CHAPTER V.

RETROSPECT.

Of some note in the county, though poor for their rank, were the Oswalds of Thorndyke. Thorndyke, their country seat, was situated about five miles from Hallingham, and had been generally made the constant residence of the reigning baronet. It was a fine old place; the dyke surrounding it, or dike, as you may like to spell it--from which the place no doubt had partially taken its name--was of remarkable width. It was filled up in the time of Lady Oswald's husband, the _third_ baronet of his name; and fine pleasure-grounds might be seen now where unwholesome water had once stagnated. Possibly that water had been the remote and unsuspected cause of the dying off of so many of the house's children--as they had died in the old days.

The _second_ baronet, Sir Oswald Oswald, lost five children in succession. Two daughters and a son alone lived to grow up: and perhaps it had been as well for the peace of Sir Oswald and his wife had those three likewise died in infancy; for pain they all brought home in one shape or other. They were self-willed and disobedient; preferring their own ways. The son wished to go into the army: his father had the greatest possible aversion to it; but he persisted, and went, in spite of remonstrance. The younger daughter, Frances, married an old man for his rank: Sir Oswald objected to it; the man's character was of startling notoriety; but Frances took her own will and married him. A few short months only, and she was back again at Thorndyke, driven to take refuge from her husband in her father's home. The elder daughter, Mary, married Mr. Cray, a gentleman of no account in comparison with the Oswalds of Thorndyke. To this the most strenuous objection of all was made by Sir Oswald and his lady--in their haughty pride they looked down with utter contempt upon Mr. Cray. Miss Oswald disputed the grounds of their objection, urging that Mr. Cray, though of no particular note, was at least of gentle blood and breeding, and though his means might be small, _she_ deemed them sufficient. It was of no use: she could make no impression on her father and mother, she could not shake their refusal of consent, and she married Mr. Cray without it. Public opinion on the matter was divided. Some took Miss Oswald's part. She was of an age to judge for herself, being, in fact, no longer very young; and there appeared no good reason, save that he was not wealthy, for objecting to Mr. Cray. But her family--father, mother, brother, sister--bitterly resented it, and said she had disgraced them.

Mr. Cray had about eight hundred a-year, derivable from money in the funds, and he lived in the Abbey at Hallingham. The Oswalds enjoyed some three or four thousand a-year, landed property, and they lived at Thorndyke, and were baronets, and very grand. Of course there was a great difference; but some thought the difference might have been got over by Sir Oswald. Some went so far as to say that Mr. Cray, with his fine manly person and good conduct, was a better man than that shrivelled old lord who was breaking the heart of his poor wife, the younger daughter. Sir Oswald and Lady Oswald could not be brought to see it; none of the Oswalds could see it; and, take them altogether--brothers, cousins, uncles and nephews--there was a large family of them.

Mary Oswald married Mr. Cray, and he brought her home to Hallingham Abbey, and her friends never saw her after; that is, they never would recognise her. Many a Tuesday, on which day the family from Thorndyke would drive into Hallingham in their carriage and four--as was the habit with some of the county people--did they pass her without notice. They would be in the large close carriage, the old baronet and my lady, and their daughter Frances--who had no home now but theirs--opposite to them, and they would see Mrs. Cray at the Abbey windows, alone or with her husband, as the case might be, for their road took them past it, and all the greeting they gave her was a stony stare. Time went on, and there appeared a baby at her side, a pretty little fellow in long petticoats, held in his nurse's arms. That baby was named Oswald Oswald, and was the Mr. Oswald Cray whom you have seen: but the stare from the baronet's carriage was not less stony than before.

A twelvemonth more, when Oswald could just begin to run about in his pretty white frocks, and get his sturdy legs into grief, his hands into mischief, another child was born, and died. Poor Mrs. Cray died herself a few weeks afterwards. People said she had grown weak, fretting after Thorndyke, after her father and mother, lamenting their hardness, regretting her own disobedience; but people are prone to talk, and often say things for which there's not a shadow of foundation. She died without having seen her friends--unreconciled; and when Mr. Cray wrote to Sir Oswald a very proper letter, not familiar, but giving the details of her death, no answer was accorded him. Mrs. Cray, as Mary Oswald, had possessed a small income independent of her father, and this on her death passed to her little son. It was just one hundred and six pounds per year, and she made it her dying request that he should use the surname of Oswald in addition to that of Cray--should be known henceforth as Master Oswald Cray.

