by Ellen Wood
“Yes, and it is not good, Mrs. Watton,” he replied, turning to speak. “Report says that a telegram has been received from Windsor, stating that there is no hope; that the Prince is rapidly sinking.” His voice was low, his manner subdued; and he raised his hat with unconscious reverence while he gave the answer. Watton lost her breath.
“It may not be true, sir! it may not be true!”
“I trust indeed it is not.”
“But, sir, was there not hope this afternoon?”
“According to the report that reached us, there was. Could the Prince only bear up through this one night all would be well.”
He passed up the stairs as he spoke. Watton led the way into a sitting-room at the back of the house, and Mrs. Cray followed her in perplexed silence, in eager curiosity, unable to understand the words she had heard.
That great and good Prince, whom England knew too little, and whom to know was to love, was indeed lying in extremis in the castle that had been his many years’ home. On that calm, clear, soft December night, when the streets of London were alive with bustle and pleasure, there was a dying bed not many miles away from it, around whose hushed stillness knelt England’s sovereign, England’s royal children. The gracious and benignant Prince, the faithful consort, the loyal husband, the tender anxious father, was winging his flight away; sinking gradually but surely from those loving arms, those tearful eyes, those yearning prayers, which could not keep him.
London had been shocked that day. Not so shocked as she might have been; for perhaps not one living man within her walls realised to his mind the possibility of the worst. Death! — for him! It was impossible to contemplate it: and from the first duke in the land down to the little pauper boys who sold for a penny the newspapers containing the bulletins none did seriously fear it Mrs. Cray listened as one aroused out of a dream. The Prince ill! — ill unto danger! The Prince who had been associated in men’s minds as one enshrined in a bright halo of prosperity, in the very sunshine of happiness! — who had looked down from his dizzy height on other men as if he stood above the world! It seemed incredible. Watton gave the details, so far as they were known to the general public; the few days’ illness, the apprehensions excited on the Friday, the fluctuating accounts of that same day; the unfavourable news of the morning, the afternoon’s opinion of the medical men at Windsor, that if the Prince could only bear up through that one night — the night now entered upon — all would be well. And now the latest tidings were that he was sinking!
Mrs. Cray forgot her own weakness, her fatigue, in these allabsorbing tidings. But it was as impossible for her to believe in the worst for him as it had been for the public. A few minutes of awestruck consternation, and hope reasserted its supremacy in her heart. Nay, not only hope, but a certainty that it “would be well.” I honestly believe that such was the prevailing feeling in every breast. It was so hard, it was so hard to look upon the reverse side of the picture.
“We had heard nothing of this at Honfleur!”
“And we can’t be said to have heard much of it here until today,” Was Watton’s answer. “It has come upon us with startling suddenness. Oh, if we can but get better tidings in the morning!”
“We shall be sure to do that, Watton,” said Caroline, in a low, hopeful tone. “Death surely could not come to him,”
Watton made her some tea, and she sat over the fire in the sitting-room while she drank it. She could not eat: generally her appetite was good, but fatigue and excitement had taken it away to-night She told of her residence in the French town, she hinted slightly at their want of success, and Watton looked grave as she spoke of her side.
“You think the London doctors can cure you, Miss Caroline?” — for the old name came far more familiar to Watton than the new one.
“I did think so,” replied Caroline, feeling that the strong conviction of this, which had amounted to a disease in Honfleur, had in some unexplainable manner gone out of her. “I seem not to be sure of it, as I was before I came.”
“And shall you make a long stay in London?”
“About a week. I have come for advice only, not to stay to be cured. Aunt Bettina’s is no house for me; and perhaps I cannot even stay there at all. Captain Davenal and his wife may have arrived.”
She heaved a sigh of weary despondency. Watton urged her to retire; but Caroline felt at rest in the easy chair, and still sat on. It was so long since she had seen a home face, or conversed with a home tongue.
