by Ellen Wood
Mr. Dick stopped out his own time. He knew that he would be expected home about one o’clock to have something to eat; but as nothing had been expressly said to him, he took rather a savage pleasure in letting them expect, punishing his hunger. He saw a man selling hot potatoes; and he bought three and ate them, skins and all. Dick was not in the least troubled with proud notions: Leo would have looked askance at the tempting edible, and passed on the other side; Dick danced round the man’s machine while he feasted, in the face and eyes of the passers-by. If Miss Davenal had but seen him!
Altogether, what with the slides, the hot potatoes, and the temper, Mr. Richard Davenal remained out long after dark. When he began to think it might be as well to return home, and to feel as if fifteen wolves were inside him fighting for their dinner, he was in some obscure and remote region of Chelsea, where the population was more crowded than aristocratic, and the ice abundant. Happening to cast his eyes to a clock in a baker’s shop he saw that it wanted but twenty-five minutes to six.
“My!” ejaculated Dick in his dismay. Miss Davenal’s dinner-hour had been altered from six to five while the boys were with her, and Dick had certainly meant to be home to time. He had not thought it was so late as this. Dick’s hair stood on end, and the wolves fought desperately.
“Suppose old Bett should say I shan’t have any dinner!”
The shop next door to the baker’s was a cook’s shop — as they are called: and perhaps Dick’s dreadful doubt caused him irresistibly to linger for a fond moment at the window and gaze at the attractions inside. Under Dick’s very nose was a steaming mound of beef just out of the pot, some parsnips round it; other joints were there in plenty; peas-pudding, plum-pudding, sausages, and a whole host of things irresistible to a boy in Dick’s famishing condition. He mechanically put his hand into his pocket, lest a stray sixpence might by some miracle be there. In vain. Dick Davenal was one who could not keep money for an hour, and his having sufficient to buy the potatoes was a fact notable.
Hurried as he was, he could not tear himself from the tempting shop. The shopman, in a white apron, a great carving-knife and fork in his hand, was cutting thin slices from a cold round of beef and placing them in the scale on a piece of white paper. The balance went down, and he rolled the paper round the meat and handed it to the customer waiting for it, a young woman — or rather lady, for she looked like one — who wore a black veil over her face. She gave him sixpence and some halfpence in return, but the man did not seem to like the sixpence; he held it close to the gas and then showed it to her, and she put her veil aside and bent her face nearer while she looked at it If ever Dick Davenal believed he was in a dream he believed so then. He rubbed his eyes; he rubbed his frozen nose; he stared through the intervening steam; and he pinched himself to see whether he was awake. For that face was the face of his cousin, Mrs. Cray.
Dick could not believe his senses. The shopman apparently decided that the sixpence was a good one, and put it in his till, and the lady had left the shop before Dick recovered his bewilderment He had believed Mr and Mrs. Cray were abroad. From a shrewd boy like Dick it had been impossible to guard the secret that something was wrong; besides, he had heard of the failure of the Great Wheal Bang, and that its promoters were away, abroad or somewhere.
But that was surely Caroline gone out of the shop with a paper of meat in her hand! Dick’s spirit went down to zero. However ht might condescend to the purchase of hot potatoes, and such like stray escapades, ho did not like to see Caroline buy cooked meat and carry it away with her. Dick knew that something or other must be all wrong, and he suddenly felt as timid as Leo.
She crossed the road and went down a by-street, where the lights were scanty and the houses poor. Dick followed her. He saw how tightly her veil was drawn over her face; and she walked with her head down: it might be to keep out the cold, or it might be to avoid observation.
She turned into a house on the left-hand side whose door stood open; a shabby-looking house, but sufficiently large. Dick, hardly certain in his own mind yet, deliberated whether he should follow her and show himself: and when he at length went to the door nobody was in sight He took courage and knocked; and a woman came out of the parlour on the right “Is Mrs. Cray here?” asked Dick.
“Mrs who?”
“Mrs. Cray. She’s just gone in.”
“There’s nobody here of that name. Who’s Mrs. Cray? You have mistook the house, young man.”