And it was so; and when the boy first entered a noted public school for gentlemen's sons, far away from Hallingham, and the boys saw him sign his exercises and copies "O. Oswald Cray," they asked him what the "O" was for. For his Christian name, he answered. Was not Oswald his Christian name? they wanted to know. Yes, his Christian and his surname both, he said--Oswald Oswald. It was his grandpapa's Christian and surname, Sir Oswald Oswald. Oh! was _he_ his grandfather asked the boys. Yes; but--Oswald added in his innate love of truth--he had never been the better for him, Sir Oswald had never spoken to him in his life; there was something unpleasant between him and his papa, he did not know what. No; at that stage of the boy's age he was unconscious what the breach was, or that his dead mother had made it.

Poor Oswald Cray had not had a very happy childhood's life; he scarcely knew what was meant by the words, home-ties, home-love. _He_ had never enjoyed them. There was a second Mrs. Cray, and a second family, and she did not like the boy Oswald, or care that he should be at home. He was but four years old when he was despatched to a far-off preparatory school, where he was to stay the holidays as well as the half-years. Now and then, about once in two years or so, he would be had home for a fortnight at Christmas, and Mr. Cray would make an occasional journey to see him.

It was at ten years old that he was removed to the public school, where the boys asked him the meaning of the "O." Before that time came, grief had penetrated to the family of Sir Oswald Oswald. His only son and heir had died in battle in India; his daughter Frances, who had never gone back to the old lord, had died at Thorndyke; and Sir Oswald and his wife were childless. Neither survived the year, and when Oswald was eleven years old, and getting to hold his own in the school, the title had devolved on the next brother, Sir John. Sir John was sixty when he came into it, and had no children. He had offended the Oswald family in the same way that Mary Oswald had offended them, by marrying a lady whose family was not as good as his own.

That lady was the present widow, Lady Oswald, now lamenting over the threatened innovation of the railway sheds. Sir John Oswald enjoyed the title for four years only, and then it lapsed to a cousin, for Sir John had no children. The cousin, Sir Philip, enjoyed it still, and lived at Thorndyke, and his eldest son would succeed him. They were proud also, those present Oswalds of Thorndyke, and never had spoken to Oswald Cray in their lives. The prejudices of old Sir Oswald had descended upon them, and Sir Philip and Lady Oswald would pass Oswald Cray, if by chance they met him, with as stony a stare as had ever greeted his poor mother.

Perhaps the only one of the whole Oswald family upon whom the prejudices had not descended was the widow of Sir John. Upon the death of her husband, when she had to leave Thorndyke, she took on lease the house at Hallingham, and had never removed from it. Her jointure was not a large one; but Sir John had bequeathed to her certain moneys absolutely, and these were at her own disposal. These moneys were also being added to yearly, for she did not spend all her income; so that it was supposed Lady Oswald would leave a pretty little sum behind her, by which somebody would benefit. There was no lack of "somebodies" to look out for it, for Lady Oswald had two nephews with large families, both of whom wanted help badly. One of these nephews, the Reverend Mr. Stephenson, was a poor curate, struggling to bring up his seven children upon one hundred a year. Lady Oswald sent him a little help now and then; but she was not fond of giving away her money.

The pride and prejudices of the family had not fallen upon her and she noticed and welcomed Oswald Cray. He was fifteen when she settled at Hallingham, and she had him to spend his first holidays with her afterwards. She had continued to notice him ever since, to invite him occasionally, and she was in her way fond of him; but it was not in the nature of Lady Oswald to feel much fondness for any one.

