by Ellen Wood
“They’ll not be kept out now, doors or no doors,” said he quietly to Mark.
Mr. Barker was right Ere the words had died away upon his lips a sound as if the walls of the house were being beaten in ensued. The bells commenced a perpetual peal the knocker knocked incessantly, the doors were pushed and kicked and thumped. In the midst of it rose the sound of human voices in a roar: disjointed words distinguishable amidst the tumult “Let us in! Come out to us!”
Mr. Barker advanced to the stairs, and leaned over the balustrades. “Williams,” he called out to an attendant official below, “you can open the doors. The gentlemen may come up.”
It was curious to note the difference in the two men. Barker was as cool as a cucumber; self-possessed as ever he had been in his life; ready to make the best of everything, and quite equal to the emergency. Mark Cray, on the contrary, seemed to have parted alike with his wits and his nerves. Not more completely did he lose his presence of mind in that long past evening which had been so fatal to Lady Oswald. His hands shook as with terror; his face was white as death.
“Will they pull us to pieces, Barker?”
“Pooh!” said Barker, with a laugh at the evident tremor. “What has taken you, Mark? Let them rave on a bit without answering, and they’ll calm down. Put that in your pocket,” he continued. “It will be a trifle to fall back upon.”
He had touched the diamond Ting that glittered on Mark Cray’s finger. Mark obeyed like a child. He took it from his hand and thrust it into his waistcoat pocket; next he buttoned his coat, some vague feeling perhaps prompting him to hide the studs; but he did it all mechanically, as one not conscious of his actions. Terror was holding its sway over him.
“Why should they be excited against us? Heaven knows we have not intentionally wronged them.”
“That’s just the question I shall ask them myself when they are cool enough to listen to it,” rejoined Barker with a gay air. “Now then comes the tug of war.”
In they came, thick and threefold, dashing up the stairs and pouring into the room like so many bees. And then it was found that Mark’s apprehensions had been somewhat premature. For these shareholders had come flowing to the offices not so much to abase the projectors of the company as to inquire the true particulars of the disaster. The news had gone forth in a whisper — and to this hour neither Mark nor Barker knows how, or through whom, it had oozed out — but that whisper was vague and uncertain. Naturally those interested flew to the offices for better information. Was the damage of great extent? and would the mine and the company stand it?
Barker was of course all suavity. He treated the matter more as a joke than anything else, making light of it altogether. An irruption of water? well, perhaps a little drop had got in, but they must wait for the afternoon’s post. It would be all right.
He looked round for Mark, hoping that gentleman’s face would not arouse suspicion; but he could not see him. Mark, as Barker learnt afterwards, had contrived to escape from the room as the throng entered, and got into the street unnoticed, and leaped into a cab. Mark was beside himself that morning.
The unfortunate news spread from one end of London to the other. It was carried to Oswald Cray; but the day was advancing then. “The Great Wheal Bang Company had exploded, and there was a run upon the office.” Oswald was startled; and betook him-self at once to the premises, as the rest had done. On his way he called in upon Henry Oswald, and spoke a word of caution.
“It may be a false rumour,” said he; “I hope it is. But don’t do anything in the shares until you know.”
A false rumour! When Oswald reached the offices he found it all too true a one. The secretary to the company, without meaning to do ill — indeed he had let it out in his lamentation — had unwittingly disclosed the fact of the previous irruption of water in the summer: and the excited crowd were going wild with anger. Many of them had bought their shares at a period subsequent to that.
Oswald heard this, and went to Mr. Barker in the board-room. That gentleman, rather heated certainly, but with unchanged suavity of demeanour, was still doing his best to reassure everybody Oswald drew him aside.
“What a dreadful thing this is! What is the real truth of it?”
“Hush!” interrupted Mr. Barker. “No need to tell the worst to them. You are one of us. I’m afraid it is all up with the mine; but we will keep it from them as long as we can. Any way, it’s no fault of ours.”
“What is it that they are saying about an irruption of water having occurred in the summer?”
