by Ellen Wood
“I can’t help it,” he said to her one day. “I suppose I am worse than you think.”
For the truth, or rather a suspicion of it, had at length dawned on Dr. Davenal — that he was more seriously ill than he had allowed himself to imagine. Unfavourable symptoms connected with his chest and lungs had forced themselves upon his notice on that very morning, and he asked himself what they meant, and what they boded. Had he neglected himself too long?
It was the 24th of January, a notable day in the doctor’s household, for it was his birthday, and was always kept amongst themselves. Dick and Leo made the day a plea for the extension of their holidays. The school generally re-opened about a week earlier, but of course, as they told their uncle, they could not go back with his birthday so near: they must stay to wish him many happy returns of it. Miss Davenal saw no reason in the plea, and was severe when the doctor allowed it — as he always did; she would never keep boys at home a single hour after the school opened. But with Uncle Richard to back them, Dick and Leo did not care for Aunt Bettina.
Yes, it was on this morning that Dr. Davenal awoke to the serious state of his own health. If what he suspected was true, he feared he should not be long in this world.
He said nothing. He went out as usual in his dose carriage, which he had latterly used, and forgot not a single call. But he said to himself that perhaps in a few days, when he should have brought through, if Heaven willed, one or two patients who were lying in extreme danger, he might make arrangements for stopping at home and nursing himself.
On this same day the doctor again saw Oswald Cray. He had occasion to give some directions to Mark, missed seeing him at the Infirmary, and told Roger to drive to the Abbey. Upon entering, he found not Mark but Oswald. Oswald, it appeared, had just called, and was waiting for Mrs. Cray to come down. Mark was out Dr. Davenal cherished no resentment He deemed that Oswald Cray had behaved to him badly, but he had never been of a retaliating spirit, and least of all was he inclined to it now.
The doctor pressed Oswald Cray’s hand cordially as he shook it The thought flashed over him that he would make one more effort towards a reconciliation. A few moments given to commonplace salutations, and then he spoke.
“This is my birthday, Mr. Oswald Cray. Mark and Caroline are coming to dine with us: will you join them?”
“You are very kind. But I must go up to London by the seven train.”
Not a word of “wishing” he could come, or regret that he could not. The doctor noticed that; he noticed also that his tone was more polite than warm. But he did not yet give him up.
“It may be the last birthday I shall see. We shall be glad to welcome you.”
“I hope you will see many yet; but I am obliged to return to town. Thank you all the same.”
Coldly courteous still! Dr. Davenal, who would not wait, as Mark was out, again offered his hand in parting.
“Some estrangement has come between us which I do not understand, Mr. Oswald Cray. Remember what I say, should this be the last time we speak together, that it is you who have to answer for it, not I.”
“One word, Dr. Davenal,” for the doctor was turning away to regain his carriage. “Believe at least this much, that none can regret the estrangement more than I regret it.”
“Is it explainable?”
“Not by me,” replied Oswald, somewhat of his old hauteur coming upon him. He honestly believed in his heart that Dr. Davenal, in saying these few words, was but acting a part “Fare you well,” said the doctor as he went out.
“Farewell,” repeated Oswald. And they were the last words ever spoken between them.
It was a social family dinner that evening at Dr. Davenal’s, and for some of its partakers a right merry one. Mark Cray and his wife were merry as heart could wish, the two boys boisterously so, Miss Davenal gracious. Sara was quiet, the doctor was ill, and a gentleman whom the doctor had invited after Oswald Cray declined, was grieving over the alteration so conspicuously visible in Dr. Davenal.
This was the Rev. John Stephenson. He was at Hallingham on business, had called that afternoon on Dr. Davenal, and the doctor had pressed him to stay dinner.
When the cloth was removed, and Mr. Stephenson had said grace, and Dick and Leo were up to their eyes in nuts and oranges, Mark Cray stood in his place and made a natty little speech. Mark was fond of making speeches: they were a great deal more to his taste than surgical operations. His present effort lasted five minutes, and wound up with wishing the doctor many happy returns of the day.