And yet, though not in her inmost heart cherishing the prejudices of the Oswalds, she did in a degree adopt them. She could not be independent and brave them off. Conscious that she was looked down upon herself by the Oswalds, she could not feel sufficiently free to take up her own standard of conduct, and fling those prejudices utterly to the winds. Upon tolerably good terms with Thorndyke, paying it occasional state visits, and receiving state visits from it in return, she did not openly defy all Thorndyke's prejudices. Though she acknowledged Oswald Cray as a relative, received him as an equal, there it ended, and she never, by so much as a word or a nod, recognised his father, Mr. Cray. She never had known him, and she did not enter upon the acquaintance. But in this there was nothing offensive, nothing that need have hurt the feelings of the Crays; Lady Oswald and they were strangers, and she was not bound to make their acquaintance, any more than she was that of other gentlepeople about Hallingham, moving in a sphere somewhat inferior to herself.

Mr. Cray had continued to reside at Hallingham Abbey, and to live at it in a style that his income did not justify. However the Oswalds may have despised him, he did not despise himself; neither did Hallingham. Mr. Cray of the Abbey was of note in the town; Mr. Cray was courted and looked up to; Mr. Cray went to dinner-parties, and gave them; Mr. Cray's wife was fashionable and extravagant, and so were Mr. Cray's daughters; and altogether Mr. Cray was a great man, and spent thousands where he ought to have spent hundreds.

He had four children, not counting Oswald--Marcus and three daughters--and it cost something to bring them out in the world. Marcus, changeable and vacillating by nature, fixed upon half a dozen professions or occupations for himself, before he decided upon the one he finally embraced--that of a doctor. Chance, more than anything else, caused him to decide on this at last. Altogether what with home extravagance and the cost of his children, Mr. Cray became an embarrassed man; and when he died, about two years previous to the opening of this story, a very slender support was left for his wife and daughters. His will did not even mention Oswald. Two or three hundred pounds were left to Marcus--the rest to Mrs. Cray for her life, and to go to her daughters afterwards.

Oswald had not expected any. Where a home gives no affection, it is not very likely to give money. When Oswald had come of age he found that his own income, of which his father was trustee, had no only been spent upon his education, but the principal had been very considerably drawn upon as well--in fact, it would take years to redeem it. "I was obliged to do it, Oswald," his father said. "I could not limit your educational expenses, and there was the heavy premium to pay in Parliament Street. I'd willingly have paid all cost myself; but it has not been in my power."

Oswald was not ungenerous. He grasped his father's hand and warmly thanked him, saying it was only right his own money should pay his cost when there were so many at home to educate. Ah, it was not the _money_ he regretted. Had every sixpence of it been spent--why, it was spent--he was young and strong, with a good profession before him, and brains and hands to work it, he could make his own way in the world, and he should make it. No, it was not the money; but what Oswald had been hurt at, was the manner in which they had estranged him from his home; had kept him from the father's affection which he had yearned for. He knew that the fault had been Mrs. Cray's; that his father held him aloof only under her influence. He did not allow himself to blame his father even in his own heart; but he could not help thinking that, were he ever placed in a similar situation, he should openly love and cherish his first-born son, in spite of all the second wives in the world. Oswald had yet to learn by experience how utterly futile is that boast which we are all apt to make--that we should act so differently in other people's places. Never was there a truer aphorism than the homely saying: "Nobody knows where the shoe pinches save those who wear it."

Oswald Cray had been born proud: it might be detected in every tone of his decisive voice, in every turn of his well-set head, in every lineament of his haughty features. He could not help it. It is well to repeat this assertion, because pride is sometimes looked upon as a failing demanding heavy reproach. There it was, and he could not shake it out of him any more than he could shake out his other qualities or feelings. It was discerned in him when a little child; it was seen conspicuously in his schooldays; it reigned paramount in his early manhood. "The boy has the proud spirit of his grandfather Sir Oswald," quoth the gossips; and no doubt it was from that quarter that it had come. Only in his later days, those years between twenty and thirty when thought and experience were coming to him, did it grow less observable, for he had the good sense to endeavour to keep it in due subjection.

But it was not a bad sort of pride, after all. It was not the foolish pride of the Oswalds generally, who deemed everybody beneath them; it was rather that pride of innate rectitude which keeps its owner from doing a mean, a wrong, or a disgraceful action. It was the pride of self-esteem, of self-reliance; that feeling which says: "I must not do so and so, for I should disgrace myself--those careless-living men around me may do these things, but I am superior to it" Other young men might plunge into the world's follies; pride, if no better motive, kept Oswald Cray from them. He could not for very shame have borne a tainted conscience; he could not have shown a clear outside to the world, open and fearless, knowing that his heart was foul within.

