THE BARGAIN SEALED.
Mark Cray sat in his wife's sick-room. Mark Cray found it (between
ourselves) rather tiresome to sit in his wife's sick-room: and Mark
was very apt to doze asleep at his post. 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.
Oswald was standing near the fire. He turned to Mark and spoke in a
quiet tone.
"I have a question to ask you, Mark. It relates to the past. Who----"
"Oh, never mind the past," interrupted Mark, with a half-testy,
half-careless sort of manner. "I'm sure there's enough worry in the
present without going back to that of the past. I wish that horrid
mine had been sunk a thousand fathoms deep before I had had anything
to do with it. I daresay I shall pay you back some time!"
"It is not about the mine I wish to speak to you, or of payment
either," calmly rejoined Oswald. "But, Mark, I want the truth from
you--the truth, mind--upon another subject. It was you, was it not,
who gave the chloroform to Lady Oswald?"
Mark made no reply, either truthful or otherwise. The question was so
exceedingly unlike any he had expected that he only stared.
"It was supposed, I know, at the time to have been administered by Dr.
Davenal. But I have reason to believe that it was administered by
yourself during his temporary absence from the chamber, and against
his sanction. Was it so, Mark?"
"I suppose you heard this from the doctor himself at the time?" was
Mark Cray's remark. "I remember you were worriting over it."
"I beg you to answer my question, Mark. What you say shall go no
further."
"Well, yes, it was so," said Mark; "though I'm sure I can't think why
you want to bring up the thing now. I did give her the chloroform, but
I gave it for the best. As I was to perform the operation I thought I
had a right to exercise my own judgment, which was opposed to the
doctor's. I was very sorry for the result, but I did it for the best."
"I wish you had told me the truth at the time, Mark. You suffered me
to believe that the chloroform was given by Dr. Davenal."
"And what difference did it make to you which of us gave it?" was Mark
Cray's reply, not an unnatural one. "You may guess that it was a thing
I did not care to speak of. So long as it was assumed we gave the
chloroform conjointly, in accordance with ordinary practice and our
best judgment, nobody could say a word; but if it had been disclosed
that I gave it by myself, on my own responsibility and against the
doctor's opinion, I should have had the whole town carping at me."
Oswald had nothing further to say. He could not tell the bitter
truth--that this miserable misapprehension had wrecked his hopes of
happiness, had been making an ice-bolt of his heart in the intervening
years.
Mark escaped, and returned to his wife's room, there to endeavour to
drop into his golden dreams again, from which he seemed to have been
aroused for no earthly use whatever. And Oswald stayed on in the hope
of seeing Sara.
Not only in the dining-parlour of Miss Davenal's house was there a
conference being held at that hour, but also in the drawing-room
above: and but for the all-absorbing nature of his own thoughts Oswald
Cray had not failed to hear the sounds. Captain Davenal had got Neal
there, before his aunt. And Mr. Neal was slipping out of all
accusations as smoothly as an eel.
The group was noticeable. Miss Davenal in her chair, upright and
angry, only partially understanding the cause of the commotion;
Captain Davenal standing, open and impetuous, talking very fast; Neal
full of repose and self-possession, all his wits in full play; and
Sara sitting apart in silence, her cheek bent upon her hand. Captain
Davenal charged Neal with treachery, general and particular. Neal had
his plausible answer ready to meet it all.
The interview was drawing to an end, and little satisfaction had been
derived from it. Poor Miss Davenal's ears were in a mazed condition:
desks, letters, inventions to Sara touching a Mrs. Wentworth, and a
hundred other charges, jumbling hopelessly upon them, nothing being
clear. Neal denied everything.
"You did tell Miss Sara Davenal that the young woman was my wife,"
cried Captain Davenal, indignantly.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Neal, respectfully. "I said I felt
quite sure she was not; that there must be some mistake. Miss Sara
perhaps will remember that such was my opinion."
"At any rate, you said the young woman made the charge," persisted
Captain Davenal, irritated at the assured coolness.
"I did, sir. I understood the young woman to make it. She----"
"But she never did make it," interrupted Captain Davenal.
