CHAPTER XI.

LADY OSWALD'S JOURNEY.

Mr. Marcus Cray's marriage had taken place on a Thursday, and the time went on to the following Saturday week with little to mark it. Enough, as events were unhappily to turn out, was to mark it then. They, Marcus Cray and his wife, were expected home that evening: but it is not with them that we have just at present to do.

On this Saturday morning, Oswald Cray had come down to Hallingham on business connected with the line. In the course of the day he called on Lady Oswald, and found her in a state not easy to describe. That very morning certain men had been seen on her grounds, marking off the small portion of its boundaries intended to be taken for the sheds. Convinced that all her hopes of immunity had been but vain dreams, she had become angry, hysterical, almost violent. Oswald Cray had never seen her like this.

It was an illustration of the misery we may inflict upon ourselves, the evil spirit that will arise from self-grievance. In point of fact, these sheds, to be built on a remote and low portion of her land, could not prove any real annoyance to Lady Oswald; she would not see them from her window; she did not go, ever, near the spot. The grievance lay in her imagination; she had made it a bugbear, and there it was. In vain Oswald Cray pointed out to her that it had been the same thing with regard to the rail itself. When she first heard it was to skirt her grounds, she had been as alarmed as she was now; but when the work was complete, the trains were actually running, then Lady Oswald found (though she did not acknowledge it) how void of reason her alarm had been; had the trains been fifty miles off she could not have seen less of them. It would be so with regard to the sheds, Oswald Cray told her; he told her that even a less portion of the ground would be taken than was at first intended: he did not add that he, by his persistent efforts in her cause, had obtained this little concession, but he might have told her so with truth. He assured her that the thing _could not_ prove an annoyance to her. All in vain. He might just as well have talked to the winds. She would not listen. Parkins sat 'n tears, administering specifics for the "nerves," and entreating my lady to be tranquil. My lady replied by saying she should never be tranquil again, and she actually abused Mr. Oswald Cray.

"Nay," said Oswald, good-humouredly, "it is your landlord you should blame, not me. He agreed to the thing instanter--the moment it was proposed to him."

Lady Oswald's cheeks were burning as she turned to Oswald. "If he had refused, instead of consented, what then? Could they have done it in spite of him?"

"It would have been done eventually, I suppose. Not just yet: the company would have had to bargain with him, perhaps to dispute the matter with him legally: and all that takes time."

"Had he persistently contended against it, the company might have grown weary; have ended by fixing upon some other spot for their sheds," she breathlessly cried, the excitement on her face deepening.

Mr. Oswald Cray hesitated. "It is possible, certainly; but"--

"I will go to him," broke in Lady Oswald. "I will go to Low this very hour."

She started from her seat, upsetting a bottle which Parkins held in her hand, almost upsetting Parkins herself in her vehemence. Mr. Oswald Cray gently restrained her.

"My dear Lady Oswald, you will do no good by going to Low now. It is too late. The thing has gone too far."

"It has not gone too far, Oswald Cray. So long as the sheds are not begun it cannot be too late. If Low did give his consent, he can retract it. The land is freehold, and freehold land cannot be seized upon lightly. Get my things, Parkins, and order the carriage." And Parkins submissively retired to obey.

"Lady Oswald, believe me," said Oswald, impressively, "Mr. Low cannot now retract his consent if he would. The agreement is signed; nay, I believe the money is paid. Your going to him will do no possible good; it can only be productive of further unpleasantness to yourself."

"Have you a motive in keeping me away from him?" asked Lady Oswald, and his brow momentarily contracted at her blind pertinacity. "Do you know that I have never once seen him upon this subject I--never once."

"No!" he said, really wondering at the omission.

"I would not go to see him; I was too angry; I contented myself with writing to him, and telling him what I thought; and then, you know, until this blessed morning, when Jones came into the house with the news that the men were measuring the land, I never thought the thing would be really done. I will go to him now, Oswald Cray, and all you can say against it will not avail with me. If you had any courtesy you would accompany me, and add your voice to mine against this unjustifiable wrong."

Courtesy was an adjunct in which Oswald Cray was not naturally deficient; in time, that day, he _was_. The business which brought him down was pressing, must have his full attention, and be finished so as to enable him to return to town that night. He had snatched these few minutes, while the clerks at the company's offices were at dinner, just to see Lady Oswald.

"It would give me great pleasure to escort you anywhere, Lady Oswald, but today I really cannot absent myself from Hallingham. I have my hands full. Besides," he added, a frank smile on his face, "have you forgotten how impossible it would be for me to go against the agreement made by the company with Mr. Low, by soliciting that gentleman to attempt to retract it?"

"I see," said Lady Oswald, beating her foot pettishly on the carpet; "better that I had called anybody to my aid than you. Are you cherishing resentment against me, Oswald Cray?"

