CHAPTER XLI.

A SLIGHT CHECK.

The house was blazing with light, every window bright with it. Mrs. Cray loved pomp and vanity in all their forms, and she generally caused her rooms to be lighted with the first glimmer of twilight. Mark Cray stepped into his handsome hall and was received by a couple of footmen. Flinging his hat to one, his gloves to another, he bounded upstairs to his dressing-room, conscious that he was keeping the dinner and his guests waiting.

Did Mark Cray ever cast a sigh of regret to the simple life at Hallingham, when he and his wife used to sit down to mutton cutlets and a pudding, and think the fare good enough? Did _she_ regret it at any odd moment? Not yet. Dress and dinners, with expense of other sorts, bring a fascination with them all too enthralling to the senses. How they pall upon the wearied spirit in time, how they deaden the heart and debase the intellect, let those answer who have become their slaves; but Mark Cray and his wife had not reached that period of weariness yet. You may be very sure, knowing what you do know of the world and the generality of people who populate it, that Mr. and Mrs. Cray wanted not for what is called society. The great projector of the great Wheal Bang Company, holding in his own hands the power to make others rich, was not likely to lack adulation in his private capacity any more than in his public one, and he and his wife drank their fill of it. Mark's mind was shallow, and his head tolerably empty, but he was sufficiently attractive in manners to win his way in society, even without the adjunct just mentioned. Mark was looked upon as of good connections also; for it had somehow got reported that he was a nephew of the proud Baronet of Thorndyke. Perhaps it may be forgiven to poor empty-headed Mark that he held his tongue from contradicting it, and suffered the world to think he was of the family of that great man. As to Caroline, people were in love with her beauty and her youth; and the costly extravagances of the house in Grosvenor Place bore their own charm. Altogether, more guests crowded the doors of Mr. and Mrs. Cray than the doors could always hold. Many satellites of the great world, of a position far above the real one of Mark Cray and his wife, flocked to pay them court; and neither of them was wise enough to see how unsuitable are extremes, or to discern that the acquaintance would never have been condescended to but that Mark was the Great Wheal Bang's powerful chieftain. Therefore it was nothing unusual for Mark Cray to receive dinner guests at his board; on the contrary, it would have been a marked circumstance now, had he and his wife dined alone.

Mark washed his hands and hurried on his coat, and in a few minutes was at his dinner-table, his guests on either side of him. One guest at it Mark could only regard with astonishment, and that was Miss Davenal. Not that Miss Davenal was not fitted to grace a dinner-table; no lady more so at her age in the three kingdoms; but she had so resolutely abstained from honouring Mark's house with her presence that he had never expected to see her in it again. Caroline said she should invite her and Sara to meet their old friends the Fords, and Mark had laughed when he heard it. "She'll never come," he said; "you might as well invite the lioness from the Zoological Gardens." However, here she was: she had chosen to come. She sat on Mark's left hand, her delicate features quite beautiful in their refinement; Miss Ford was on his right, a shrinking little woman of forty years; Miss Mary Ford and Sara Davenal were lower down; and the physician, a short, red-faced, shrivelled man, who talked incessantly and wore nankeen pantaloons, was next to Caroline. "Put a knife and fork for Mr. Barker," Mark had said to his servants: but Mr. Barker had not made his appearance yet. Those were all the guests.

There is something false about Caroline today. Look at her dress! It is white watered silk, gleaming with richness, as the dewdrops are gleaming in the white crape flowers in her hair; and it, the white silk, is elaborately trimmed with black ruchings and ribbons. That black, put on by her maid, taking the girl a whole afternoon to do it, has been added with a motive. Caroline, in her evening dress, has long put off the mourning for her good uncle, her more than father, dead though he has been but four months yet; but she is today a little ashamed of her haste, and she has assumed these black ribbons before these Hallingham friends and her aunt Bettina, to make believe that she still wears it. Her violet eyes are intensely bright, and her cheeks glow with their sweetest and softest carmine. Sara wears a black crape robe, a little edging of white net only on its low body and sleeves, and she wears no ornament, except the jet beads on her neck and arms. The two Miss Fords are in copper-coloured silks made high: when they saw Mrs. Cray's white silk, fit for the court of our gracious Queen, they felt uncomfortable, and attempted a sort of apology that they had brought no evening dress with them to town.