He was not proud of his family descent from the Oswalds. Quite the contrary. He found no cause to pride himself on either the Oswalds or the Crays. So far as the Oswalds went, many a hundred times had he wished they were no connections of his. All his life he had received from them nothing but slights; and slights to a man of Oswald Cray's temperament bring the deepest mortification. He knew now how they had treated his mother; he felt to his very heart how they despised himself. If he could have changed his dead grandfather into somebody else, a little less foolish and a great deal less grand, he had been better pleased.

But this very isolation from his mother's family had tended to foster his own pride--the mortification which it induced had fostered it--just as the isolation from his own home, from his father and the second family, had contributed to render him self-reliant. It is not your home darling, bred up in fond dependence, sheltered from the world's storms as a hothouse flower, who becomes the self-reliant man, but he who is sent out early to rough it, who has nobody to care for him, or to love him, in all the wide earth.

Not a more self-reliant man lived than Oswald Cray. He was sure, under God, of _himself_, of his good conduct; and I think it is about the best surety that a man or woman can carry with them through life. In moments of doubt, perplexity, difficulty, whatever might be its nature, he turned to his own heart and took its counsel--and it never failed him. It was with himself he deliberated; it was his own good judgment, his right feeling, that he called to his aid. He had an honest, upright nature, was strictly honourable; a proud man, if it is the proper sort of pride, nearly always is so. His ambition was great, but not extravagant; it did not soar him aloft in flights of fancy, vain, generally speaking, as they are absurd. He was determined to rise to the summit of his profession--that of a civil engineer--but he entertained no foolish dreams beyond it. To attain to that, he would use every diligence, every effort, consistent with uprightness and honour; and dishonourable efforts Oswald Cray would have scorned to use, would have shaken them from him as he shook a summer-day's dust from his shoes.

He was connected with a firm of high repute in Parliament Street: Bracknell and Street. Oswald Cray was a partner, but his name did not appear as yet: and, as you may readily imagine, the lion's share of the profits did not fall to him. In fact, he had entered it very much as his half-brother had entered the house of Dr. Davenal--to obtain a footing. For more substantial recompense he was content to wait. Bracknell and Street were engineers to the Hallingham line, and to Oswald Cray had been entrusted its working and management.

He had said to Lady Oswald, in answer to her reproach of his not calling to see her more frequently, that his time when at Hallingham was much occupied. True, so far: but the chief and real motive which kept him from her house was a sort of sensitive feeling relating to her money. It was not that he dreaded people's saying he was looking after it: he would have scorned that kind of reproach: but he did dread lest any degree of intimacy, any pushing of himself in her way, should cause her to leave it to him. I am not sure that you will quite understand this; understand him or his feeling. None but a man of the nicest honour, who was entrenched, as it were, in his own pride, the pride of rectitude, could have felt this delicacy. He did not want Lady Oswald's money; he knew that he had no claim upon any of it, no right to it, and he would not put himself in her way more than he could help, even as a passing visitor. Gossiping Hallingham had said: "My lady would be leaving her nest-egg to Mr. Oswald Cray." The gossip had penetrated to Mr. Oswald Cray's ears, and his only notice of it was a haughty gesture of contempt: but in all probability it tended to increase his dislike to go to Lady Oswald's. During these business visits at Hallingham, he sojourned at a respectable inn of the old school, a little beyond the town and the Abbey Gardens, called the "Apple Tree," and had recently become more intimate with the family of Dr. Davenal.

Driven forth all his life from his father's home, allowed to enter it but at rare intervals, and then as a formally-invited guest, it cannot be supposed that Oswald Cray entertained any strong affection for his half-brother and sisters. Such a state of things would have been unnatural, quite in opposition to ordinary probabilities. It would be wrong to say that they disliked each other; but there was certainly no love: civil indifference may best express the feeling. Marcus, the eldest child of the second Mrs. Cray, was from three to four years younger than Oswald. It had been better that Mrs. Cray had fostered an affection between these boys, but she did just the reverse. She resented the contempt cast on her husband by the Oswalds of Thorndyke; she resented, most unreasonably, the fact that the little money of the first Mrs. Cray should have descended at once to Oswald; she even resented the child's having taken the distinguishing name: he was Oswald Cray, her son, plain Cray. How worse than foolish this was of her, how wrong, perhaps the woman might yet learn: but altogether it did excite her against Oswald; and she had kept him aloof from her own children, and encouraged those children to be jealous of him. When the boys became men, they met often, and were cordial enough with each other; but there was no feeling of brotherhood, there never could be any.