Neal shrugged his shoulders in submissive superciliousness, meant for
Mrs. Wentworth. "It may suit the young woman's purpose to say so now,
sir. I fear she is not very strict in her adherence to truth; but she
certainly did make it at the time. However, sir, I am quite willing to
take the blame upon myself, to allow that I misunderstood her."
"Why, you have not the face to tell me that you have gone on believing
it?"
"O dear no, sir. I was very soon afterwards convinced that the thing
was a mistake altogether."
"And pray, why had you not the honesty to say so to Miss Sara
Davenal?"
"I'm sure I should have been happy to say so, sir, had I possessed the
least idea that it would have been welcome. But after the first blush,
the matter appeared to be so very absurd that I never supposed Miss
Sara would give to it a second thought. If my silence has caused any
uneasiness, I can only say how deeply I regret it."
"Who _is_ the young woman?" helplessly cried Miss Bettina. "And pray,
Neal, how came it, if you had anything of the sort to say, that you
did not say it to me? I am the proper person to hear these things; a
young lady is not."
Neal advanced a step to his mistress and spoke in his low clear tone.
"It was not my intention to speak to Miss Sara Davenal at all, ma'am,
or to you either; I should not have thought of doing such a thing; but
I could not help myself when Miss Sara questioned me upon the point."
All that was reasonable and feasible, and Miss Davenal nodded her head
in approbation; but her nephew the captain got in a passion, and
insisted that he should be discharged there and then.
Neal was quite ready to go, he said, civilly courteous, if his
mistress saw fit to inflict upon him so severe a step. He was
unconscious of having done anything to merit it. Perhaps she would be
pleased to particularise his offence.
"He is a villain, aunt," broke forth the captain intemperately, before
Miss Bettina could speak. "I believe he has been one ever since my
father took him into the house. He has opened letters and unlocked
desks, and altogether played the part of deceit. He _shall_ go."
Neal interrupted, humbly begging the captain's pardon. He could most
truthfully assure his mistress that he had done nothing of the sort;
he had never opened a letter in the house, except his own; had never
touched a desk, but to dust it. If Captain Davenal could mention any
other distinct charge, he should be glad, as it would allow him an
opportunity of refutation. No. His conscience acquitted him. He should
quit the house, if he did have to quit it, with a clear character, and
he thought his mistress would acknowledge that he deserved one. In the
one little point concerning Mrs. Wentworth he might have been in
error: first, in too readily giving ear to what she said; next, in not
having spoken to Miss Sara to set the doubt at rest in her mind. They
were mistakes certainly, and he greatly regretted them.
"Neal," said the captain, too hot-headed to maintain his dignity, "I'd
a hundred times rather be an open villain than a sneak. Why, you know
you have been nothing but a spy from the very moment you entered the
house. Aunt Bettina, listen! Before the regiment went away I got into
a little trouble, upon which I found it necessary to consult my
father, and I went----"
"A little what?" asked Miss Bettina.
"Trouble. A little difficulty."
"Oh, ah, yes," said Miss Bettina. "You were always getting into it."
"Not such as that," thought the captain. "Well, I had to go down to
Hallingham," he continued aloud, as he bent to her. "I did not care
that any of you should know it, and I got down one night unexpected by
my father. I was with him in his study for some time, and went back so
as to be at duty the next morning. Would you believe"--pointing his
finger at Neal--"that yon honest fellow was a spy upon the interview?"
Mr. Neal was a little taken by surprise, and Sara looked up
astonished. But the man was not one to lose his impassability.
"He was at the window, looking and listening: not, I believe, that he
could see and hear very much. And he afterwards went abroad and told
of the interview: told that his master had a secret visitor at night.
You little thought, Mr. Neal, that the visitor was myself, or that I
should ever bring it home to you."
Neal, all unconscious innocence, gazed straight forward into Captain
Davenal's face. "I have not the least idea what it is that you are
speaking of, sir. My recollection does not serve me upon the point."
"O yes, it does," said Captain Davenal. "A subtle nature such as yours
cannot forget so easily. Happily he to whom you carried the tale of
the evening was a trustworthy man: he kept his own counsel, and told
you Dr. Davenal's visitors were no business of his or of yours. I
speak of Mr. Oswald Cray."