“Well, so it did,” answered Mr. Barker, whose past few hours’ temporising with the crowd caused him perhaps to throw off reserve to Mr. Oswald Cray as a welcome relief. “But it wasn’t much, that; and we succeeded in keeping it dark.”
“Did Mark know of it?”
“Mark know of it!” rejoined Barker; “of course he knew of it. What should hinder him? Why, the telegram bringing the news was given me at Mark’s house; and, by the way, you were present, I remember. It was the evening that old doctor in the yellow trousers was there, with his two frights of daughters.”
The scene rose as in a mirror before Oswald’s memory. Dr Ford and his daughters, Miss Davenal and Sara, Caroline Cray in her silks and her beauty He remembered the telegram, he remembered that it appeared to disturb both Barker and Mark; and’ he remembered Mark’s denial to him that anything was amiss with the mine.
“I do recollect it,” he said aloud. “It struck me — perhaps it was rather singular it should do so — that something was wrong. Mark declared to me that it was not so.”
The words seemed to tickle Barker uncommonly.
“Ah,” said he, laughing, “Mark told me of it, and how he turned you off the scent. You’d not have put your thousand into it, perhaps, had you known of the water.”
“Perhaps not,” quietly replied Oswald. “And my thousand was wanted, I suppose.”
“Law! you don’t know the money that’s been wanted,” was the response. “And that irruption of water, slight as it was, made the demand for it worse. The mine has sucked it in like a sponge.” Oswald made no answering remark. “I suppose this irruption is worse than that?” he presently observed.
“Indeed I fear this is another thing altogether — ruin. But we don’t know anything certain until the post comes in this afternoon. We have had no letter yet.”
“How did the news of it come to you?”
“By telegram. But the first news came to Mark; in an odd manner, too. A curmudgeon of a shareholder, old Brackenbury, went up yesterday evening to Mark just as he was going out to dinner with his wife, and insisted upon his paltry money, only two hundred pounds, being returned to him. He was inclined to be nasty; and if Mark had not satisfied him he’d have gone over London proclaiming that the mine was overflowing with water. The odd thing is, who could have telegraphed the news to him. We must have a traitor in the camp. Mark told me — oh, ah,” broke off Mr. Barker, interrupting himself as a recollection flashed upon him—” I think he got the two hundred from you.”
“And Mark knew the mine was then ruined!” returned Oswald, drawing in his lips, but not losing his calm equanimity.
“Brackenbury said it was. He didn’t know it otherwise. Brackenbury — Halloa! what’s that?”
It was a shout in the street A shout composed of roars, and hisses, and groans. Drawing up to the door of the offices was the handsome carriage of Mark Cray; and the crowd had turned their indignation upon it One look, one glimpse of the white and terror-stricken faces of its inmates, and Oswald Cray bounded down the stairs. They were the faces of Mrs. Cray and Sara Davenal.
What could have brought them there?
CHAPTER XLVIII.
DAY-DREAMS RUDELY INTERRUPTED.
BEFORE a costly breakfast service of Sèvres porcelain, with its adjuncts of glittering silver, on the morning subsequent to the visit of Mr. Brackenbury, had sat Caroline Cray, in a charming morning robe of white muslin and blue ribbons, with what she
would have called a coiffure, all blue ribbons and white lace, on her silky hair. A stranger, taking a bird’s-eye view of the scene, of the elegant room, the expensive accessories, the recherché attire of its mistress, would have concluded that there was no lack of means, that the income supporting all this must at least be to the extent of some thousands a-year.