And the dinner is in accordance with Caroline's attire. Soup, and fish, and _entrées_, and roasts, and jellies, and sweets, and fal-lals; and more sorts of wine than the Miss Fords, simple and plain, could remember afterwards to count; and flowers, and plate, and servants in abundance: and grandeur enough altogether for the dining-room of England's Premier.

It was this state, this show, this expense, that so offended the good sense (very good always, though sometimes over severe) of Miss Bettina Davenal, and kept her aloof from Mr. and Mrs. Cray's house. If Mark really was making the vast amount of money (but it would have taken a wiser tongue than Mark's to convince her that that usually assumed fact was not a fallacy), then they ought to be putting it by, she argued: if they were not making it, if all this was but specious wealth, soon to pass away and leave only ashes and ruin behind it, then Mark and Caroline were fit only for a lunatic asylum. In any point of view, the luxurious appointments of the dinner she saw before her were entirely out of place for middle-class life: and Miss Bettina felt an irrepressible prevision that their folly would come home to them.

But she knew better than to mar the meeting with any unpleasant reproaches or forebodings then, and she was as cordial and chatty as her deafness allowed. It was a real pleasure to meet Hallingham friends, and Miss Bettina enjoyed herself more than she had ever done since the doctor's death.

The entertainment came to an end, and Caroline marshalled her guests to the glittering drawing-room: glittering with its mirrors, its chandeliers, and the many lights from its gilded girandoles. Dr. Ford and Mark followed shortly, and found them drinking coffee. Caroline and Sara were stealing a minute's private chat together: they had lived apart of late.

"How _did_ you get my aunt to come?" Caroline was asking. "We thought she never intended to honour us here."

"She came of her own accord. I did not say a word to press it. I have been so vexed this afternoon, Caroline," resumed Sara, turning to a different subject. "My aunt has told me finally that she will not have Dick and Leo up for their holidays."

Caroline shrugged her pretty shoulders; very much as if Dick and Leo and their holidays were perfectly indifferent to her. "I don't think I should, in Aunt Bettina's place. Boys are dreadfully troublesome animals; and now that--that poor Uncle Richard is not here to keep them in order--" another shrug finished the sentence.

"Oh, but that is one reason why I so wish them to come," said Sara, her voice somewhat tremulous. "I don't expect that they can be had always; that would be unreasonable; but to stay at school just this first time after poor papa's death!--it will seem so hard to them. Caroline, could _you_ not have them up?"

"_I!_" returned Caroline, amazed at the proposition.

"You have a large house and plenty of servants. It would be an act of real kindness."

"Good gracious, Sara! I'd not have them: I'd not be worried with those two boys for six weeks if you paid me in gold and diamonds. They--who's this?"

The door had opened, and one of the servants was waiting to make an announcement:

"Mr. Oswald Cray."

Caroline ran to meet him. He looked rather surprised at her attire, and began apologising in a laughing sort of way for his own morning-coat. He had expected to meet only Barker and Dr. Ford. A greeting to the Hallingham people, and he went up and held out his hand to Miss Davenal.

"You are a great stranger, Mr. Oswald Cray. I did not suppose that the formal call you made upon me when I settled in town three months ago was to be your only one."

"I am a sadly busy man," was his answer. "Offending I fear some of my best friends through not visiting them. But I can scarcely dare to call my time my own."

"Out of town, do you say? Well, that is an excuse of course Sara, here's Mr. Oswald Cray: you used to know him in Hallingham."

The blushes tingled on her cheek as Mr. Oswald Cray touched her hand. Tingled at the thought that it was not the first time they had met that day.

"What have you been doing with yourself, Oswald, since I saw you before dinner!" called out Mark, who was pointing out the beauty of the paintings on his walls to the Miss Fords.

"I have been to Pimlico since then."

"To Pimlico! Oh, I know: to that friend of yours; It strikes me you go there pretty often."

"As often as I can spare time for," returned Oswald.

Mark laughed. Had he possessed that refined regard for the feelings of others, never wanting in the true gentleman, he had not so spoken. "I know. But you need not be so close over it, Oswald. That Miss Allister is a nice girl, is she not?"

"Very," was the emphatic reply.

"One to be esteemed. Eh?"

"As few can be esteemed by me." Oswald spoke in his coldest, most uncompromising tone: his haughty face turned almost defiantly on Mark. He was the last man to brook this sort of speech, and in that moment he despised Mark. Sara had a book in her hand, and she never raised her drooping eyelids from it. What was it to her now whom he esteemed? But she _heard:_ all too plainly.

