IS MARK IN HIS SENSES?
Midway between the Abbey and her own home--it was in the corner just
before coining to the market-place--Miss Davenal encountered Mr.
Oswald Cray.
"Is Mark in his senses?" was her abrupt greeting to him, as he lifted
his hat.
"What is the matter with him?--What is he doing?" asked Oswald, all in
wonder.
Miss Davenal paused. Either she did not hear the question or she took
time to recover herself to reply to it. Her face was very pale, her
cold grey eyes glittered like steel in the lamplight.
"My poor brother has died young, and left this valuable practice in
Mark's hands. There are not many like unto it. The house is ready to
be offered to him: altogether, the career spreading out before him is
a fine one. And he is talking of throwing it up. He is going to fling
it from him as a child flings a pebble away into the sea. He says he
shall quit Hallingham."
"Quit Hallingham!" repeated Oswald Cray, the last words of what she
said alone making their full impression on him in his bewildered
surprise. "Mark says he shall quit Hallingham?"
"He has some wild-goose scheme in his head of setting up in practice
in London," said Miss Davenal, speaking in accordance with the notion
she had erroneously assumed. "It is something he is about to purchase.
He is going to purchase it with that money of Caroline's. But he has
as surely lost his senses as that we are here."
"I cannot understand it," said Oswald. "No man in his senses would
abandon such a practice as this."
"Just so. But I tell you he is not in his senses: he cannot be. I do
not understand it any more than you. Perhaps you will see him?"
"I will. I am going there now. I have been calling at your house, Miss
Davenal. Now that I have met you, will you let me express my deep
sympathy in your sorrow for the loss you have sustained."
"Thank you, sir. It has been the greatest blow I could have
experienced, and if I have not shown it much outwardly--for it is not
in my nature to show such--it has done its work on my heart There are
few men who could not have been spared in Hallingham, whether to the
town or to his family, better than Dr. Davenal."
"It is frequently the case," said Oswald, half abstractedly, "that
those whom we think we could the least spare, are taken. Fare you
well, Miss Davenal." Oswald Cray strode on to the Abbey, the strange
news puzzling him much. He did not take Mark at a disadvantage, as
Miss Davenal had done. When he entered, Mark was all cool and easy,
having had time to collect his wits and resolve on his course of
action. That course was, not to open his lips about the scheme on hand
to any other living mortal until it was ripe and ready to be acted
upon. Miss Davenal's communication to Oswald rendered this somewhat
difficult, but Mark did not stand on an evasion or two.
He was exceedingly surprised to see Oswald, not knowing that he was at
Hallingham, and Caroline gave a little scream when he came in, in her
pretty and somewhat affected manner. Oswald explained that he had not
come from London, but from another part of the country, and had
alighted at Hallingham for two or three hours only as he passed
through it. He then entered upon the strange news just communicated to
him.
But Mark had his answer to it ready at hand. He talked in a mocking
tone about "busybodies," he ridiculed Miss Davenal's deafness, saying
that she generally heard things "double:" altogether, he contrived to
blind Oswald, to convince him that the whole thing was a fable; or,
rather, a mistake, partly arising from Miss Davenal's infirmity,
partly from a desire on his own part to "chaff" her for her
interference. How Mark Cray reconciled this to his sense of honour,
let him answer.
And Oswald, perfectly truthful himself, never doubted his
half-brother. But he did not wholly quit the topic. He spoke of the
few words written to him by Dr. Davenal when he was dying, and their
purport--that he, Oswald, should urge the settlement of Mrs. Cray's
own money upon her. Though of course, Oswald added, there was no
necessity for him to do so: Mark would naturally see for himself that
it was the only thing to be done with it.
Of course he saw it, testily answered Mark, who was growing cross.
"I cannot think how Miss Davenal could have misunderstood you as she
did," proceeded Oswald. "She actually said that this money of Mrs.
Cray's was to be applied to the purchase of the new thing in London in
which you were proposing to embark."
"Did she!" returned Mark, in a tone that one impudent schoolboy
retorts upon another. "I do wonder, Oswald, that you should listen to
the rubbish picked up by a deaf woman!"
"The wonder is, how she could pick it up," returned Oswald. "But I am
heartily glad it is not so. Miss Davenal assumed that you must be out
of your senses, Mark," he added, a smile crossing his lips: "I fear I
must have arrived at the same conclusion had you really been
entertaining the notion of quitting Hallingham and throwing up such a
practice as this."
"I wish to goodness people would mind their own business!" exclaimed
Mark, who was losing his good manners in his vexation. The
communication to his wife of his new scheme had been so smoothly
accomplished, that the sudden interruption of Miss Davenal and now of
Oswald Cray seemed all too like a checkmate; and Mark felt as a stag
driven to bay. "I am old enough to regulate my own affairs without
Miss Davenal," he continued, "and I want none of her interference."
Oswald did not speak.
"And, what's more, I won't stand it," resumed Mark; "either from her
or from any one. There! And, Oswald, I hope you will excuse my saying
it although you are my elder brother and may deem you have a right to
dictate to me."
"The right to advise _as a friend_ only, Mark," was the reply,
somewhat pointedly spoken. "Never to dictate."
Mark growled.