Oswald Cray opened his dark blue eyes in surprise.

"Resentment?--against you, Lady Oswald! Indeed I do not understand you."

"I thought you might be remembering what I said at Dr. Davenal's the evening of your brother's wedding. I mean about the money; which I said I could _not_ leave you," she continued in a low tone. "You took me up so sharply."

"I fear I did. I was vexed that you could so misapprehend my nature. We need not recur to the subject, Lady Oswald. Let it pass."

"I must say a word first, Oswald. I believe, with all your fiery pride, and your aptitude to take offence, that your nature is honest and true; that you would save me from annoyance if you could."

"I would indeed," he interrupted earnestly. "Even from this threatened annoyance I would doubly save you, if it were at all within my power."

"Well, I want to say just this. I have always liked you very well; you have been, in fact, a favourite of mine; and many a time it has occurred to me to wish that I could put you down in my will"----

Lady Oswald, I pray you"----

"Now do be quiet, and hear me. I consider it a duty to myself to tell you this, and I always intended to tell you before my death. I fully believe what you say; that you do not wish for my money, that you would prefer to make your own way; I say I fully believe that, Oswald. There are some men--honourable to fastidiousness, I call them--who are utterly incapable of casting a thought or a wish to the money of others: you are one, as I believe; and there's the additional bar in your case with regard to my money, that it comes from the Oswalds. I don't think you would accept money in whatever form it came to you, from the Oswald family."

"I don't think I would," replied Oswald. And he spoke the truth of his heart.

"Still, I judge it right to give you this little word of explanation," she proceeded. "I daresay, whenever my will comes to be read, that you will feel surprised at its contents; may even deem that you had more legal claim upon me than he who will chiefly inherit. I do not think so. I have left my money to please myself: he to whom it is left has the best claim upon me in my judgment. I am happy to know that he will be rewarded: and he knows it."

Oswald felt a little puzzled: the words "and he knows it" somewhat excited his curiosity. With her own family, who alone (in Oswald Cray's opinion) could be said to have claims on Lady Oswald, she held but little communication: and a conviction stole over him that she did not allude to them. He was destined (as it proved) never to forget those words; and the construction he put upon them was, that the future inheritor of the money knew he was named as the inheritor. He said nothing. It was not a subject he cared to pursue; he had neither right nor inclination to inquire as to the disposal of what Lady Oswald might leave behind her. Had he dreamt of the ill those words would work, he might have asked further particulars.

"I thought I'd say this to you some time, Oswald. Had you been less fiercely proud, and I more at liberty to dispose of what I have to leave, I should regret not remembering you. As it is, perhaps all's for the best."

That again struck upon him as strange: "I more at liberty to dispose of what I have to leave." Was she not at full and entire liberty?--if so, why was she not? The question set Oswald thinking.

But circumstances seemed inclined to prove themselves stronger than Lady Oswald's will, in regard to this visit to her landlord. Her coachman made his appearance with hindering news; one of the carriage horses had fallen lame.

"Accept it as an omen that the visit would have brought forth no good luck," said Oswald Cray, with a smile, while Jones stood, deprecating his lady's anger.

A doubt flashed across her mind for a moment whether the excuse was real, and the amazed Jones had to repeat it, and to assure his mistress that he was going "right off" for the veterinary surgeon then.

"It will not avail," said Lady Oswald. "I shall go by train. Perhaps you can tell me, Oswald Cray, at what hours the trains leave for Hildon!"

Oswald Cray said not another word of objection. To make use of the railroad, to which her dislike had been so insuperable, proved that she was indeed bent upon it. He bade her good-day and left, and encountered Dr. Davenal's carriage in the avenue. The doctor was arriving on his usual daily visit.

She was somewhat of a capricious woman, Lady Oswald. A few months before, in the summer-time, Dr. Davenal had been hoping, it may almost be said secretly plotting--but the plotting was very innocent--to get Lady Oswald to favour Mark Cray sufficiently to allow of _his_ paying these daily visits. Since then Lady Oswald had, of her own accord, become excessively attached to Mark. That is, attached in one sense of the word. It was not the genuine esteem founded on long intimacy, the love, it may be almost said, that draws one friend to another; it was that artificial liking which suddenly arises, and has its result in praising and patronising; artificial because so shallow. In the new feeling, Lady Oswald had not only sanctioned Mark's visits to her in the place of Dr. Davenal, but she had recommended him to everybody she knew as the cleverest young surgeon in Hallingham or out of it. It had been Mark's luck speedily to cure some fancied or real ailment of Lady Oswald's in a notably short space of time, and Lady Oswald, who set it down to skill, really had taken up the notion that he had not his equal. We all know how highly-coloured for the time are these sudden estimations of a popular doctor's skill. None rejoiced more than Dr. Davenal, and he resigned Lady Oswald to Mark with inward satisfaction, and the best grace in the world. But during Mark's absence on his wedding-tour the doctor had taken again the daily visits.

