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_ wouldn't. 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 hall 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 undercurrent. 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 today."

"Well, I don't think I can go," said Mark. "I'll--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 upstairs 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.

"Who was that at the door, Mark? Did you think it was any one in particular?"

"I don't know who it was."

"You seemed alarmed. Or annoyed."

"Well," returned Mark, speaking rather fast, "and it is annoying to have business fellows corning after me to my house. Why can't they go to the offices?"

"To be sure," said Caroline, reassured. "I'd not see a soul here, if I were you."

He had been walking on towards the hall-door while he spoke. But ere he had well reached it, he turned, and drew his wife into one of the rooms.

"Look here, Caroline: I'm not sure but I shall have to go down to the mines tonight. If so, it is just possible I may not be able to come here first. So you won't be alarmed if you don't see me home."

"What a hurry you must be in!" exclaimed Caroline. "Not come home first!"

"But if I do go, mind, it will be on a little private matter that I don't want known," he continued, taking no notice of the remark. "So, if anybody should ask where I am, just answer that you can't tell, but that I shall be back in a day or two. Do you understand, Carine?"

"Quite well. But, Mark, you will come home first, won't you?"

"I only tell you this in case I don't come," he answered evasively. "I have a good deal to do today. Goodbye, Carine."

"But about Hendon?" she interrupted.

"Hendon? Oh, I am quite sure I shan't have time for Hendon today. If you don't like to go without me, we must put it off for a day or two." He stooped to kiss her. Opening the hall-door, he stood on the steps, looking right and left; carelessly, as it seemed; in reality, cautiously. Very timorous was Mark Cray in that hour; he did not like that people should have hunted him to his very home. Then he turned to the Victoria Station, perhaps as the nearest point of refuge. He would make his way to Wales, to the mine, as straightly and speedily as he could, consistent with precaution.

Mark had been gone the best part of an hour, and it was hard upon midday. His wife was just deliberating whether to go shopping in the afternoon, or make calls, or pay a visit to the empty park, or take a drive out of town; which way, in short, would be the least tedious of killing the precious time that God had given her, when she was aroused by a formidable summons at the door, and a noise as of many steps and voices besieging the hall.

What next took place Caroline never clearly remembered. Confused recollections remained to her afterwards of angry demands for Mr. Cray, of indignant denials to the servant's assertion that his master was in the City; the hubbub was great, the voices were threatening. Caroline's first surprise was superseded by indignation; and that in its turn gave place to alarm.

You all know what it is to pour oil upon a spark of fire previously ready to burst forth into a flame. When the Great Wheal Bang's shareholders had flocked to the Great Wheal Bang's offices that morning they were on the balance, as may be said, between war and peace; somewhat uncertain in their own minds whether to treat Mark Cray and Mr. Barker as unfortunate fellow-sufferers with themselves, or to expend upon them their wrongs and their wrath. That mistake of the Great Wheal Bang's secretary--as alluded to in the last chapter--turned the scale. In his dismay and confusion he inadvertently referred to the former irruption of water, and the unlucky disclosure maddened the throng. They forthwith looked upon themselves as dreadfully injured people; in fact they jumped to the conclusion that the Great Wheal Bang itself was little better than a swindle; so apt are we all to rush into extremes. Barker did what he could to stem the torrent; but the crowd vociferously demanded to see Mark Cray. It was he they had known mostly in the affair, for Barker was usually at the mine. And, not finding Mark answer to their demands, some of them tore off on the spur of the moment in Hansom cabs to his residence.

Caroline stood the very image of dismay. She did not show herself; she was too much alarmed; she peeped from the half-closed dining-room door and listened, just as Mark had done a short while before. Confused words of "water" and "mine" and "swindle" and "ruin" saluted her ears; and the demands for Mr. Cray became more threateningly imperative. Some movement of the door occurred; she staggered against it; and it was observed from the hall. Perhaps it was only natural to the belligerents to conclude that Mark Cray was there. They pressed forward to the room; but upon seeing that the lady was its only occupant, the young and lovely lady in her gala morning dress and the roses chased from her cheeks by fear, they drew back and clustered outside it.

"What is it you want!" gasped Caroline from her trembling lips.

One of the foremost answered her. He was a gentleman, and he raised his hat, and made his tone as courteous as his sense of injury allowed. They were very sorry to disturb her, but they must see Mr. Cray. They had come to see him and they would see him.