Dick had his wits about him, as the saying runs, and they were sufficiently alert to prevent his insisting on the point of its being Mrs. Cray. I’m sure I saw some lady come in,” said he.
“Mrs. Mark came in a minute ago, for I met her in the passage. First floor if you want her.”
“Can I go up?” asked Dick.
“That’s as you please,” returned the woman, who was crusty enough to be first cousin to Mrs. Benn. “ The other lodgers in the house is nothing to me, who goes up to ’em or who doesn’t.”
She retreated inside the parlour and banged the door. Dick stumbled up-stairs in the dark, the words “first floor” having guided him. Some light came in from a window on the landing, and he distinctly heard Caroline’s voice in the front room. Dick-fashion, he burst in without knocking.
Caroline gave a short scream. She was untying her bonnet, and the paper of meat, slowly unfolding itself, lay on the table. It was a plain sitting-room carpeted with drugget, a large sofa covered with dark blue stuff seeming to take up one side of it A white cloth was spread on part of the table, with some tea-cups and saucers, a loaf of bread, and a piece of butter.
“Caroline, I was sure it was you!”
The first moment of surprise over, Caroline threw herself on a chair and burst into tears. Dick sat down opposite to her and stared round the room, staring off his bewilderment Poor Dick was not possessed of any superfluous sentiment, and the sobs and emotion only made him feel awkward. The sight of a home face was too much for Mrs. Cray.
“Is Mark here?” Dick asked presently.
“No.”
Dick glanced round again, but he could see no door except the one he had entered at.
“I’m sure I heard you talking to somebody, Caroline. It made me know which was the room.”
“I was talking to myself. The words I said were, ‘ I hope Mark will not be long,’ and I suppose I spoke them aloud.”
A few final sobs, and the emotion passed. Dick was timid, almost nervous, and he never remembered to have been so in his life. A thought crossed the boy’s mind of what his uncle Richard would say, could he see this curious state of things.
“Do you live here, Caroline?”
“Yes. We went away in the country for a little time at first; but it was so out of the way of hearing anything, so dull, so wretched, that we came back again. Mark thought it would be better to come pretty near to the old neighbourhood; that there was less chance of our being looked for there than elsewhere.”
“You don’t have all the house.”
“All the house!” echoed Caroline. “We only have this room and the use of the kitchen, which I hardly ever go down to. That sofa is a bed,” she added, pointing to it. “Mark draws it out at night.”
Dick felt more at sea than ever. “Has Mark got no money?”
Caroline shook her head. “There’s a little left; not much. We did not save a thing from Grosvenor Place. People came in and took possession while Mark was away, and I got frightened and left it Afterwards, when my clothes were asked for, they sent me a boxful of the poorest I had, and said those were all. I don’t know whether it was that they kept the best, or that the maid-servants helped themselves to them. Dick!” she passionately added, “ I’d rather die than have to bear all this.”
“Do you have to go out and buy the meat?” questioned Dick, unable to get the practical part he had seen out of his head.
“There’s a boy that waits on the lodgers, the landlady’s son, and he goes on errands sometimes. Mark thought we should be s
afer in a house like this, where there are different lodgers, and one does not interfere with the concerns of the others; that we should be less likely to attract notice. In truth we were afraid to venture on a better place where persons might recognise us.”
“Afraid of what?” questioned Dick.
“I’m sure I hardly know,” she answered. “ Of his being arrested, I suppose.”
“I say, does Sara know you are here?”
Caroline shook her head. “I have written her a note twice, saying we are safe; but Mark would not let me give the address. Aunt Bettina has shaken us off, there’s no doubt; she’ll never forgive Mark.”
“Forgive him for what!”
“Oh, altogether,” returned Caroline with a gesture of impatience. “There was the leaving Hallingham, and Sara’s money, and other things.”
“Where is Mark?” continued Dick.
“He won’t be long. He strolls out a little after dark, but he does not care to venture abroad by daylight And so, you are up for the holidays, I suppose?”