There was a pause of silence; rather an unpleasant one. It was broken by Miss Mary Ford.

"I must not forget to ask after your old servant Watton, Miss Davenal. Does she like her place? I suppose you see her occasionally."

"Thank you, I don't like it at all," returned Miss Davenal, hearing wrongly, as usual. "What was Mark asking you, Mr. Oswald Cray?"

"Watton is quite well; I saw her this morning," interposed Sara, who perhaps did not care that Mark's choice of subject should again be brought forward. Mrs. Cray caught up the words.

"Saw Watton this morning, Sara! Where did you see her?"

And the very moment the unlucky admission had left Sara's lips she knew how thoughtless it was to have made it, and what an undesirable discussion it might involve.

"Where did you see Watton?" repeated Mrs. Cray.

"I had a little business that way, and called upon her," replied Sara. She was obliged to speak: there was no help for it; and all the room seemed to be listening to her answer, which she had not time to weigh.

"Business down that way!" echoed Caroline. "Why, it is in the City! What business could you have there?"

"Not much: nothing of moment to you, Caroline;" and Sara, in her dismay and fear, turned and began talking rapidly to old Dr. Ford.

"Aunt Bettina," called out Mrs. Cray, in a slow distinct voice, "what business took Sara to the City this morning? I thought only gentlemen went there."

Aunt Bettina heard, and lifted her hand in momentary petulance, as if the subject angered her.

"You must not ask me. Sara has her own secrets and goes her own ways since your uncle's death. I am not allowed to know them."

Sara looked up to reply, perhaps to defend herself; but she remembered what was at stake, and forced herself to silence. Better that the blame should lie upon her! She had caught a momentary glimpse of Mr. Oswald Cray: he was leaning against a table in the distance, his eyes fixed upon her, reading every change in her countenance; his own face stern and impassive.

What more would have been said or asked was interrupted by the entrance of another guest. A middle-sized man of thirty, with radish hair and whiskers, a free manner and voluble tongue. Mark started forward with a shout of welcome, and introduced him to the strangers. It was Mr. Barker.

"I have brought up the grandest news, Cray," he exclaimed, in a state of excitement. "There's another lode found."

"No!" echoed Mark, his eyes sparkling. "Another lode?"

"Dutton came upon it yesterday afternoon after I wrote those few lines to you. By Jove, gentlemen"--throwing his looks round the room--"I am afraid to calculate what will be the riches of this mine! Mark, old fellow, I hope our success won't drive us into Bedlam--as the case has been with some millionaires."

Miss Bettina, who had contrived to hear, cleared her throat. "It's a great deal more likely to drive you into the union, sir."

It was an unexpected a check to Mr. Barker's enthusiasm that he could only stare in amazement at Miss Bettina. He had not met her before. "Never mind her," said Mark, in an undertone, "its only old Bett. And she's as deaf as a post."

But Mr. Barker did mind. "Why, ma'am," said he, going close to her, "what do you mean?"

"I can't forget a good old proverb that I learnt in my young days, sir," was her answer: "one that I have seen exemplified times upon times in my course through life. 'He that would be rich in twelve months is generally a beggar in six.' I know what good newly-discovered mines are apt to bring, sir, however promising they may look." Mr. Barker fairly turned his back upon her; he believed she must be little better than a lunatic; and gave his attention to Mark and the more sensible portion of the company.

"The people are up in arms down about there," he said. "Lots of them who wrote for shares in the new allotment have not succeeded in getting any, and I thought they'd have torn me to pieces. _I_ can't help it. It's a dear impossibility that the whole world can go in for being rich. If luck falls on one, it doesn't fall on another."

Dr. Ford, to whom Mr. Barker had seemed to appeal, nodded his head. "I hear great things of this mine, sir," said he.

"Great things!" repeated Mr. Barker, as if the words were not sufficiently expressive. "It is the very grandest thing that England has seen for many a day. The golden wealth of the Spanish Main is poor compared to it."

"I'm sure I hope it will answer."

"You--hope--it--will--answer!" echoed Mr. Barker, his red face going rather purple. "Why, sir, it _has_ answered. It _is_ answering. I could take my interest in it into the money market tomorrow, and sell it for half a million of money. Answer!"

Oswald Cray came nearer. "When shall you begin to realise?" he inquired.

"In about six weeks from this."

"Six weeks! Really to realise?"