“Who was that gentleman who passed us as I was coming in?” she asked, “he who spoke of the Prince?” And Watton replied that it was Mr. Comyng, a junior partner of the house, and the only one of the partners who resided there.
It wanted scarce a quarter to twelve when Caroline at length went up-stairs to a very high bedroom. Whether it was Watton’s room or not Caroline did not know, but it bad been made cheery. The curtains and bed were white and pleasant-looking, and a fire sparkled in the grate. Watton would have stayed with her to help her undress, but Caroline preferred to be alone.
When left to herself, she drew aside the window-curtains, and saw that the room faced the front: there stood old St. Paul’s, grim and formidable, and apparently so close to her that she might have fancied it within a leap. Letting the curtain remain open, she sat down at the fire, before which was drawn a chair as easy as the one down-stairs.
She sat with her head pillowed on the high arm, gazing at the blaze, and musing over present events. Their strangely uncertain life at Honfleur, poor Mark’s position and poverty, her own malady and the curious manner in which she had lost that eager faith in the result of her journey, her reception on the morrow by Miss Davenal — and with all these thoughts were mingled more prominently the tidings which had greeted her since her entrance.
Unconsciously to herself she dropped into a doze. It was a very foolish thing to do, of course, for she would have been much better in bed; but none of us are wise always. She dozed placidly; and the first thing that in the least aroused her, and that only partially, was the booming out in her ear of a deep-toned bell.
“St. Paul’s clock striking twelve,” was the supposition that crossed her mind in its state of semi-sleep. But ere many minutes had gone by she became alive to the fact that the striking did not cease, that the strokes of the bell were tolling out fast and loud as — as — a death-bell strikes out.
It has not been the fate of many to hear the bell of St. Paul’s Cathedral strike out at midnight Those who have will never forget it during life. Never, never, will it be forgotten by those few who heard it as it went booming into the air on that still December night, bearing forth its message of woe to the startled hearts of the metropolis.
For a brief moment Mrs. Cray wondered what was the matter. She sprang out of her chair and stood staring at the edifice, as if in mute inquiry of what it meant And then — when she remembered what had been said that night — and the recollection flashed on her with that heart-sickness that generally accompanies some awful terror — she opened the window and leaned out.
Three or four persons were standing underneath, motionless, still, as if they had collected there to gaze at the dark cathedral, to listen to the booming bell. “What is it?” she called out. “What does it mean?”
Her voice, raised by excitement to unnatural strength and clearness, was heard distinctly. Those standing below looked up. In one of them she thought she recognised Mr. Comyng. He was standing bare-headed, his hat in his hand, and his solemn answer came up to her in the stillness of the night.
“Prince Albert’s gone.”
A moment of bewildering suspense, while the mind refused to admit the dreadful truth, and Caroline Cray turned sick and faint. And then the sobbing cry burst from her heart and lips — a cry that was to find its echo from thousands and thousands as the hours went on ——
“Oh, the Queen! the Queen! May God help and support the Queen!”
CHAPTER LV.
A DESOLATE NIGHT.
YES, he was gone. Great Britain rose on the Sunday morning to the news, for the telegraphs were at work, and the tidings were carried through the length and breadth of the land. And people did not believe it. It could not be! Why, it seemed but yesterday that he had come over in the flower of youth and promise to wed the fair young Queen! Dead! Prince Albert dead! None of you have forgotten the wide gap in the Litany that Sunday morning; the pale lips of the clergymen, compelled to make it; the quivering, breathless hearts that answered to it. But for the remembrance that God’s ways are not as our ways, how many of those startled and grieved hearts would have felt tempted to question the why of the stroke, in their imperfect wisdom.