"Mr. Oswald Cray!" repeated Neal, plunging into reflection. "On my
honour, sir, I have not the least idea of what it is you mean. A
visitor at night to my late master in his study? Stay, I do remember
something of it. I--yes--I was outside, taking a mouthful of fresh air
preparatory to retiring to rest, and I saw some one--a stranger I took
him to be--come stealthily in at the gate, and he was afterwards shut
in with my master. I'm sure sir, I beg your pardon, even at this
distance of time, if I was mistaken. I feared he might be a suspicious
character, and I think I did go to the window, anxious for my master's
personal safety. I could not have supposed it was you, sir."
Was it possible to take Neal at a disadvantage? It did not seem so.
"And it was anxiety for your master's personal safety that caused you
afterwards to recount this to Mr. Oswald Cray? Eh?"
"Does Mr. Oswald Cray say I recounted it to him, sir?" inquired Neal,
probably not feeling sure of his ground just here.
"That's my business," said Captain Davenal, while Sara looked round at
Neal. "You _did_ recount it to him."
"All I can say, sir, is, that if I did, I must have had some good
motive in it. I cannot charge my memory after this lapse of time. Were
I in any anxiety touching my master, Mr. Oswald Cray was probably the
gentleman I should carry it to, seeing he was a friend of the family.
I have--I think--some faint remembrance that I did speak to Mr. Oswald
Cray of that mysterious visitor," slowly added Neal, looking fixedly
up in the air, as if he were tying to descry the sun through a fog.
"It's very likely that I did, sir, not being at ease myself upon the
point."
Captain Davenal was losing patience. It seemed impossible to bring
anything home to Neal with any sort of satisfaction. At the close of
the captain's interview with Oswald Cray, the latter had mentioned--
but not in any ill-feeling to Neal--that that functionary had spoken
to him of the night interview at Dr. Davenal's; had said he was
outside the window at the time. Oswald had not said more; he deemed it
well not to do so; but Captain Davenal had become at once convinced
that it was but one of Neal's prying tricks. He turned to Miss
Davenal.
"Aunt Bettina, this is waste of time. In nearly the last interview I
ever had with my father he told me he had doubts of Neal. He feared
the man was carrying on a game of deceit. I _know_ he has been doing
it all along. Will you discharge him?"
"I can't understand it at all," returned Miss Bettina.
"_I_'ll enlighten you one of these days, when you are not very deaf,
and we can have a quiet half-hour together. Sara, what do you say?"
Sara rose from her seat, her cheek flushing, her voice firm. "Neal
must leave, Aunt Bettina," she said, bending down to the deaf ear.
"Edward is quite right."
Miss Bettina looked at them all in succession. Had she believed the
accusations she would have discharged Neal on the spot, but she
doubted them. She had thought there was not so faithful a servant in
the world. And he looked so immaculate as he stood there!
"I don't go out of the house this night until he has left it, Aunt
Bettina," resumed the captain.
"This night!" echoed Miss Bettina, catching the words. "I can't let
Neal go without warning, leaving us without a servant. Who is to wait
upon us?"
"You shall have my servant, aunt; one I have brought home with me----"
"No," said Miss Bettina, resolute in the cause of justice. "Neal, I
will not part with you in that hasty manner. I cannot judge yet
between you and Captain Davenal. That you must leave is obvious; but
you shall have the proper month's warning."
Neal stepped up, all suavity. "I beg your pardon, ma'am; you are very
kind, but I could not think of remaining a day to cause unpleasantness
in the family. I had better go at once. I have my feelings, ma'am,
although I am but a dependant. My conscience tells me that I have served
you faithfully."
"I think you have, Neal."
"I have indeed, ma'am, and I hope it will be remembered in my
character."
"Don't send to me for one," impetuously broke out Captain Davenal.
"And now, Neal, the sooner you are out of the house the better. I
shall keep my word: to see you away from it ere I quit it myself."
Neal bowed; he could but be ever the respectful servant: and retired.
Miss Davenal was bewildered. What with parting with Neal, what with
being left with nobody to replace him, she could not gather her
senses. Captain Davenal sat down. First of all promising her that the
servant he spoke of should be in the house before night, to remain
with her until she was suited with one, he next began to enlarge upon
Neal's delinquencies, and try to make her comprehend them.