For a twelvemonth after Mr. Cray's death, Mrs. Cray remained at the Abbey, and then she left it. It was too expensive a residence for her now--its rent swallowing up half her income. She removed with her daughters to a watering-place in Wales, where, as she fractiously said, she hoped they should "get along." Marcus, who had qualified for a surgeon, became assistant to Dr. Davenal, and that gentleman at length gave him a small share in the profits. It was not a regularly-constituted firm--"Davenal and Cray"--nothing of the sort. Hallingham knew that he was admitted a partner so far as receiving a share went; and they knew that that was all.

He was liked in Hallingham, this young doctor, and Dr. Davenal had done it in kindness, to give him a standing. As the time went on, he would have no doubt a larger and larger share--some time succeed to the whole. He was considered a suitable partner for the doctor; the Crays of the Abbey had always been looked up to in the town; and young Cray's skill as a medical man was in the ascendant. Lady Oswald was getting to like him very much; she evinced a desire to patronise him, to push forward his interests; and Dr. Davenal was really in hope that she would adopt him as her attendant for everyday calls instead of himself. Mr. Cray could spare the time for these useless visits better than Dr. Davenal. He, Mr. Cray, resided in lodgings in the town, and was growing in its favour daily in a professional point of view: not that he had displayed any unusual skill, but simply that Hallingham gave him credit for possessing it, because they liked _him_.

There was a large family of the Davenals, as there was of the Oswalds--speaking, in both cases, of the days gone by, and comprising collateral branches. Years and years ago Surgeon Davenal's had been a noted name in Hallingham; he had a large practice, and he had several children. It is not necessary to speak of all the children. Richard (the present Dr. Davenal) was the eldest son, and had succeeded to the practice. The two other sons, Walter and John, had chosen to enter the Church, and both, when ordained, had gone out to the West Indies; one of them became chaplain to the Bishop of Barbadoes, the other obtained a church in the island. Both had married there, and Caroline Davenal was the only child of Walter, the elder of the two.

Sara was twelve years old when her cousin Caroline arrived in England, an orphan; father and mother were both dead. A poor clergyman in the West Indies, dying young, was not likely to have amassed money, and the little child, Caroline, had literally nothing. Her father wrote an appealing letter to his brother Richard, on his deathbed, and Richard Davenal was not one to reject it.

"She shall be my child henceforth, and Sara's sister," said he, in the warmth of his heart, when the letter and the child arrived at Hallingham. And so she had been.

But it was by no means so certain that Caroline Davenal would not some time be rich. A very large sum of money was pending in her mother's family, who were West Indians. It had become the subject of dispute, of litigation, and was at length thrown into that formidable court in England--Chancery. Should it be decided in one way, Caroline would derive no benefit; if in another, she would come in for several thousand pounds. The probabilities were in her favour--but Chancery, as you all know, is a capricious court, and does not hurry itself to inconvenience.

Upon the death of Dr. Davenal's wife, his sister Bettina came to reside with him, and to rule his children. He had but three--Richard, Edward, and Sara. There had been others between Edward and Sara, but they died young. Fine lads, those of Dr. Davenal, although they took to plaguing stern Miss Bettina, and aggravatingly called her "Aunt Bett." Fine young men, too, they grew up--well reared, liberally educated. Richard embraced his father's profession; for Edward a commission in the army was purchased, in accordance with his strong wish, and he was now Captain Davenal.

And Richard Davenal, the eldest son, where was he? Ah! it was a grievous story to look back upon. It had clouded the life of Dr. Davenal, and would cloud it to the end. Richard was dead, and Dr. Davenal blamed himself as the remote cause.

