, and do us no good after all."
"You would enjoy the interest."
"That's not over much," said Caroline slightingly. "I and Mark have
been planning a hundred things that we might do with the money.
Refurnish the Abbey splendidly for one."
"You and Mark are a couple of simpletons," retorted the doctor,
regaining momentarily his energy of voice. But the effort was too
much, and he lay panting for several minutes afterwards. Caroline sat
gazing at him, her finger unconsciously raised to her neck, playing
with the gleaming toy there. Which should she trust to, these signs of
illness, or Mark's opinion?
"Caroline, I insist that the money be settled upon you. Were you and
Mark to waste it in nonsense, it would be nothing less than a fraud
upon your West Indian relatives from whom it is derived. You may tell
Mark so from me. That money, Carine, secured to you, would at least
keep the wolf from coming quite in, should he ever approach your
door."
Caroline sat aghast, wondering whether the doctor had lost his senses.
"The wolf at the door for us, Uncle Richard. As if that could ever
be."
"Ah, Carine, I have lived to know that there is no permanent certainty
in the brightest lot," he answered with a sigh. "My dear, more
experience has been forced upon me in the past year or two than I had
learned in the whole course of my previous life. Understand me once
for all, this money must be secured to you."
"Very well, Uncle Richard," she answered with ready acquiescence. "It
shall be so, as you seem so much to wish it. I'll tell Mark all you
say."
A few minutes longer, and Caroline rose. Dr. Davenal was surprised
that she should be going again so very soon, and looked inquiringly at
her. "Can't you stay a little longer, Caroline?"
"I wish I could; but I shall hardly get back to dinner, and we expect
some friends today. Goodnight, Uncle Richard."
He drew her face down to his, murmuring his farewell. Little did
Caroline Cray think it would be his last.
Sara went out with her cousin, and saw her depart with the servant who
had waited for her. When she returned to the chamber, the doctor was
in deep thought.
"I think you must bring the table near to me again, Sara," he said.
"There's another word or two I should like to write."
"Yes, papa. Do you want Edward's letter?"
"No, no; it's not to him. There. Dip the pen in the ink for me."
It was a tacit confession of weakness that she did not like to hear;
and she saw that even in the short space of time that had elapsed
since he wrote before his strength had visibly declined. He was
scarcely able to guide the pen.
"That will do," when he had traced a few lines. "Sara, should you have
occasion to send this, enclose it in a note from yourself, explaining
my state when I penned it; that I was almost past writing. Will you
remember?"
"Yes, papa," she answered, her heart beating painfully at the words.
"Fold it for me."
Honourable in all her thoughts and actions, Sara folded the note with
the writing turned from her. It is just possible some children might
have been sufficiently actuated by curiosity to glance at least at the
name at the commencement of the note. Not so Sara Davenal. She placed
it in an envelope and fastened it down.
"I think I can direct it, Sara. Just the name."
She gave him the pen, and he traced the name in uneven, doubtful
letters. Sara noted it with surprise, and perhaps her pulses
quickened. "O. Oswald Cray, Esquire."
"Put it in my desk with Edward's, my dear. If you have occasion to
send the one, you will the other." As she unlocked the desk again her
tears were raining down fast. In all that her father was saying and
doing there seemed to be a foreshadowing in his own mind of his
approaching death. She quitted the room for a few minutes that her
emotion might spend itself, and in the interval Miss Davenal entered.
The soft rustling of Miss Bettina's sweeping silks aroused the doctor,
who had fallen into a dose. She went up and took his hand.
"Richard, how are you tonight?"
"I hardly know. Middling."
"Sara is fancying you are not so well."
"Is she?"
"But she always was given to fancies, you know. Is it right that you
should sit up so long the first time of leaving your bed?"
"Yes, I like the change. I was tired of bed. Sit down, Bettina. There
are one or two things I want to say to you."
"Are you finding yourself worse?"
"Bettina, I have not been better."
"The doctors have thought you so," she said, after a pause.
"Ay, but I know more of my own state than they can tell me. When the
suffering and its signs passed, they leaped to the conclusion that the
disease had left me. In a measure, so it has, but they should have
remembered in how many of such cases the apparent improvement is all
deceit, the forerunner of the end."
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. But, all I
can say is, I cannot trust to it."
She had laid one of her hands upon the folds of the dressing-gown, and
the doctor could feel the twitching of the fingers. He had asked her
to sit down, but she preferred to stand. Close to him, with her head
bent, she could hear his low words without much misapprehension, so
deliberately were they spoken between the panting breath.
