CHAPTER L.

HARD USAGE FOR DICK.

Do you remember the severe weather of the Christmas of 1860? How for once we had an old-fashioned Christmas day, when the icicles hung bright and frozen from the trees and the ponds were alive with skaters, after the manner of the Christmases we read of, of the days gone by. It was indeed a bitter winter, that at the close of 1860, and an unusual number of the poor and friendless, the sick and ailing, passed from its biting sharpness to a better world.

In the mind of one it almost seemed as though he had held some mysterious prevision of it; and that was Oswald Cray. When deliberating, the previous autumn, whether he should go to Spain himself, times and again had the thought recurred to him--what if we have a sharp winter?--how will Allister weather it? And now that the sharp winter, more terribly sharp than even Oswald dreamt of, had indeed come, he was thankful to have sacrificed his own self-interest. In that more southern climate Allister would no feel the cold of this; and it almost seemed as if the thought alone brought to Oswald his reward.

"Isn't it stunning, Aunt Bett?"

You will probably recognise the words as likely to emanate from nobody's lips but Mr. Dick Davenal's. Mr. Dick had arrived for the holidays; rather against the inclination as well as the judgment of Miss Bettina, but she did not see her way in courtesy to exclude him. Leopold had been in town with her since October, she and Sara nursing him; so it would have been unkind to keep Dick at school alone for the holidays. Miss Bettina said London was a bad place for Dick; he would be getting into all sorts of mischief: perhaps get run over, perhaps get lost; it was uncertain what: but Sara, in her love for the boy, promised to keep him in order and out of harm. A rash undertaking.

What of the Great Wheal Bang? The Great Wheal Bang was gone for ever It had passed out ignobly, never probably to be heard of as a mine again, except in name at certain law courts, to which some of its angry shareholders persisted in bringing it. Mr. Barker was abroad, and did not come home to face the storm; it appeared there was no law to force him home, the matters of the Wheal Bang just escaped that; and he carried on a free-and-easy correspondence with some of the exasperated shareholders, who told him to his face in their answers that he deserved hanging.

And Mark Cray? Mark Cray was nowhere. The defunct company did their best to find him, but, try as they would, they could not discover his hiding-place. They assumed he was out of the country, most probably with Barker, and perhaps their home search was, through that very assumption, less minute than it might have been. A run from danger is always more formidable than a faced one; and if Mark Cray had only faced those shareholders he would no doubt have found their bite less hurtful than their bark. That they were loud and threatening and angry, was true; but Mark would have done well to meet the worst, and get it over. The luxurious house in Grosvenor Place had been long ago abandoned by Mark and his wife; and so temporarily had it been lived in, so fleeting had been the enjoyment of the carriages, the servants, the society, and all the rest of the accessories, that altogether that time seemed only like a dream.

"Isn't it stunning, Aunt Bett?"

Dick was standing at the dining-room window, his sparkling eyes devouring the ice in the streets, the tempting slides in the gutters. A young gentleman who was coming to the house with a small tray of meat upon his back had just gone down one beautifully, and Dick longed to be behind him. Leo stepped to the window to look, and thought he should like it too; but Leo was not in strong health, as Dick was.

"Isn't it what?" asked Aunt Bett, looking up quickly. "Raining?"

"Stunning," roared Dick.

"I wish you would learn to speak like a gentleman, Richard, and not use those expressions. If they do for school, they don't do for home."

"I have been oiling my skates this morning," continued Dick. "They are rather short, but they'll do."

"Oiling what?"

"My skates."

"What cakes?"

"Sk--a--tes, Aunt Bett. Everything will bear today."

"Nothing bears in London," said Miss Bettina. "You must not try it, Richard. A great many boys are drowned every winter in the Serpentine."

"What muffs they must be!" returned Dick; "Aunt Bett, the ponds would bear you if you'd put on a pair of skates and try. They'd bear me a hundred times over."

"Would they?" said Miss Bettina. She turned to Sara, who was busy at the table and pointed with her finger to indicate Dick.

"I will not have him to go into this danger. Do you hear, Sara? _You_ undertook to keep him out of harm, if he came to us; so see to it. Perhaps the best plan will be to lock up his skates. I don't want to have him brought home drowned."

Dick was resentful. He might have broken into open rebellion but for fear of being sent back to enjoy his holidays at school. He sat in a sullen sort of mood, on the edge of a chair, his hands in his pockets clicking their contents about, and his boots beating time restlessly on the carpet.

"How it's all altered!" he exclaimed.

"How is what altered?" inquired Sara. They were alone then. Miss Bettina had gone from the room to give Leopold his eleven o'clock dose of strengthening medicine.

