by Ellen Wood
Oswald Cray determined to “drive” no more. He believed it would be useless, so far as Mark was concerned. He could not quite make him out: but he believed it would be useless. That there was something concealed, something not quite open, he saw; Mark’s manner alone would have told him that: and he came rapidly to the conclusion that Mark had been cognisant also of his partner’s opinion of chloroform as connected with Lady Oswald, and could not tell why he had tried it upon her, but did suppose, in spite of the face of affairs, that he had done it for the best All Mark’s embarrassment, his evasion, his crusty unwillingness to speak frankly, Oswald set down to an anxiety to screen Dr. Davenal from the reproach of imprudence. One more remark he did make. It arose to his mind as he was about to depart, and he spoke it on the spur of the thought “I understand you fancy that Dr. Davenal absented himself from Hallingham to avoid attending the coroner’s inquest.”
“Where on earth did you hear that?” shouted Mark, with a stare of surprise.
“Your wife mentioned it to me just now.”
Mark Cray waxed wroth. “What idiots women are! The very best of them! I shan’t be able to think my own thoughts next. Caroline knows I did not wish that repeated: it slipped from me without reflection.”
“It is quite safe with me, Mark. She looks upon me, I suppose, as one of yourselves. But why should Dr. Davenal have wished not to attend the inquest?”
“Oh, for nothing, only he thought they’d be putting all sorts of questions,” carelessly replied Mark. “It was a disagreeable thing altogether, and one of us was quite enough to attend. But, mind you, Oswald, I don’t really suppose he went for that: I make no doubt he had business out.”
“Well, good-night, Mark.”
“Good-night I wish you had come in.”
Mark Cray stepped on to his house, and let himself in with his latch-key, thinking how much better the world would go on if women had not been endowed with tongues, and wondering excessively what possessed Oswald to be taking up the death of Lady Oswald and putting these mysterious questions upon it
CHAPTER XXI.
THE INTERVIEW WITH THE DOCTOR.
DR. DAVENAL was alone in his study, pacing the carpet with heavy steps and a face that seemed to have all the care of the world marked on it, when Mr. Oswald Cray was shown in. Oswald could not avoid being struck with that expression of care; he had never seen the like upon the countenance of Dr. Davenal.
Turning his head, he looked at Oswald for the space of a minute as if not recognising him. He was too deeply buried in his own thoughts immediately to awake from them to everyday life.
“Good-evening, Dr. Davenal.”
He took Oswald’s outstretched hand, and was himself again. Oswald sat down and the doctor too. But after a few words, he rose, apparently in restlessness, and began to pace the room as before.
“Are you in any grief, doctor?”
“Well — yes I am,” was the reply. “Or perhaps I should rather say in vexation, for that is chiefly it We have had a line from Edward by the day post, and he expresses a doubt whether he shall be able to get down to say farewell. These young soldiers grow careless of home ties, Mr. Oswald Cray.”
“Not soldiers in particular, do they, sir? It is a reproach that can be cast upon many others who live in the world.”
“And get enslaved by it. True.”
“I did not mean altogether that, Dr. Davenal. When does your son sail?”
“On Sunday morning, he says. He does not positively say he is not coming down, only gives a hint that he fears he cannot. What did I do with the letter?” continued the doctor, looking round. “I brought it in with me after dinner. Oh, there it is,” he added, seeing it on a side table, and giving it to Oswald. “You can read what he says. Sara won’t mind. It is written for us all as well as for her, I expect. Edward was never a voluminous correspondent; his letters are generally pro bono publico.”
Oswald saw it was addressed to Miss Sara Davenal, and began to read it. It was dated the previous evening.
“MY DARLING SISTER, —
“We are in all the bustle and hurry of the start Orders have come at last, and we embark from Southampton on Sunday morning. I hope I shall get down to you to say good-bye. I am not unmindful of my promise to do so, and will do all I can to keep it; poor Dick used to tell me that I knew how to break promises better than I knew how to make them, but it shall not be my fault if you have to cast that on me as a last reproach. To absent one’s-self, even for an hour, is a difficult task now, but I will manage it, if possible. We have been worked off our heads and legs for the last few days.