“Hurrah!” shouted Dick. “Uncle Richard, I hope you’ll have a hundred birthdays yet!”
“And plenty of good things for you to eat as they come round, eh, Dick?” rejoined the doctor with a smile.
“Oh, of course,” cried Dick, his eyes sparkling. “ It always does come in the Christmas holidays, you know.”
The doctor slightly rose from his chair, leaning with both hands on the table. His manner was subdued, his voice inexpressibly gentle and loving.
“My dear friends, I thank you for your kindness; I thank you from my very heart I am not well, and you must accept these few words in answer to Mark’s more elaborate speech. It may be the last time I shall be here to receive your good wishes or to thank you for them. May God bless you!” — and he raised his hands slowly and solemnly—” May God bless and love you all when I shall be gone!”
The words took them utterly by surprise. Sara bent her head, and pressed her hands upon her bosom as if to press down the sudden sobs that seemed as if they would choke her; Dick and Leo stared; Miss Bettina complacently nodded her acknowledgments, she knew not why, for she had failed to hear; and Caroline looked up in wonder. Mark Cray was the first to speak “Do you feel ill, sir?”
“Not particularly; not much more so than I have felt lately. I don’t think I am very well, Mark.”
“You are overworked, sir. You must take some rest.”
“Rest may be nearer for me than we think, Mark.”
“O papa, don’t!” wailed Sara. “Don’t speak so unless you would break my heart!”
Her emotion had become uncontrollable, and the anguish had spoken out Never until that moment had the prospect of losing her father been brought palpably before Sara, and it was more than she well knew how to bear. In spite of her natural reticence of feeling, of the presence of a stranger, she quite shook with her hysterical sobs.
Miss Davenal was frightened, and somewhat indignant: she bent her head forward. “ What on earth’s the matter with Sara?”
“Hush, Aunt Bettina,” called out Mrs. Cray. “Don’t scold her. Uncle Richard has been talking gloomily. He says he is ill.”
“Ill! of course he is ill,” retorted Miss Bettina, who had contrived to hear. “He won’t eat He is out and about with his patients from morning till night, and then comes in too tired to eat anything. He has not swallowed a couple of ounces of meat all the last week. What can he expect but to be ill? But there’s no cause for Sara to burst into a violent fit of crying over it Will you be so kind as to excuse it, sir?” she added, in her stately courtesy, to the clergyman who was sitting at her right hand.
He bowed. A man who has known long-continued adversity can feel for sorrow, and his heart was aching for the grief of the child, and for the serious change he saw in the father, his benefactor. Mark turned to Miss Davenal.
“It is just what I say, Miss Bettina, that the doctor is overworked. He wants a week or two’s rest.”
“And what are you good for if you can’t contrive that he should have it?” was her answer. “I think you might see his patients for him.” —
“So I could,” answered Mark. “Only he won’t let me.”
Sara’s emotion was subsiding: she sat very still now, her head a little bent, as if ashamed of having betrayed it; the tears dried upon her cheeks, but an uncontrollable sob broke from her now and then. Dr. Davenal had taken her hand under the table, for she sat next to him, and was holding it in his.
�
�You foolish child!” he fondly whispered.
“Papa, if — if anything were to happen to you — if you were to go and leave me here alone, I should die,” was the answer, uttered passionately.
“Hush, hush! My darling, you and I are alike in the hands of a loving God.”
She laid her fingers again upon her bosom. How violently it was beating, how difficult it was to still its throbs of pain, she alone knew.
“I met that gentleman this afternoon, the connection of Lady Oswald’s whom I saw for the first time the day of the funeral,” spoke up the clergyman, breaking the silence which had fallen upon the room. “Mr. Oswald Cray.”
“I met him, too,” said the doctor. “It was at your house, Mark. I asked him to come here to-day, but he declined.”
“He is gone back to town, I think,” said Mark.
“He said he was going.”