"With Dr. Davenal's valuable practice before you, Mark, it may appear
to you quite a superfluous precaution to secure the money to your wife
and children," persisted Oswald. "But the chances and changes of life
are so great, overwhelming families when least expected, that it
behoves us all to guard those we love against them, as far as we have
the power."
"Do you suppose I should not do the best for my wife that I can do?"
asked Mark. "She knows I would. Be at ease, Oswald," he added in an
easy tone, of which Oswald detected not the banter, "when Caroline's
money shall be paid over, I'll send you notice of it. Talking of
money, don't you think the doctor made a strange will?"
"I have not heard anything about his will," replied Oswald. "He has
died very well off, I suppose?"
"We don't think that he has died well off," interposed Caroline. "I
and Mark can't quite make it out, and they do not treat us with much
confidence in the matter. Whatever there is, is left to Sara."
"To Sara?"
"Every stick and stone," returned Caroline, her cheeks assuming that
lovely colour that excitement was apt to bring to them, and which, to
a practised eye, might have suggested a suspicion of something not
sound in the constitution. "All the property he died possessed of is
to be sold, even to the household furniture; and the money realised
from it goes to Sara."
"And the son--Captain Davenal?"
"There's nothing left to him; not a penny-piece. His name is not so
much as mentioned in the will."
Oswald looked as though he could not believe it. He had thought that,
of all men, Dr. Davenal would have been incapable of making an unjust
will.
"Look here, Oswald," interrupted Mark, speaking in that half-whispered
tone that is so suggestive of mystery, "there's something under all
this that we can't fathom. Caroline overheard some words dropped by
Miss Davenal to the effect that Sara was left dependent upon her,
quite entirely dependent----"
"But how can that be?" interrupted Oswald. "Have you not just said
that the whole property is willed to her?"
"True: but Miss Davenal did say it. It is all queer together,"
concluded Mark. "Why should he have willed it all to Sara, excluding
Edward?--And why should Miss Davenal assert, as she did, that Sara
would be penniless, and must have a home with herself? I am sure I and
Caroline don't want their confidence," continued Mark, in a tone of
resentment that was sufficient to betray he did want it. "But I say
it's a queer will altogether. Nothing left to Edward, when it's well
known the doctor loved him as the apple of his eye! Every sixpence
that can be realised by the sales is to go to Sara; to be paid into
her hands absolutely, without the security of trustees, or guardian,
or anything. But as to his having died the wealthy man that he was
thought to be, it is quite a mistake. So far as we can make out, there
was no money laid by at all."
Oswald did not care to pursue the theme. The disposal of Dr. Davenal's
property was nothing to him; and if he could not help a suspicion
crossing his mind as to how the laid-by gains of years had been spent,
it was certainly not his intention to enlighten his brother Marcus.
Neal had hinted at hush-money months ago, and the hint was haunting
Oswald now.
"Was it not a sudden death at the last?" exclaimed Caroline.
"Very," said Oswald, "It must have been a sad shock for you all. I am
sure your cousin feels it much."
"Sara? Well, I don't know. I don't think she feels it more than I do.
She seems as still and calm as a statue. She never shed a tear
yesterday when the will was being read: and I am sure she listened to
it. _I_ never heard a word for my sobs."
But for the melancholy subject, Oswald would have smiled at Caroline's
faith in her own depth of grief. She had yet to learn the signs of
real sorrow.
"She is not demonstrative, I think," he observed, alluding to Sara.
"She never was," returned Caroline: "and therefore I argue that there
can be no real feeling. I have gone into hysterics ten times since the
death, only thinking of it, as Mark knows; and I question if anybody
has so much as seen Sara cry. I said to her yesterday, 'How collected
you are! how you seem to think of everything for the future!' 'Yes,'
she answered in a dreamy sort of way, 'I have got work to do; I have
got work to do.' I don't know why it should be," continued Mrs. Cray,
after a pause, "but in the last few mouths Sara seems to have altered
so much; to have turned grave before her time. It is as though all her
youth had gone out of her."
Oswald rose: he believed his mission had been accomplished--that there
was no doubt of Mark's investing his wife's money for her benefit, in
accordance with the doctor's wishes. They pressed him to remain and
take some tea, but he declined: he was returning to town that night.
His last words to his half-brother proved how completely he was
astray.
"Mark, it would be only kind of you to set Miss Davenal right. I am
sure the misapprehension was causing her serious pain."
"I'll attend to her," rejoined Mark, with a careless laugh, as he went
with him to the hall-door. "Goodnight, Oswald. A safe journey to you!"
Mark returned to his wife. He had not quite liked to use that
deliberate deceit to Oswald Cray in her presence. But Mark was
ingenious in sophistries, in that kind of logic which tends to "make
the worse appear the better reason," and Caroline put full faith in
him as she listened to his half-apology, half-explanation.
"It would never have done to enlighten _him_," observed Mark. "What I
have said, I said for your sake, Carine. Oswald is one who would
rather let a man plod on for years on bread and cheese, than see
him make a dash and raise himself at once to independence. He's a
slow-going coach himself, and thinks everybody else ought to be!"
And, propping his back against the side of the mantelpiece, Mark Cray
enlarged upon all the grandeur and glory of the prospect opening to
him, painting its future scenes in colours so brilliant that his wife
lost herself in a trance of admiration, and wished it could all be
realised with the morning light.
PART THE SECOND.