“Love to all. I suppose Carry is fairly installed at the Abbey; wish her all good luck for me. — Ever yours, in much haste, “E. F. DAVENAL.”
“You see,” said the doctor, halting and pointing to the letter, “he emphasises the word ‘hope.’ ‘I hope I shall get down.’ That very fact is sufficient to tell me that he knows he shall not get down, and these lines have been sent as a sort of preparation for the final disappointment And he is going out for years! But I won’t blame him; perhaps it is an impossibility to him to get away. He should have remained longer when he came down for the wedding — have made it his farewell visit I said so then.”
Dr. Davenal began his walk to and fro again, — a very slow, thoughtful walk. Oswald folded the letter and laid it on the table.
“I have ever loved my children — I was going to say passionately, Mr. Oswald Cray. I believe few parents can love as I have loved. I have made — I have made sacrifices for them which the world little recks of, and anything like ingratitude touches me to the heart’s core. But in the midst of it I am the first to find excuses for them, and I say that Edward may not be at all to blame in this.”
“I think it very likely that he is quite unable to get away, however much he may wish it,” observed Oswald.
“I think so too. I say I don’t blame him. Only one feels these things.”
There ensued a silence. A feeling of dislike had come over Oswald (and he could not trace it to any particular cause) to enter upon the subject of Lady Oswald. But he was not one to give way to these fanciful phases of feeling which appear to arise without rhyme or reason, and he was about to speak when the doctor forestalled him.
“Lady Oswald’s death has brought you down, I presume?”
“Yes. I was in ignorance of it until this morning, when a formal invitation to attend the funeral reached me from the undertaker.
I had just read the announcement of the death in the ‘Times.’ How shocked I was, I cannot well express to you.”
“It has shocked us all.”
“Of course its reaching me in that abrupt manner, in the public column of deaths, did not tend to lessen the shock. I rather wonder you did not drop me a line yourself, Dr. Davenal.”
“I was away afterwards. Called out to a distance, I did not get back for a day or two. Did Mark not write?”
“Nobody wrote. Neither Mark nor Parkins; nor anybody else. As to Mark, he is careless as the wind; and Parkins excuses herself on the plea of having been so bewildered. I can readily believe her. Dr. Davenal, she died, as I am given to understand, from the effects of chloroform!”
“We thought, on the night of the accident, you know, that she was not seriously injured,” said Dr. Davenal. “At least, Mark thought it: I had my doubts: but I left him to see to her at her own desire. Unfortunately I was called out early on Sunday morning.
I was wanted at Thorndyke: and when I got back the injury had been ascertained, and an operation found necessary. It was under that operation she died.”
“But the operation was performed successfully?”
“Quite so.”
“And what she died of was the inhaling of the chloroform?”
“It was.”
“But — I cannot understand why chloroform should have been given to her?” deliberately proceeded Oswald.
“It was given to her,” was all the reply he obtained.
“But — pardon me for recalling it to you, Dr. Davenal — do you remember the very decided opinion you expressed to me, when we were going down to the scene of accident, against giving chloroform to Lady Oswald? We were speaking of its opposite effects upon different natures, and you cited Lady Oswald as one to whom, in your opinion, it might prove dangerous. You stated-that, so far as you believed, it would be neither better nor worse to her than poison.” Oswald waited for a reply, but the doctor made none. He was pacing the small room with his measured tread, his hands in his pockets, his eyes bent on the carpet.
“Have you any objection to explain to me this apparent contradiction? It is impossible to believe that one, whose opinion of chloroform in relation to her was so fatal, would in a few hours cause her to inhale it.”
Dr. Davenal stopped in his walk and confronted Oswald.
“Have you seen Mark since you came down?”
“Yes.”
“And what does he say?”
“Well, I don’t fancy he understands it much better than I do. He reiterates that it was given her for the best. In his opinion it may have been. But it surely could not have been in yours, Dr. Davenal.”