"Bettina, I don't go to my grave as I thought I should have gone,
providing for my children. I have been obliged to sacrifice all I had
put by. It was not a great deal, it's true, for I am but what's called
a middle-aged man, and my expenses have been high. Could I have
foreseen my early death, I should have lived at half the rate. And
this sacrifice will not die with me. The house--I daresay I shall
shock you, Bettina--is mortgaged; not, however, to its full value. I
have directed in my will that it shall be sold; and the residue, after
the mortgage is paid--can you hear me?" he broke off to ask.
"Every word."
"The residue and the proceeds of the furniture, and those two small
cottages of mine, and other effects which will be likewise sold, will
make a fair sum. There's money owing to me in the town, too.
Altogether I expect there will not be much less than three thousand
pounds----"
"Richard!" shrieked out Miss Bettina, in her emotion. "_Three_
thousand! I thought you were worth ten at least."
"No, it was not so much as that altogether. I had four or five
thousand put by. Never mind: I say I have had to sacrifice it. I feel
how imprudent I have been, now that it is too late."
"To what have you had to sacrifice it?"
The doctor paused before he replied. "A sudden claim came upon me of
which I knew nothing: a claim for thousands. No, Bettina, I know what
you wish to say--believe me, I _could not_ resist it: to pay it was
obligatory. The worst is, I could not pay it all: and the sum which
the property will realise will have to be applied to liquidate it."
"But you can tell me what the claim was for?"
"No, I cannot. It is not altogether my secret, Bettina, and you must
not inquire into it. I need not have mentioned it at all to you, but
for speaking of Sara. My poor children must suffer. Edward has his
day, and he will have to make it suffice: Sara has nothing. Bettina,
you will give her a home?"
"There's no necessity for you to ask it," was Bettina Davenal's
answer. But she spoke crossly; for the want of confidence in not
intrusting to her the nature of this secret was hurting her feelings
bitterly. "Should anything happen to you, Sara will naturally find a
home with me--if she can put up with its plainness. I shall make her
as welcome, and consider it as obligatory on me to do so, as though
she were my own child."
The doctor lay back for a moment in his chair, panting. His fingers
clasped themselves over hers in token of thanks.
"Richard, surely you might place more confidence in me! If you have
been called upon to pay this money in consequence of--of any bygone
trouble or debt contracted in your youth--and I conclude it must be
something of that sort--do you suppose I cannot be true and keep your
counsel? I know what follies the young plunge into!"
"Follies? Crimes, rather!" And the words broke from Dr. Davenal with a
groan which told of the deepest mental anguish. It pained even the
dull ear that was bent to it.
"Bettina, I say that you must not ask me. If it concerned myself alone
you should know as much as I do, but I could not tell you without
betraying another; and--and there might be danger. Let it rest. Better
for you that it should do so, for it would disturb your peace as it
has disturbed mine."
"It's a dreadful sum," said Miss Bettina.
"It is that. And my poor children must be left beggars. I have
enjoined Mark Cray to pay three hundred pounds yearly to Sara for five
years, out of the proceeds of the practice. He can well afford to do
it: and if you will give her a home, this had better be invested for
her, Bettina."
"Of course. But what's three hundred for five years? You might make
better terms with Mark Cray than that."
"Mark has promised faithfully to do it. I have been talking with him
this afternoon about that and other things. I asked him what sum he
would feel inclined to pay to Sara out of the business, and for what
term. He said he thought he could give three hundred a-year, and would
continue it for five years."
"Considering all things, it is not a very generous offer," persisted
Miss Bettina. "Had your life been spared, Mark could not have expected
to step into the whole of the practice these twenty years."
"It is very fair, I think, Bettina. Mark must acquire experience,
remember, must work his way up to the public confidence, before people
trust him as they have trusted me. He will not have his rooms filled
daily with patients at a guinea a head. This has come upon me
suddenly, or all things might have been managed differently. I think
it would be a good plan for Mark to leave the Abbey for this house; I
have told him so; but he will be the best judge of that." Miss Bettina
quitted her stooping posture by the doctor and sat down, revolving all
that had been said. She sat slowly rubbing her hands the one over the
other, as was her habit when anything troubled her.
"I cannot realise it," she said, in a half whisper, "Richard, I
_cannot_ realise it. Surely you are not going from us!"
"I am but going to those who have preceded me, Bettina," he answered.
"My wife, and Richard, and others, who have gone on before, are
waiting for me, and I in my turn shall wait for you. This fretting
life is over. How poor!--_how poor!_"--he added more emphatically, as
he clasped his hands--"do even its best interests now seem beside
eternity!"