In truth Mark Cray and his wife were a practical illustration of that homely but expressive saying which must be so familiar to you all; they had begun at the wrong end of the ladder. When fortune has come; when it is actually realised, in the hands, then the top of the ladder, comprising its Sèvres porcelain and other costs in accordance, may be safe and consistent; but if we begin there without first climbing to it, too many of us have an inconvenient fashion of slipping down again. The furniture surrounding Caroline Cray was of the most beautiful design, the most costly nature; the lace on that morning-robe, on that pretty “coiffure,” would make a hole in a £20 bank-note, the silver ornaments on the table were fit for the first palace in the land, and Mr and Mrs. Cray had got these things about them — and a great deal more besides which I have not time to tell you of — anticipatory of the fortune that was to be theirs; not that already was. And now their footing on that high ladder was beginning to tremble: just as that of the milkmaid did when she sent the milk out of her milk-pails, and so destroyed her dreams.
Caroline sat at her late breakfast, toying with a fashionable newspaper — that is, one giving notice of the doings of the fashionable world — sipping her coffee, flirting with some delicate bits of buttered roll, casting frequent glances at the mirror opposite to her, in whose polished plate was reflected that pretty face, which in her pardonable vanity she believed had not its compeer. All unconscious was she of that turbulent scene then being enacted in the City; of the fact that her husband was at that moment finding his way to her in a cab, into which he had jumped to hide himself in abject fear and dismay. Caroline had slept sound and late after her night’s gaiety, and awoke in the morning to find her husband had gone out The French clock behind her struck eleven, and she finished her breakfast quickly, and began thinking over her plans for the day. Some excursion into the country had been spoken of for the afternoon, and now Mark was gone she was at an uncertainty. Mrs. Cray tapped her pretty foot in petulance on the carpet, and felt exceedingly angry with the tiresome stranger who had disturbed her husband when he was dressing on the previous evening, and kept him from going out with her to dinner.
“How long did that gentleman stop here last night, George?” she suddenly asked of the servant who was removing the breakfast things. “ Mr. — what was the name? Brackenbury, I think.”
“He stopped a good while, ma’am. I think it was between nine and ten when he left.”
“What a shame! Keeping Mr. Cray all that while. I wonder he stayed with him! I would’nt. I’d make people come to me in business hours, if I were Mark.”
She sat on, after the departure of the breakfast things, leaning back in an easy chair and turning carelessly the leaves of a new novel, those that would open, for she did not exert herself to cut them. A very listless mood was she in that morning, tired and out of sorts. By and by her maid came in to ask about some alteration that was to be made in a dress, and Caroline told her to bring the dress to her.
That a little aroused her. It was a beautiful evening dress of flowered silk, and she stood over the table where the maid laid it, consulting with her about some change in the colour of the trimmings. Becoming absorbed in this, she scarcely noticed that some one had come into the hail and opened the door of the room. Some expression in the maid’s countenance as she looked up caught her attention, and she turned quickly round.
Mark was there, glancing into the room. Mark with a white aspect and a scared dreamy look on his face. Before Caroline had time to question, in fact almost before she looked, he was gone and had closed the door again. So quiet had been the movement, so transient the vision, that Caroline spoke in her surprise.
“Was not that your master?”
“Yes, ma’am. Something was the matter, I think. He looked ill.”
“I will go and see. Mind, Long, I’ll decide upon pink. It is the prettiest colour.”
“Very well, ma’am. As you please, of course. I only think pink won’t go so well with the dress as violet.”
“I tell you, Long, that violet will not light up. You know it won’t, without my having to reiterate it over to you. No colour lights up so bad as violet. Pink: and let the ruchings be very full and handsome.”
Speaking the last words in a peremptory tone, she went in search of Mark. He was standing upright in the dining-room, in the midst of its floor, looking more like a man lost than a man in his composed senses.
“Mark, what’s the matter?”
He turned to his wife, — he had been undecided whether to tell her or not. It was a question he debated with himself on his way down: that is, it had been floating through his mind in a sort of under-current To concentrate his thoughts deliberately upon one point sufficiently to debate it was that day beyond the power of Mark Cray.