Dr. Davenal turned from Oswald to his pacing again. A strong temptation was upon him to tell Oswald the truth. O that he had! that he had!
There were few people in the world whom he esteemed as he esteemed Oswald Cray. There was no one else in the world to whom he had expressed this opinion of the unfitness of Lady Oswald as a subject for chloroform, and the wish to explain, to exonerate himself, arose forcibly within him. The next moment he asked himself why Mark Cray himself had not spoken. As he had not, it seemed to Dr. Davenal that it would be a breach of friendship, of partnership, for him to speak. Oswald was connected, too, with Lady Oswald, and might take up the matter warmly. No, he felt in his ever-considerate heart that he could not betray Mark, could not set one brother against the other. And he put the temptation from him.
Oswald watched him as he walked, wondering at the silence. A silence which the doctor evidently did not feel inclined to break.
“Do you remember expressing this opinion to me, Dr. Davenal?”
“Yes, I believe I did so express it.”
“And yet you acted in diametrical opposition to it immediately afterwards, and caused Lady Oswald to inhale chloroform? Will you forgive me for again asking how it could have been?”
“The very best of us are led into error sometimes,” replied Dr. Davenal.
“Why, that is one of the remarks Mark has just made to me in connection with this case! I cannot recognise it as applying to it You spoke so firmly, so positively, that I should have believed there was no room for error to creep in. I feel that there is something to be explained, Dr. Davenal.”
Dr. Davenal wheeled round in his walk and confronted Oswald.
“There are circumstances connected with this case, Mr. Oswald Cray, which I cannot explain to the world; which I cannot explain even to you; although I would rather tell them to you than to any one. Let it suffice to know that I could not save Lady Oswald. It was not in my power.”
“But you could have saved — you could have helped giving her the chloroform?” returned Oswald, wonderingly.
A slight pause. “Will you oblige me by asking no further questions on the subject — by allowing it to drop, to me and to others? Believe me, I have no selfish motive in pressing this. No one living can regret more than I the fatal result to Lady Oswald; perhaps nobody regrets it so keenly. Could I have saved her, no care, no skill, no labour, should have been spared. But I could not I can only ask you to be satisfied with this meagre assurance, Mr. Oswald Cray; and to believe me when I state that I have private reasons for declining to pursue the topic.”
“And — pardon me — one more question: To what am I to attribute her death in my own mind? Or rather this giving of the chloroform?”
“You must look upon it as an error in judgment. It was such.”
It was impossible for Oswald Cray, as a gentleman, to press further the matter. Dr. Davenal was an old man compared with him; one of high reputation, skill, position. He could not understand it, but he could only bow to the request — nay, to the demand — and let the subject sink into silence. An awkward pause ensued. The doctor had not resumed his promenade, but stood under the gas-lamp, twirling a quill pen in his fingers which he had taken up.
“How are the other sufferers from the accident getting on?” inquired Oswald, when the silence was beginning to be heard.
“Oh, quite well. Poor Bigg the fireman is nearly the only one of them left in the Infirmary, and he will soon be out of it. The rest came off mostly with a few cuts and bruises. There’s a summons for me, I suppose.”
The doctor alluded to a knock at the hall-door. Neal came in.
“Mr. Wheatley, sir. He wishes to know if you can spare him ten minutes.”
“Yes,” replied the doctor, and Oswald rose.
“Will you walk upstairs and see them?”
“Not to-night, thank you.”
“I won’t press you,” said the doctor. “Sara is cut up about this news from Edward, terribly disappointed; and Aunt Bett is as cross as two sticks. She is fond of Edward, with all her ungraciousness to him, and she looks upon this hint of not coming down as a slight to herself. In manner she was always ungracious to the boys, from some idea I believe that it tended to keep them in order. But she loved them at heart. Good-night.”
Dr. Davenal clasped his hand with a warm pressure, warmer than usual; Oswald could not but feel it, and he went out perfectly mystified.