Dick nodded. “Aunt Bett wouldn’t have us at midsummer. But Leo broke his arm, and he wasn’t strong, and she sent for him; and then she said I might come up for Christmas, and we could both go back to school together. I say, wasn’t it unkind of her not to have us in the summer? She said her house was small. Summer holidays are jollier than winter ones, especially when they don’t let you go on the ice.”
Did a remembrance cross Caroline of somebody else who would not have them in the summer? — whose house was not small? Probably not. Caroline had room only for her own griefs. Since the falling of the blow she had existed in a state of bewilderment The change was so great, the order of things so completely altered, that at times she believed she must be in a prolonged dream, and should shortly wake up to reality. As one who is suddenly put ashore in a foreign country, where the land, the customs, the people, and the tongue, are all strange to him, and he can only accept them passively, yielding himself perforce to the necessity of circumstances, so it was with Caroline Cray. Believe me, I am telling you no untrue story.
“How you cough!” exclaimed Dick, as she was interrupted by a heavy fit of coughing, not for the first time.
“I caught a bad cold. It was very bad for a day or two, and I lay in bed. O Dick! I wonder if I shall ever have a bedroom again!”
“Couldn’t you have a bedroom as well as this room?” sensibly answered Dick.
“There was only this room to let when we came here, and we thought it would do. It’s tolerably good-looking you see, and we are more to ourselves. Every week, too, we are hoping to leave it.”
“Where to go to?”
“I don’t know. Mark says something will be sure to turn up.”
“I say, do they know about this in Barbadoes?”
“Not from us. I daresay Aunt Bettina has taken care to tell them. Is she as deaf as ever, Dick?”
“She’s deafer. And she’s getting a regular old woman. What do you think? she’d not let me go out skating this morning, for fear —— —”
A gentleman entered, and cut Dick’s revelations short. The boy looked at him in puzzled bewilderment, for he thought he knew him, and yet did not It was a full minute before Dick recognised him for Mark Cray.
Formerly Mark had whiskers and no moustache; now he had a moustache and no whiskers, and his beard was growing, and his face looked longer. He had on blue spectacles too. Altogether, Dick was hardly certain yet Mark did not seem glad to see him. In manner he rather appeared to resent the accident which had discovered them to Dick, than to feel pleasure at it Caroline put the slices of beef upon a dish, made the tea, and asked Dick to partake.
But Dick declined. And nobody, perhaps, would have given careless Dick credit for the true motive, or for the real self-denial that it was to a hungry boy. He had somehow drawn a conclusion that Mr and Mrs. Cray had not too much meat for themselves, and he would not lessen it “I can’t stay now,” he said rising, “I shall have Aunt Bett at me as it is. Good-night, Mr. Cray; good-night, Caroline.”
Mr. Cray followed him down the stairs. “You must be very cautious not to say that you found us here,” he said. “ Can we depend upon you?”
“As if you couldn’t!” returned Dick. “I know! A fellow of ours at school has got a big brother, and he has to be in hiding nine months at least out of every year. I’ll tell nobody but Sara.”
He vaulted off, or perhaps Mark Cray’s injunction might have been extended to Sara in particular. When he reached home, Mist Bettina, who had believed nothing less but that he was drowned, and had sent Neal to a circuit of police-stations, met him in the corridor, followed by Sara and Leo.
“You ungrateful boy! Where have you been?”
“Don’t, Aunt Bettina! No need to seize hold of me in that way. I have only been sliding. I haven’t been to the water.”
“You shall go back to school to-morrow,” said Miss Bettina, as she turned into the dining-room.
Dick caught his cousin by the arm. “You be off after Aunt Bett, Leo; I want to speak to Sara. I say,” he continued in a whisper, as Leo obeyed him, “I have seen Caroline and Mark Cray!”
“Nonsense, Dick! Why did you stay out so and frighten us?”
“I have. I should have been in earlier but for that. Frightened? How stupid you must all be! As if I couldn’t take care of myself. I saw Carine in a beef and pudding shop, buying cold meat, and I watched where she went to, and I’ve been there for half an hour, and I saw Mark. He has shaved off his whiskers, and wears blue—”
“Hush!” breathed Sara, as Dorcas came up the stairs. “You must tell me later.”