Mark’s true disposition was showing itself now. Vacillating and unstable by nature, utterly deficient in that moral courage which meets an evil when it comes, and looks it steadily in the face to see how it may be best dealt with, the blow of the morning had taken away what little sense Mark possessed. He was as a frightened child; a ship without a rudder; he was utterly unable to distinguish what his proper course ought to be: he did not know where to go or what to do; his chief thought was, to get away from the torrent that had broken loose. He must hide himself from the storm, but he could not face it.
When he jumped into the cab, and the driver had said, “Where to, sir?” he gave his home in Grosvenor Place in answer, simply because he could not think of another direction to give in that bewildering moment: so the cab drove on. But Mark did not want to go to Grosvenor Place. He had nothing to get from there: he had no business there, and a feeling came over him that he had rather not meet his wife just then. He wanted to hide himself and his bewildered mind and his scared face in some nook of remote shelter, far from the haunts of men, where that remorseless crowd, just escaped from, would not pounce upon him. Mark had not given himself time to ascertain that their disposition was pacificatory: he was wondering rather whether they had yet pulled the offices down. Neither Mark Cray nor Caroline was fitted to encounter the storms of life. So long as the sailing was smooth it was well; but when the waves arose, rough and turbulent, the one proved physically, the other morally, unable to breast them.
Mark stopped the cab as it was turning into Grosvenor Place; some vague feeling prompting him that it might be safer to steal quietly into his home than to dash up to it in a cab. The tidings had perhaps travelled far and wide, and people might be already there, as well as at the offices. Mark was half determined to make the best of his way at once to the scene of the Great Wheal Bang itself, the mine; and see with his own eyes whether things were so bad that they could not be mended. At least he should be away from his furious enemies in London. One more under the influence of reason than Mark Cray might have thought it well to ascertain whether those enemies were so furious, before running from them. When a man of no moral courage loses his presence of mind, he merits pity perhaps rather than condemnation.
“Mark, what’s the matter?”
With her actual presence before him, with the pointed question on her lips, Mark Cray’s indecision went completely out. He could no more have told her the truth at that moment, that the golden prospects so implicitly believed in had turned to ruin, and the offices yonder were being besieged by noisy shareholders, than he could have told it to the besiegers themselves.
“The matter?” repeated Mark, at a loss for any other answer.
“You look as if something were the matter, Mark. And what have you come back for?”
“Oh, I left some papers at home,” answered Mark, speaking as carelessly as he could. �
�There’s nothing the matter with me. The fellow drove fast, that’s all. I gave him an extra sixpence.”
Perhaps Caroline did not deem this communication particularly relevant to the subject “What made you go away so early, Mark?” she asked. “You never settled anything about Hendon to-day.”
“Well, I don’t think I can go,” said Mark. “I — I’ll see later. Hark!”
Mark’s “hark” was spoken in echo to a thundering knock at the door. A knock and a ring enough to shake the house down. He looked round at the walls for a moment as if he wanted to make a dash into them; he stepped towards the window, hesitated, and drew away again; finally he opened the door to escape, but too late, for voices were already in the hall. Caroline looked at her husband in wondering dismay.
“Mark, what has come to you?”
“Hush!” whispered Mark, the perspiration welling up to his forehead, as he bent his head to catch the sound from those voices. “Hark! hush!”
“Is Mr. Cray at home?”
“No, sir. He went to the City early this morning.”
How Mark Cray blessed his servant for the unconscious mistake, he alone could tell. The man had not seen his master come in, and had no idea he was in the house.
“Gone to the City, is he? Are you sure?”
“Quite sure, sir.”
A pause. Mark’s heart was beating.
“What time will he be home?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Another pause. “I suppose Mr. Barker’s not here?”
“Mr. Barker? O dear no, sir.”
And that was followed by the closing of the hall-door. Mark Cray gave a great gasp of relief, and went up-stairs to his own room.
He did not stay there above a minute. Caroline — she remembered it afterwards — heard a drawer or two opened and shut She had been following him, but was momentarily detained by a question from her maid, who was coming out of the breakfast-room with the dress upon her arm. Caroline stopped while she answered it, and in going up the stairs she met Mark coming down.