“Did you ask him to dine here, Uncle Richard?” cried Leo.
“I did, my boy.”
“And wouldn’t he?” rejoined Mark.
“No, he wouldn’t. And, mind, I think he wouldn’t; although he declined upon the plea of having to get back to town.”
“My! what a stupid duff he was!” exclaimed Richard. “Did he know there was going to be a turkey and plum-pudding?”
“I didn’t tell him that, Dick. My impression is, that he never means to enter our house again,” the doctor added in a low tone to his daughter.
“But why?” exclaimed Caroline, who sat on the other side the doctor, and caught the words. “There must be something extraordinary at the bottom of all this.”
“Never mind going into it now, Carine,” whispered the doctor. “His grievance is connected with Lady Oswald’s will, but we need not say so before Mr. Stephenson.”
Sara looked up hastily, impulsive words rising to her lips; but she recollected herself, and bent her head again in silence. Not even to her father dared she to say that his conclusion was a mistaken one.
“Uncle Richard, now that I look at you, it does appear to me that you are changed for the worse,” remarked Mrs. Cray. “You must nurse yourself, as Mark says. Hallingham would not understand your being ill, you know.”
“True,” laughed the doctor.
Caroline Cray, seeing her Uncle daily, or nearly so, had not perceived the great change which had been gradually going on in him. But to Mr. Stephenson, who had not met him since the time of Lady Oswald’s death, it was all too palpable; as it had been that day to Oswald Cray.
“We must not forget the captain to-day, doctor,” spoke up Mark. “Have you heard from him again?”
“O yes.”
“How does he like his Maltese quarters?”
“I am not sure that he has said. It is not of much consequence whether he liked them or not The regiment was ordered on to India.”
“To India!”
“Yes.”
It was impossible not to note the sad tone in which the monosyllable was spoken. Dr. Davenal had begun to know that he and his son should never again meet on earth: the son whom he so loved!
Somehow, what with one thing and another, that birthday evening was a sadder one than they had been accustomed to spend. Mark Cray, as he walked home with his wife afterwards, remarked that it was “slow.” But nobody dreamt of anything like fear for the doctor, save his daughter and the Reverend Mr. Stephenson.
“I can never be sufficiently grateful to you, sir,” murmured the clergyman, as he was leaving. “Neither can my brother. You have done for us what I believe no other man living would have done. May Heaven reward you, and restore you to health and strength!”
“I did but my duty,” answered the doctor. “The money belonged to you, not to me. I am only glad there were no vexatious legal obstacles brought up to obstruct the transfer. I shall always be glad to see you, remember, when you come to Hallingham.”
Mr. Stephenson thanked him. But as he went out, the impression was strong upon his mind that the doctor himself would not long be in Hallingham.
And Sara? What must it have been for her! Her mind was one chaos of tumultuous emotion. She seemed to have accepted the fear as a certainty, to have been obliged to accept it Oh, what would save him? — could not the whole faculty restore his precious life? She passed another night of anguish, like unto the one she had passed nearly two months before, after parting with Oswald Cray in the Abbey graveyard — like it, but more apprehensively painful; and she wondered how she got through it.
With the morning, things did not wear so intensely gloomy an aspect The broad daylight, the avocations and bustle of daily life, are an antidote to gloom, and the worst prospect loses some of its darkness then. Sara tried to reason with herself that he could not have become so ill on a sudden as to be past recovery, she tried to say that it was foolish even to think it.
But her mind could not be at rest, her state of suspense was intolerable, and before entering the breakfast-room she knocked at her father’s study-door, and entered. Dr. Davenal was closing the Bible.
“What is it, my dear?”
“O papa” — and the words came forth with a burst of pent-up anguish— “I cannot live in this suspense. What did you mean last night? What is it that is the matter with you?”
“I scarcely know, Sara. Only that I feel ill.”
“But — you — cannot — be going to die?”