"We might get some loads off before, if we chose, but we don't care to begin until the sales can go on uninterruptedly. The lead is coming up beautifully; vast quantities of it. You never saw such lead. It bangs all other in the locality into fits."

Mr. Barker in his joyous excitement was scarcely choice in his mode of speech. He was not particularly so at any time. He rubbed his hands--which looked as red as if they had been dining for ore--one against another.

"A fellow came up to the place--Lord What's-his-name's agent--and began handling the specimens. 'What sort of ore d'ye call this?' he asked. 'The best that ever was dug,' some of our men answered him. 'And so it is,' said he: 'we can't get such as this out of our pit.' No more they can: not an owner of 'em in all Wales."

"But you will not be selling freely in six weeks?" returned Oswald. "It is impossible."

"Impossible, is it?" retorted Mr. Barker. "It would be in most cases, I grant you; it's not in ours. You go and look at the thousands of men on the works. The Great Chwddyn mine doesn't deal in impossibilities."

"Would you be so good as tell me what you call that word, sir?" asked the physician, putting his hand to his ear. "We can't get at the pronunciation of it at Hallingham."

"And we can't here," returned easy Mr. Barker. "One calls it one thing and one another. As to trying to speak it like the natives, nobody can. _We_ call it the Great Wheal Bang up here. Not that it's at all appropriate or correct to do so, but one can't be breaking one's teeth over the other. You see--Halloa! what's this? For me?"

One of Mark's servants had entered with a telegraphic dispatch. It was addressed to Mr. Barker.

"Your man has brought it round from Piccadilly, sir. He thought it might be of moment."

"Let's see. Where's it from?--Wales? Ay. Another lode discovered, I'll be bound!"

Mr. Barker carried the paper across the room, and opened it under the lights of a girandole. He stared at it more than read it; stared at the words as if unable to understand them: and a curious expression of puzzled bewilderment, half wonder, half dismay, struggled to his face. Mark Cray had come to his side, all eagerness; and Oswald was watching them from the distance.

"_Is_ it another lode, Barker?"

"Hush! There has been a slight irruption of water," whispered Barker, thrusting the paper into his pocket. "Good heavens! that would floor us at once."

Mark Cray's mouth dropped. He stared as helplessly at Mr. Barker as the latter had stared at the dispatch. The sight of his face awoke Mr. Barker's caution.

"For goodness' sake, Cray, don't look like that! They'll see you, and suspect something. _This_ must be kept dark, if possible. I daresay it's nothing. I'll go back again tonight."

He turned away with a beaming face to the company, laughing merrily, talking gaily. They might have well deemed that two fresh lodes had been discovered instead of one. Mark, not quite so quick in recovering his equanimity, stayed where he was before the girandole, looking in it in an absent sort of manner, and pushing his hair back mechanically. Perhaps this was the first time that even the _possibility_ of failure had come close to Mark, face to face.

Barker was the first of the guests to retire, and Mark left the room with him. As the latter was returning to it he met his brother, who was also departing.

"Not going yet, Oswald? What a one you are!--Afraid of being in the streets late, it's my belief. I say! when am I to have the thousand pounds?"

"My mind is not quite made up yet," was the answer, a rather unexpected one to Mark's ears. "Mark, did Barker get any bad news tonight?"

"Bad news!" repeated Mark, as if quite at a loss to know what could be meant.

"By that dispatch from Wales?"

"Not at all," returned Mr. Mark, volubly. "He had forgotten to leave some instructions behind him, so they telegraphed. What put your head upon bad news?"

"Barker's countenance as he read the dispatch; and yours also when you joined him. You both looked as though some great calamity had occurred."

Mark laughed blithely. "Oswald, old fellow, you were always inclined to be fanciful. The mine is a glorious mine, and you'll be a blind booby if you don't secure some benefit in it. I'll answer for the safety of the investment with--with--my life," concluded Mark, speaking rather strongly in his loss for a simile. "Can't you rely upon me?"

O Mark Cray! His protestations of the "safety" were excusable before, when he believed what he said: but they were not now. Since that ominous message arrived his very heart had been quaking within him. In the few confidential words he had just exchanged with Barker on going out the latter had said: "We must get all the money we can, for we shall want it. Water, no matter how slight the irruption, plays the very deuce with the costs of a mine." And Mark Cray, to avert, or help to avert, or to conceal the calamity, was quite ready to sacrifice his own good faith and the money of his brother.