"I assure you that he is not here," said Caroline, her earnest voice carrying truth with it. "He has been gone some time."

"He was at the offices this morning, madam, and disappeared. We were told he had no doubt come home."

"It is true," she answered. "He went to the offices very early, and came home again about eleven o'clock for something he had forgotten, papers I think he said. He did not stay two minutes; he got them and went back again. What is it that is the matter?"

"Back to the offices?" they asked, disregarding the question.

"Yes, back to the offices. He said he must make haste, for he had a great deal to do today. I am sure you will find him there." She had no suspicion that she was asserting what was not true. Whether they believed it or not--though most of them did believe it--they had no resource but to act upon it. Filing out again, they jumped into the cabs, and rattled back at the rate of nine-and-twenty miles an hour.

Leaving Mrs. Cray in a grievous state of perplexity and of distress: for they had spoken of "ruin" as connected with the mine. She was one of those who cannot bear suspense: she had no patience; no endurance, not even for an hour. In a tumult of hurry and emotion, she had her carriage brought round, called for Sara Davenal, to whom, however, she did not tell what had taken place, and drove on to the City almost as fast as those cabs had driven, to get an explanation of Mark.

The cabs had arrived previously, and their occupants found they had been deceived. No Mark Cray was at the offices, or had been there since his first departure from them. They burst bounds, in tongue at any rate, and talked of warrants and prosecutions and various inconvenient things. Other shareholders joined in the general fury, and it may perhaps be excused to them that when the carriage of Mark Cray suddenly appeared in the general melée, they turned their rage upon it.

That is, they pressed round it and saluted it with reproaches not at all soft or complimentary. Possibly in the moment's blind anger they did not see that Mark himself was not its occupant. They were, on the whole, men who knew how to behave themselves, and would have desisted, perhaps apologised, when they had had time and calmness to see that only ladies were there: but that time was not allowed them.

One came, with his tall strong form, his pale, resolute, haughty face, and pushed them right and left, as he laid his hand on the carriage door.

"Are you _men?_" he asked. "Don't you see that you are terrifying these ladies? Stand back. I had thought----"

"Oh, Oswald, save us! save us!" came the interrupting cry, as Caroline Cray caught his hand. "What is it all? what has happened?"

He got her out of the carriage and into some adjacent offices, whose friendly doors were opened to them. Sara followed, unmolested, and Oswald went back to rescue, if might be, the carriage. But the gentlemen had been a little recalled to common-sense by the incident: and the carriage was no longer in danger. Smashing Mark Cray's carriage would not make good their losses, or bring forth him who was missing. Oswald returned to Mrs. Cray.

"It is all right again now," he said. "The carriage is waiting for you a little further off. Shall I take you to it?"

"But I want to go into the offices, Oswald," she feverishly rejoined. "I want to see Mark. I must see him."

"Mark is not at the offices. Neither would it be well that you should go there just now."

"Not at the offices! where is he then?"

"I don't know where he is. I should like to find him."

He spoke in a cold, proud, bitter tone, and it struck dismay to the heart of Mrs. Cray. Indeed Oswald's frame of mind was one of the most intense bitterness. He had been plausibly defrauded out of his money: his pride, his sensitive honour, his innate justice, had been wounded to the core. All this disgrace Mark Cray had been earning for himself; Mark, his half-brother!

"But I must see Mark," she reiterated in a helpless manner. "Don't you know where I can go to find him, Oswald?"

"I do not indeed."

"I want to know what has happened. I heard them speak of ruin; of water in the mine. Can _you_ tell me?"

"News has come up that an irruption of water has taken place. I find it is not the first: but the other, they say, was not serious."

"And this is?"

"I fear so."

"But what right have those men to be so angry, so excited against Mark? He did not let the water in." Oswald made no answer. If Mark had treated those shareholders with the duplicity that he had treated him, they had certainly a very good right to be angry and excited.

Mrs. Cray turned towards the door in her restlessness to take a reconnoitring glimpse of the state of affairs outside. Mark might have come up! might be in the midst of the mob! Sara, who had waited for the opportunity, drew near to Oswald Cray, and spoke in a whisper.

"Is it ruin?"

"Irretrievable--as I believe," he answered, his voice unconsciously assuming a strange tenderness as he looked at her pale, sad face. "Ruin for Mark Cray, perhaps for many others." And the words fell like a shock of ice on her heart. What would become of the engagement that she had made to repay the two hundred pounds to Mr. Wheatley from the money owing her by Mark?