Roger pulled up in the gravel drive when he saw Mr. Oswald Cray; but Oswald, who had out-stayed his time, could only shake hands with the doctor and hasten onwards. Parkins met Dr. Davenal surreptitiously as he entered: she had seen his approach, and she stole forwards on tiptoe to meet him, her tears dropping. When Lady Oswald was in her fretful moods, Parkins generally found refuge in tears.

"What's the matter now?" asked the doctor.

"The men have begun to measure the ground, and that stupid Jones came running open-mouthed to the house with the news, and my lady heard him," explained Parkins. "I'd not have told her: if people held their tongues, the sheds might be built, and up, and she never know it. I thought she'd have gone out of her mind, sir; and then Mr. Oswald Cray came in, and he talked to her. I think she's calmer now; I heard her talking quietly to Mr. Oswald Cray before he left. But she says she'll go off by rail to Mr. Low's."

"Is she in the drawing-room?"

"Yes, sir. So well, to be sure, as she was this morning!" continued Parkins, drying her tears. "I don't know when she has been in such spirits, and all because Mr. Cray was coming home tonight with his wife. The fancy she has taken for him is extraordinary: she has been counting the days off since he was away, like a schoolgirl counts them off before her holidays?"

Dr. Davenal entered. He did not attempt to reason Lady Oswald out of the visit to Mr. Low. Quite the contrary. He told her the short trip by rail would do her good: and he thought, which he did _not_ tell her, that the interview with Mr. Low might set the affair at rest sooner than anything else would, by convincing her that there could be no appeal against the fiat, no delay in the carrying out of the work.

When Lady Oswald reached the station, it happened that Oswald Cray was there. He was emerging from one of the private rooms with some plans under his arm when he saw her. She looked scared at the bustle of the station, and was leaning helplessly on her maid's arm, uncertain where to go, what to do. Oswald hastened to her and took her on his arm. Parkins slipped behind, quite thankful to see him: she was as little used to the ways and confusion of a station as her mistress.

"Will you venture still, Lady Oswald, with all this turmoil?"

"Will you cease worrying me!" she answered, and the tone was a sharp one, for she fancied he still wished to stop her, and resented the intermeddling with her will.

_Did_ he wish to stop her? If any such feeling was upon him, it must surely have been instinct: a prevision of what the ill-fated journey would bring forth; of the influence it would indirectly bear on his own future life.

He said no more. He led Lady Oswald at once to a first-class carriage, placed her and Parkins in it, procured their return tickets, and then leaned over the carriage-door and talked to Lady Oswald, ill as he could spare the time. No man had kinder feelings at heart than Oswald Cray, and it seemed to him scarcely courteous to leave her--for she was in a tremor still--until the train should start.

He talked to her in a gay laughing tone of indifferent subjects, and she grew more at ease. "Only think!" she suddenly exclaimed, "I may return with Mr. Cray and his wife! Dr. Davenal told me today they were expected early in the evening; and this is the way they must come. I shall be so glad when he is home!"

Oswald shook his head at her with mock seriousness. "I'd not acknowledge my faithlessness so openly, were I you, Lady Oswald. To turn off Dr. Davenal for Mark, after so many years' adhesion to him!"

"You know nothing about it, Oswald. I have not turned off Dr. Davenal. But you may depend upon one thing--that Mark is a rising man. He will make a greater name than you in the world."

"Very likely. I hope he will make a name. For myself"----

The whistle sounded, and Oswald drew away from the door. Lady Oswald put out her hand, and he shook it warmly. "Shall I see you on my return!"

"Possibly, just a glimpse," he answered. "I'll look out for you when the train comes in. Goodbye."

"But you'll wish me luck, Oswald--although you may be bound in honour to the interests of the enemy and those wretched sheds."

"I wish it you heartily and sincerely; in all ways, Lady Oswald."

His tone was hearty as his words, his clasp sincere. Lady Oswald withdrew her hand, and left him a pleasant, cordial smile as the train puffed on.

"One can't help liking him, Parkins, with all his obstinate contrariness," she cried. "I wish he had been the surgeon! Only think what a name he would have made, had he possessed his brother's talent!"

"So he would, my lady," dutifully acquiesced Parkins.

"What a good thing we are alone! Most likely he contrived it. I declare I don't dislike this," continued Lady Oswald, ranging her eyes round the well-stuffed compartment. "It is almost as private as my own carriage."

"So it is, my lady," answered Parkins. And the train went smoothly on, and in twenty minutes' time Lady Oswald was deposited safely at the Hildon station.