“Hush, my child! You must not agitate yourself in this way. Die? Well, no, I hope not,” he added, quite in a joking manner. “I feel ten per cent better this morning than I did yesterday.”
“Do you?” she eagerly cried. “But — what you said last night?—”
“Last night I felt gloomy — oppressed. Serious thoughts do intrude themselves sometimes on one’s birthday. And I was really ill yesterday. I feel quite a different man to-day.”
Her fears were growing wonderfully calmer. “You are sure, papa?”
“Sure of what? That I am better? — I am sure I feel so. I shall be all right, child, I hope.”
“Won’t you have advice, papa?” she imploringly said.
“Advice? That’s a compliment to myself, young lady. Hallingham would tell you that there’s no advice better than Dr. Davenal’s own.”
“But, papa — I mean different advice. I thought of the clever London doctors. You must have them down to see you.”
“Some of the clever London doctors would be glad of the countryman Richard Davenal’s advice. Seriously speaking, my dear, though I say it in all modesty, I don’t believe there’s a man in Europe more skilful than myself.”
“But they might suggest remedies that you would not think of. O papa! if there’s a necessity, do summon them.”
“Be assured of one thing, Sara, and set your mind at rest. Should the necessity arise, I will not fail to seek any one or anything that I think may help me. My life has not of late been a happy one, but I am not quite tired of it; I wish I may live long, not only for your sake, but for — for other interests. There’s a double necessity for it now.”
“And you will not go out to-day, papa?”
“To-day I must I have not made arrangements to the contrary. But I do mean to give myself a rest, perhaps beginning with tomorrow. I feel a great deal better to-day — quite another man.”
How the words lightened her heart! Dr. Davenal really did feel much better, and the saddened spirit, the almost ominous feeling, which had clung to him the night before, had vanished. But he spoke more lightly of his illness than he would have done had he not seen how it was affecting her.
Dick came drumming at the door, and then pushed it open with a bang.
“Breakfast’s waiting, Uncle Richard. And Aunt Bett —
Why! are you there?” broke off the young gentleman as his eyes fell upon Sara. “I’m afraid you’ll catch it Aunt Bett thinks you are not down, and it’s ten minutes past eight.”
“Are you ready for school, Dick?” asked his uncle. “Elated at the prospect of returning?”
Dick pul
led a long face. The two boys were going back that day. A sore trial to Dick, who, it must be confessed, had been born with an innate antipathy to books.
“You’ll have us home at Easter, Uncle Richard?” he pleaded in a piteous tone.
“Not if I know it, Dick. Holidays twice a-year were thought quite enough in my school-days, and I see no reason for their nut being thought enough now.”
“Half the boys go home at Easter — and stop a fortnight,” bemoaned Dick.
“Very likely. If half the boys have friends who prefer play to work for them, I’m only glad the other half set a better example. Dicky, boy, you’ll enjoy your Midsummer holidays all the more keenly for having none at Easter.”’
The doctor caught hold of the boy and wound his arm affectionately round him as they proceeded across the hall to the breakfast-room. Miss Davenal greeted Sara with one of her severest aspects, but before she could begin her lecture, Mark Gray had burst in upon them.
“Have you heard the news?” he exclaimed, in a state of excitement never yet witnessed in easy Mark Cray. “Doctor, have you had letters yet?”
“What news? What letters?” asked the doctor.
“Caroline has got her money.”
“Caroline got her money?” repeated Dr. Davenal, understanding no better than the rest did.
“The Chancery case is decided,” explained Mark. “Judgment was given yesterday, and it is in their favour. She’ll get the money directly now.”
“How do you know this, Mark?”
“It is in the evening papers — reported in full. I call for my letters sometimes if I am passing the post-office, and I did so this morning and got this paper. White, the lawyer, sent it, I expect, and we shall no doubt hear by this evening’s post.”
“Well, Mark, I am very glad. Justice lay on Caroline’s side; therefore it is right that she should have it You must settle it upon her as soon as you touch the money.”
“Oh, of course,” said Mark.