Neal stepped on to open the front gate. Neal was always remarkably courteous and deferent to Mr. Oswald Cray. Oswald, who had only seen the best side of Neal, and never suspected there was a reverse one, looked upon him as a man to be respected, a faithful old retainer of the Oswald family. Lady Oswald had sung his praises times out of number in Oswald’s ear, and she once told Oswald to try for Neal should he ever require a servant about his person, for he would find Neal a man of fidelity, worth his weight in gold. Oswald believed her. He believed Neal to be faithful and true; one whom doubt could not touch.
“This death of your late mistress is a very sad thing, Neal.”
“O sir! I can’t express to you how I have felt it. I’m sure I can say that my lady was a true friend to me, the only one I had left.”
“No, no, Neal. Not the only one. You may count a friend in me — if only in respect to the regard you were, I know, held in by Lady Oswald.”
“Thank you, sir, greatly and honest Neal’s eyes swam in tears as he turned them to Mr. Oswald Cray under the light of his master’s professional gas-lamp. “Sir,” he added, swaying forward the gate and dropping his voice as he approached nearer to Oswald, “how came that poison, that chloroform, to be given to her?” —
“I cannot tell; I cannot understand,” replied Oswald, speaking upon impulse, not upon reflection.
“Sir, if I might dare to say a word” — and Neal glanced round with caution on all sides as he spoke—” I’d ask whether it was given in fairness?”
“What do you mean, Neal?”
“There’s not a person in the world I’d venture to whisper such a thing to, sir, except yourself; but I doubt whether it was given in fairness. I have a reason for doubting it, sir; a particular reason. It makes me sick, sir, to think that there was some unfair play brought to work, and that it took her life.”
“Unfair play on the part of whom?” asked Oswald.
“I am not sure that I dare say, sir, even to you. And it might be looked upon as — as — fancy on my part One thing is certain, sir, that but for that chloroform being given to her, she’d be alive now.”
“Dr. Davenal and Mr. Cray gave the chloroform, Neal,” observed Mr. Oswald Cray, in a somewhat distant tone — for it was not to Neal he would admit any doubt, scarcely condescend to hear any, of the judgment of the surgeons. “They know better about such things than we do.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Neal, as drily as he dared. “Mr. Cray, I am sure, did his best, but he has not had the judgment and experience of my master. Anyway, it seems it was the chloroform that killed her.”
“As it has killed others before her — when administered in all deliberate judgment by surgeons of as high repute and practice as Dr. Davenal. The issues of life and death are not even in a doctor’s hands, Neal. Good-night.”
“Good-night to you, sir.”
Oswald Gray walked slowly towards his temporary home, the “Apple Tree,” half bewildered with the conjectural views opened out to him, and not the least with that last hint of Neal’s. He could not get over that giving of the chloroform by Dr. Davenal in the very teeth of his expressed opinion against it He had supposed, when he first heard of the cause of death, that this contradiction would be explained away: but, instead of that, it was more unexplainable than before. There was Mark’s confused manner, his covert attempts to avoid inquiry; there was Dr. Davenal’s positive denial to satisfy it; there was the man Neal’s curious hint Oswald Cray felt as one in a maze, trying to get at something which eluded his grasp.
How the imagination runs riot, how utterly unamenable it is to the rules and regulations of sober control, we most of us know.
Oswald found his mind balancing the question, “Did Richard Davenal give that chloroform in his calm deliberate senses, believing that it might take her life? If so, where was the motive?” Men don’t do such things in these days without a motive; the greatest criminal must have that. Oswald Cray could see none. There was no motive, or shadow of motive, for Dr. Davenal’s wishing for the death of Lady Oswald. Quite the contrary; it was his interest — if so worldly a plea may be brought into proximity with these solemn thoughts — to keep her in life. Of all his patients, she perhaps was the most profitable, paying him a good sum yearly. Then — with the want of motive, those dark doubts, born of his imagination, fell to the ground, and he had the good sense to see that they did.
They fell to the ground. And Oswald Cray, as he awoke with a start, and shook himself clear of them, pinched his arms to see whether he was awake. Surely only in his sleep could doubts such as those have arisen of Dr. Davenal!