But to return to Caroline Cray, for the night was not yet over and the bell was ringing out. When the first immediate shock had passed, she quitted the window and leaned her head upon the counterpane. A solemn awe had laid hold of her, and she felt as she had never felt in all her life. Her whole soul seemed to go up in — may I dare to say? — heavenly commune. It was as if heaven had opened — had become very near. I may be mistaken, but I believe this same feeling was experienced by many in the first startling shock. This was so entirely unlike an ordinary death; even of one of our near and dear relatives. Heaven seemed no longer the far-off mysterious place she had been wont to regard it, but a home, a refuge, all near and real. It had opened and taken him in; in his early manhood; in his full usefulness; in England’s need; when that wife and royal lady had learned to lean upon him; when his sons and his daughters were growing up around him, some of them at the moment in other lands, out of reach of the loving farewell of his aching heart! with his mission here — it so seemed — only half-fulfilled! — it had taken him in before his time, and gathered him to his rest. He did not seem to have gone entirely away; he was only hidden beyond reach and sight for a little while; that same refuge would open for her, Caroline, and others; a little earlier, a little later, and she and all would follow him. Heavy as the blow was in itself, incapable as she was of understanding it, it yet seemed an earnest of the overruling presence of the living God. Oh, what was the poor world in that night, with the strokes of the death-bell sounding in her ears, compared to that never-ending world above, that heritage on which he had entered!
Fatigue and emotion did their most on Mrs. Cray. In the morning she was unable to get up, and Watton wisely and kindly urged that she should not rise at all that day, but take a good rest, and go on to Miss Davenal’s on the morrow. So she lay where she was, and listened to that gloomy death-bell, as it periodically gave forth its sound; and the bursts of tears, in her bodily weakness, could not be suppressed, but came forth repeatedly to wet the pillow, as she thought of the widowed Queen, the fatherless children.
The day’s rest did her a great deal of good, and she rose on the Monday renovated and refreshed. A wish had come over her that she could see a doctor and learn her fate before she went to her aunt Bettina’s. She had not come to town with the intention of consulting any particular surgeon; — indeed she hardly knew the name of one from another. Watton, when sitting with her on the Sunday night, had spoken of a noted surgeon living in Westminster, and Caroline remembered then to have heard Dr. Davenal speak of his skill: and she determined to go to him.
She went up in an early omnibus through the mourning streets. The bells were tolling, the shutters were partially closed, men and women stood in groups to converse, sadness pervading every countenance. The surgeon, Mr. Welch, was at home, but she had to wait her turn to be admitted to him.
He was not in the least like Monsieur Le Bleu, except in one little matter — he wore spectacles. A silent man, who looked more than talked; he bade Mrs. Cray tell her case to him from beginning to end in the best manner she was able, and he never took his spectacles from her face while she was doing so. —
What she said necessitated an examination of the side. It could be but a slight one there, dressed as she was, but the surgeon appeared to form a pretty rapid opinion. She inquired whether it was curable, and he replied that he could not say upon so superficial an examination, but he would see her at home, if she would tell him where she lived. In her reply, when she said she had no home in London, it escaped her that her husband was a medical man living in France.
“What part of it?” he inquired.
“At Honfleur.”
“Honfleur!” echoed the surgeon in an accent of surprise. “Is there sufficient practice to employ an English medical man at Honfleur? I should not have thought it. I was there a year or two ago.”
The consciousness of the truth of what the “practice” was dyed her cheeks with their carmine flush. Her eyelids drooped, her trembling fingers entwined themselves convulsively one within the other, as if there were some sad tale to tell Her bonnet was untied, and its rich white strings (for Watton had affixed these new ones, and taken off the dirty ones) fell on her velvet cloak, nearly the only good relic left of other days. That grave gentleman of sixty, seated opposite to her, thought he had never seen so lovely a face, with its fragile features, its delicate bloom, and its shrinking expression.
She raised her dark blue violet eyes, their lashes wet Misfortune had brought to her a strange humility. “There’s not much practice yet, sir. It may come with time.”
He thought he could discern the whole case. It is that of some who go abroad; a struggle for existence, anxiety of mind and body, privation, and the latent constitutional weakness showing itself at last.