Sara silently left the room. It was altogether a painful subject, and
she did not care to hear more of it now. She went down into the
dining-parlour, her movements slow and quiet; since Mrs. Cray's
increased danger noise had been avoided in the house as much as
possible. Some one was standing up by the mantelpiece, his back
towards her; in the dusk of the room--for evening was drawing on--Sara
took it to be Mark; and yet she thought she had heard Mark's step in
his wife's chamber now, as she came downstairs. This gentleman was
taller, too! He turned suddenly round, and the fire threw its light on
the face of Oswald Cray.
She stood a moment in surprise, and then went up to him, holding out
her hand as to any ordinary visitor, and saying a word of apology that
he should have been left there unannounced. A strange expression, an
expression of deprecation, almost of humility, sat on his features,
and he did not touch the offered hand.
"I waited to see you," he said. "I came here to see Mark, who has been
with me."
He stopped suddenly. His manner, his looks, were altogether strange.
Sara thought something must have happened.
"What is the matter?" she asked. "You look as if you had some great
care upon you."
"And so I have. That care that arises from shame and repentance; from
finding that we have been upon the mistaken road of wrong; been
treading it for years."
She sat down, quietly, timidly, looking to him for an elucidation,
half-frightened at his emotion.
"I wish to have an explanation with you, Sara. I want--if it be
possible--forgiveness. And I don't know how to enter upon the one or
to sue for the other."
She had rarely seen him otherwise than calmly self-possessed.
Generally, especially of late years, he was cold almost to a fault.
And now he was as one blazing with an inward fire: his lips were
scarlet, his brow was flushed, his voice quite hoarse with emotion.
"In the years gone by, I--I--threw you up, Sara. While I loved you
better than anything on earth, knowing that you were the only one upon
it who could ever awaken the passion within me, did I live to
centuries, I voluntarily resigned you. That night in the Abbey
graveyard at Hallingham, when we accidentally met--you have not
forgotten it--I told you that I could not marry you; that you were not
fit to be my wife----Hush! it was equivalent to it Sara, how can I stand
now before you and confess that I was altogether under an error; that
in my pride, my blindness, I had taken up a false view of things, and
was acting upon it? Can you see my shame, my repentance, as I say it
to you?"
"I don't understand you," she gasped, utterly bewildered.
"Will you so far pardon me--will you so far trust me after all that
has occurred--as to give me this one single word of explanation? To
whom did you attribute the cause of my acting in the way I did? Whose
ill-conduct was it, as you supposed, that had raised the barrier
between us?"
She hesitated, not perhaps caring to reply.
"I have had an interview today with Captain Davenal," he resumed, in a
low tone. "He has given me the details of the unhappy business he was
drawn into--the forged bills: I am, so far, in his entire confidence.
Will that help you to answer me?"
"It was that," she said.
"That alone?"
"That alone. There was nothing else."
"Well, Sara, can you believe me when I tell you that I never heard of
that business until today?--That Captain Davenal had nothing whatever
to do with my course of action?"
Indeed she looked as though she could not believe him. What else then?
she asked. Who had? Under what impression had he acted?
"Ah, there lies my shame! Sara, I dared--I dared to attribute
ill-conduct to another," he cried with emotion. "In my pride and
folly, in my mind's delusion, I presumed to set myself up for a judge
over one who in goodness might have crushed me to nothing. I shall
_never_ get over the remorse during life."
"You--did not--attribute ill-conduct of any sort to me?" she said with
white lips.
"To _you!_ To you whom I have ever believed to be one of the best and
truest women upon earth!--whom I have regarded through it all with an
amount of respect unutterable! No, no. But the question serves me
right."
She laid her hands one over the other as she sat, striving to keep her
feelings under control. Praise from him was all too sweet yet.
"O do me justice so far, Sara! While I gave you up I knew that to my
heart and judgment none were like unto you for goodness: I knew that
if my obstinate pride, my spirit of self-sufficiency, did but allow me
to marry you, you would be the greatest treasure man ever took to
himself. Can you tolerate me while I dare openly to say these
things?--can you believe that I am pouring them forth in my
humiliation? I have loved you deeply and fervently; I shall love you
always; but even that love has scarcely equalled my admiration and my
respect."