CHAPTER LI.
WEARY DAYS.
THE cold, bitter, biting winter passed away, and when the lovely spring came round again little trace was left of its effects, save in the remembrance of those in whose homes sickness, or privation, or death, had been busy.
Two of those visitations had been rife in the poor house of Caroline Cray: sickness and privation. Perhaps you noticed Caroline’s reply to Dick’s question of whether Mark had no money: there was a little left, she said, not much. Left from what? Dick did not ask. —
If ever an unfortunate company had come to grief more completely than other unfortunate companies, it was surely that noted one, the Great Wheal Bang. Sympathising friends — Barker’s and Mark’s — were wont to assure those gentlemen that they had “managed wretchedly and if we may dare to assume that the reproach was levelled at the fact of having secured nothing for themselves, it was a right one. On the day that Mark Cray went up to the offices for the last time he had but a trifling sum of money about him: Caroline had even less in her own purse; and that was all. Barker’s word of precaution had secured the diamond ring and studs, and these were converted into money, Mark and Barker equally dividing the spoil. Barker, with his share, took a little tour abroad while the cloud blew over; Mark, as you have seen, went into hiding, and lived upon his part as long as it held out.
Yes, it was an unhappy fact, very debasing indeed after all the glory of Grosvenor Place, lowering as you may feel it to be to this history, Mr. Mark Cray hid himself by day, and slipped out to take the air at dusk in a moustache and blue spectacles. Mark Cray could but be a coward in the hour of trial; he ran from the danger instead of facing it Had Mark but looked the angry shareholders and the trouble in the face, he need not have been so very fearful; but to look a difficulty in the face was not in the nature of Mark Cray. He scarcely understood what he was afraid of; he did not know what they could do to him — whether imprison him or make him a bankrupt, or what; and Mark would rather have jumped into the sea than ascertain. He was exactly like a child who runs away screaming from a dark closet, and dare not look to see whether cause for terror is there. Some of us, my friends, have been sadly frightened at shadows.
When this state of affairs was to end, and what was to get Mark out of his difficulty, he did not at present see. As long as the money lasted he was not unduly anx
ious. He had great faith in something “turning up,” he had unlimited faith in Barker; and Barker’s letters were pretty frequent, and in the highest degree cheering. Barker happened to have a cousin, about the nineteenth remove, settled at Honfleur, in Normandie, and Barker had steered for the same port, and seemed to be living at ease there. Towards the close of the winter he wrote word to Mark that he had something good in contemplation, connected with Paris, and if it came to anything Mark should share in it But when Mark’s money was gone things changed. He grew restless and gloomy. He could not starve, he could not go to the workhouse: he must do something. Miss Bettina Davenal would not help them: she said she could not — perhaps with justice. Leopold Davenal had been an expense to her, and was still; he went back to school after the Christmas holidays with Dick, but he was not strong yet, and sundry expensive extras were provided for him out of her pocket That was not much: but a heavier expense had fallen upon her: for she had repaid Mr. Wheatley the two hundred pounds borrowed by Sara. Sara had disclosed to her aunt the fact of borrowing it, and in her pride Miss Bettina had made a sacrifice and repaid the sum. She had none left to bestow on Mark; there was clearly no help to be had from her.
And Caroline? You can take a look at her as she sat in the sun, which was shining into the room this bright day in early April. Perhaps you remember a remark Dr. Davenal once made — that Caroline was not one, as he believed, to bear well the adversities of life. Dr. Davenal was quite right: neither physically nor mentally did they agree with poor Caroline.
I don’t know whether anybody gets ill at once under a great shock. Caroline had not. When it fell upon her she was too stunned, too entirely surprised, to be anything but bewildered. It may be questioned if a change so sudden — from seemingly assured prosperity to hiding and disgrace and poverty — has ever fallen. You may feel inclined to question it in this instance; nevertheless, I repeat that I am telling you the simple truth. The reaction had come now, and Caroline Cray gave way sadly. Her cough, that Dick remarked upon, had got well; but she would lie back in her chair all day, and it seemed next to impossible to get her out of it.