One single word of confidential sympathy, and Caroline burst into tears. Her spirits that morning were strangely low, and she had no power to struggle against emotion.
“I beg your pardon,” she murmured apologetically when she could speak. “The fatigue of the long journey — the universal gloom around — I shall be better in a minute.”
“Now tell me all about it,” said Mr. Welch in a kind tone, when she had recovered. “There’s an old saying, you know: ‘Tell your whole case to your lawyer and your doctor,’ and it is a good injunction. I like my patients to treat me as a friend. I suppose the practice in Honfleur is worth about five francs every three months, and that you have suffered physically in consequence. Don’t hesitate to speak: I can shake hands with your husband: when I was first in practice I had hardly bread to eat.”
It was so exceedingly like the real fact, “about five francs every three months,” and his manner and tone were so entirely kind and sympathising, that Mrs. Cray made no pretence of denial. The practice was really not enough to starve upon, she acknowledged: none of the English residents at Honfleur ever got ill.
“But why did your husband settle there? Was it his first essay? — his start in life?”
“O no. He was in practice at Hallingham before that, in partnership with Dr. Davenal.”
“With Dr. Davenal!”
The repetition of the name, the astonished tone, recalled Mrs. Cray to a sense of her inadvertence. The admission had slipped from her carelessly, in the thoughtlessness of the moment. Mr. Welch saw that there was something behind, and he kept his inquiring eyes fixed upon her. She felt obliged to give some sort of explanation.
“After Dr. Davenal’s death my husband gave up the medical profession, and embarked in something else. He thought he should like it better. But it — it — failed. And he went to Honfleur.”
Her confusion — which she could not hide — was very palpable: it was confusion as well as distress. All in a moment the name, Cray, struck upon a chord in the surgeon’s memory. It was his custom to take down the names of his patients ere he entered upon their cases, and he looked again at the memorandum-book before him. “Cray.”
“Your husband is not the Mr. Cray who was connected with the Great Chwddyn Mine!” he exclaimed. “Marcus Cray?”
She was startled to tremor. There was no cause for it, of course: the fact of its being known that she was Mark’s wife could not result in their taking him, But these unpleasant recognitions do bring a fear with them, startling as it is vague.
; “Don’t be alarmed,” said the surgeon kindly, discerning the exact state of the case. “I do not wish ill to your husband. I was no shareholder in the company. Not but that I felt an inclination for a dip into it, and might have had it, had the thing gone on.”
“It was not Mr. Cray’s fault,” she gasped. “ He would have kept the water out had it been in his power: its coming in ruined him. I cannot see — I have never been able to see — why everybody should be so much against him.”
“I cannot understand why he need keep away,” was the answering remark.
He looked at her inquiringly as he spoke. She shook her head in a helpless sort of manner: she had never clearly understood it either.
“Ah well; I see you don’t know much; you young wives rarely do. Did you know Dr. Davenal?”
“He was my uncle,” she said. “He brought me up. I was Miss Caroline Davenal.”
Another moment of surprise for Mr. Welch. It seemed so impossible for a niece of the good and flourishing physician-surgeon to be so reduced, as he suspected she was — almost homeless, friendless, penniless.
She was struggling with her tears again. With the acknowledgment her memory had gone back to the old home, the old days. She had scarcely believed then there was such a thing as care in the world; now — ?
“You will tell me the truth about myself,” she said, recovering composure. “I came to England to learn it. Pray don’t deceive me. I am a doctor’s wife you know, and can bear these shocks,” she added, with a poor attempt at a smile. “Besides, I seem to know the fate that is in store for me: since Saturday night I have not felt that I should get well.”
There was one moment of hesitation — of indecision. Caroline caught at it all too readily. “I see,” she said, “there is no hope.”
“I said nothing of the sort,” he returned.
“But I am sure you think that there is not. Mr. Cray thought there might be an operation: the French doctor said no.”