When Richard had completed his studies, and passed the College of Surgeons, he returned to Hallingham, and joined his father in practice, as it had been intended that he should. He grew greatly in favour: he promised to be as clever as his father: and Hallingham courted him. He was a man of attractive presence, of genial manners, and he mixed a great deal of pleasure with his life of work. Dr. Davenal spoke to him seriously and kindly. He said that too much pleasure did not agree long with work, could not agree with it, and he begged him to be more steady. Richard laughed, and said he would. A short while, and startling news reached the ears of Dr. Davenal--that Richard was thinking of marrying one who was undesirable. Richard, his fine boy, of whom he was so fond and proud, marry _her!_ It was not against the young lady herself that so much could be urged, but against her connections. They were most objectionable. Dr. Davenal pointed out to Richard that to wed this girl would be as a blight upon his prospects, a blow to his reputation. Richard could not be brought to see it. Though not equal to themselves in position, she was respectable, he said; and her connections had nothing to do with it--he did not marry them, he married her. The feud continued: not an open feud, you understand, but an undercurrent of opposition, of coolness. Richard would not give up his project, and Dr. Davenal would not view it with anything but aversion. As to giving his consent, that Dr. Davenal never would; and Richard, hitherto dutiful, was not one to go the length of marrying in defiance.

It was at this time, or a little before it, that the dispute had arisen in Barbadoes touching the money already spoken of. Particulars of it were written to Dr. Davenal by his brother John, explaining also how Caroline's interests were involved. He, the Reverend John Davenal, said in the same letter that he was anxious to send his two little boys to Europe for their education, and was waiting to find them a fit escort; he did not care to trust them alone in the ship. As Dr. Davenal read this letter, a sudden thought darted into his mind like a flash of lightning. What if he sent out Richard? Richard could sift the details about this fortune, could, if expedient, urge Caroline's interests; he could bring back the two little boys, and--and--the chief thought of all lay behind--it might break off the engagement with the young girl here, Fanny Parrack! Quite a glow of satisfaction came over Dr. Davenal's face at the thought.

He sought a conference with his son. He told him that he wished him to take a voyage to Barbadoes; that Caroline's interests required somebody to go out; that the two little boys had no friend to bring them over. Richard hesitated. To most young men a visit to the West Indies would be a welcome distraction; but Richard Davenal seemed strangely to hold back from it--to shrink from its very mention. Did some mysterious warning of what it would bring forth for him dart unconsciously across his spirit? Or did he fear that it might in some way lead to his losing the young lady upon whom he had set his heart? It cannot be known. Certain it was, remembered, oh how remembered afterwards, that an unaccountable repugnance on Richard's part did evince itself, and it was only to the persistent urgent persuasion of Dr. Davenal that he at length yielded. He yielded, as it were, under protest, and he said he did, sacrificing his own strong wishes against it to his father's.

He set sail, and he wrote on his arrival at Barbadoes, after a fine passage; and the next letter they received, a fortnight afterwards, was not from him, but from his uncle, the clergyman. Richard had died of yellow fever.

It seemed to turn the current of Dr. Davenal's life. He blamed himself as the cause: but for his scheming--and in that moment of exaggerated feeling, of intense grief, he called it scheming--Richard, his best beloved son, would be still by his side to bless him. He had never been a scheming man, but an open and straightforward one; and never, so long as he lived, would he scheme again. In his unhappiness, he began to reproach himself for having needlessly opposed Richard's marriage--to believe that he might have done worse than in marrying Fanny Parrack. He sent for her, and he found her a pretty, modest, gentle girl, and his repentance heaped itself upon him fourfold. He informed her very kindly and considerately of the unhappy fact of Richard's death, and he told her that should any memento be found left for her amidst Richard's effects when they arrived--any letter, no matter what--it should be given to her.

But that death had changed Dr. Davenal into an old man; in the two years which had elapsed since, he had aged ten, both in looks and constitution. No wonder that a spasm of pain came over his face when Mr. Cray asked him whether he should forbid Caroline to him. You can understand his answer now: "So long as I live I shall never 'forbid' a marriage to any over whom I hold control:" and you can understand the anguish of the tone in which it was spoken.

And that ends the chapter of retrospect.