"But who else, then, could have had any counteracting influence?" she
returned, after a while.
"I dare not tell you."
"There was only Edward. I had no other brother. No one else could have
done anything to bring shame upon----oh, surely you cannot mean papa!"
she broke off, the improbable idea flashing over her.
"Don't ask me, Sara! In mercy to myself."
"Papa who was so good?" she reiterated, paying no heed to his words in
her wonder. "He was so just, so kind, so honourable! I think if ever
there was a good man on earth who tried to do as God would have him,
it was papa. It is impossible you could suspect anything wrong in
him!"
"My object in waiting to see you this evening was, first, to make my
confession; secondly, to ask you to be more just, more merciful than I
have been, and to forgive me," he rejoined in a low tone. "I must add
another petition yet, Sara; that you would generously allow this one
point to remain as it is between us."
"But I think you ought to tell me," she urged. "Did you indeed suspect
papa?"
"Yes."
"But of what?"
"Ah, don't press me further, Sara, for I cannot tell you. A singular
accident led me to doubt Dr. Davenal's conduct--honour--I hardly know
what to call it--and there followed on this a chain of circumstances
so apparently corroborative of the doubt that I thought I had no
resource but to believe. I believed, and I acted upon the belief: I
judged him harshly; I treated him coldly; I gave up you, my dearest
hope and object in life; and this day only have my eyes been opened,
and to my shame I learn that the whole thing, as regarded him, was a
delusion. _Will_ you--will you generously let my confession rest
here?"
"Papa would not have done as Edward did," she whispered.
"No, no, it was not anything of that nature. Money and money matters
had nothing to do with it. It was an entirely different thing. I am so
ashamed of myself that I cannot _bear_ to speak of this further.
Surely I have said enough. It was a mistake, a misapprehension
altogether: and the greatest act of kindness you can do me now is to
let it rest here."
She sat gazing at him with questioning eyes, nearly lost in wonder.
"Yes, the impression under which I acted was a false one. There
existed no cause whatever for my estranging myself from you. But for
my own unpardonable credulity I need never have given you up: and the
past years of anguish--and I know they have been full of anguish to
both of us--ought not to have had place. I was misled by an
unfortunate chain of events: and nothing remains to me but shame and
repentance."
There ensued a silence. Sara was standing on the hearth-rug now, and
he took his elbow from the mantelpiece, where it had been resting, and
moved a step towards her.
"Can I ever hope for your forgiveness?"
"It seems to me that I have nothing to forgive," she answered, in a
low voice. "If circumstances misled you, you could not be blamed for
acting upon them, according to your belief."
"Sara!"--he laid his hand upon her shoulder, and his voice shook with
the intensity of its emotion--"may I dare to hope that you will let me
in my future life strive to atone for this?"
"How atone for it?" she faltered.
"Will you generously look over the past folly?--will you suffer it to
be between us as it used to be?--will you be my wife at last?"
She trembled as she stood, the conscious light of love mantling in her
cheek and in her drooping eye. Mr. Oswald Cray held her before him,
waiting and watching for the answer, his lips parted with suspense.
"My brother's crime remains still," she whispered. "A memento of the
past."
"Your brother's crime! Should you be punished for that?--for him? And
what of _my_ brother?" he continued, the revelation of the day
imparting to his tone a whole world of remorse, of self-condemning
repentance. "What disgrace has not my brother brought to me? O Sara;
should the ill wrought by these ties part us? It never ought to have
done so. Let us stand alone, henceforth, you and I, independent of the
world! Don't try me too greatly! don't punish me, as in justice you
might!"
For a moment her eyes looked straight into his with a loving, earnest
glance, and then dropped again. "I will be your wife, Oswald," she
simply said. "I have never tried to forget you, for I knew I could
not."
And as if relief from the tension of suspense were too great for entire
silence, a faint sound of emotion broke from Oswald Cray. And he bent
to take from her lips that kiss, left upon them so long ago in the
garden-parlour of the old house at Hallingham.