"Since Uncle Richard's time. Why, he bought me those very skates last winter, when that frost came in November. That is, he sent word to school that I might have them. And then we had no more ice at all! and Uncle Richard kept wishing through the holidays there might be some for us! _He'd_ have let us skate."

Sara was silent. Things had indeed altered since then.

"It's an awful shame of Aunt Bett! The ice stunning thick, and a fellow can't enjoy it! Drowned! She might get drowned herself perhaps, but _I_ shouldn't. Uncle Richard would have let us skate in Hallingham!" added Dick, excessively resentful. "He wanted us to skate."

"But I think it was a little different, Richard dear. Those ponds at Hallingham were not deep; and people do get drowned in the Serpentine. And there's nobody to go with you." Dick tossed his head. "Perhaps you think I want somebody! You had better send a nursemaid. Fine holidays these are!"

A few minutes more of sitting still and Dick could stand it no longer. He darted into the passage and snatched his cap. Sara, quick as he, caught him with the street-door in his hand.

"Dick, it must not be. You know I have answered for you to Aunt Bettina."

"All right, Sara. I'm not going near the Serpentine, or any other deep water."

"You promise?"

"Yes; on my honour. There! Why, I have not got my skates. I'm going up and down the street-slides; that's all. You can't expect me to sit twirling my thumbs all day in Aunt Bett's parlour, as Leo does."

She had no fear then. If Dick once gave his honour, or if put upon his honour, he could but be a loyal knight. Left to himself, no promise extracted from him, he would have decamped right off to the Serpentine, or to anything else mischievous and dangerous; but not now.

But Dick "took it out"--the words were his own--in street-slides. All the most attractive _ruisseaux_ within a few miles of home Mr. Dick exercised his legs upon. It required a terrible amount of resolution to keep his promise not to "go near" the forbidden water; and how long Dick stood in envy, his nose frozen to the park railings as he watched the streams of people pouring towards the ice, he never knew. He was not in a good humour; the slides were very ignoble pastime indeed, only fit for street-boys; and he thought if there was one gentleman more ill-used than another that day in all Her Majesty's dominions, that one was himself.

Mr. Dick stopped out his own time. He knew that he would be expected home about one o'clock to have something to eat; but as nothing had been expressly said to him, he took rather a savage pleasure in letting them expect, punishing his hunger. He saw a man selling hot potatoes; and he bought three and ate them, skins and all. Dick was not in the least troubled with proud notions: Leo would have looked askance at the tempting edible, and passed on the other side; Dick danced round the man's machine while he feasted, in the face and eyes of the passers-by. If Miss Davenal had but seen him!

Altogether, what with the slides, the hot potatoes, and the temper, Mr. Richard Davenal remained out long after dark. When he began to think it might be as well to return home, and to feel as if fifteen wolves were inside him fighting for their dinner, he was in some obscure and remote region of Chelsea, where the population was more crowded than aristocratic, and the ice abundant. Happening to cast his eyes to a clock in a baker's shop he saw that it wanted but twenty-five minutes to six.

"My?" ejaculated Dick in his dismay. Miss Davenal's dinner-hour had been altered from six to five while the boys were with her, and Dick had certainly meant to be home to time. He had not thought it was so late as this. Dick's hair stood on end, and the wolves fought desperately.

"Suppose old Bett should say I shan't have any dinner?"

The shop next door to the baker's was a cook's shop--as they are called: and perhaps Dick's dreadful doubt caused him irresistibly to linger for a fond moment at the window and gaze at the attractions inside. Under Dick's very nose was a steaming mound of beef just out of the pot, some parsnips round it; other joints were there in plenty; peas-pudding, plum-pudding, sausages, and a whole host of things irresistible to a boy in Dick's famishing condition. He mechanically put his hand into his pocket, lest a stray sixpence might by some miracle be there. In vain. Dick Davenal was one who could not keep money for an hour, and his having sufficient to buy the potatoes was a fact notable.

Hurried as he was, he could not tear himself from the tempting shop. The shopman, in a white apron, a great carving-knife and fork in his hand, was cutting thin slices from a cold round of beef and placing them in the scale on a piece of white paper. The balance went down, and he rolled the paper round the meat and handed it to the customer waiting for it, a young woman--or rather lady, for she looked like one--who wore a black veil over her face. She gave him sixpence and some halfpence in return, but the man did not seem to like the sixpence; he held it close to the gas and then showed it to her, and she put her veil aside and bent her face nearer while she looked at it.

If ever Dick Davenal believed he was in a dream he believed so then. He rubbed his eyes; he rubbed his frozen nose; he stared through the intervening steam; and he pinched himself to see whether he was awake. For that face was the face of his cousin, Mrs. Cray.

Dick could not believe his senses. The shopman apparently decided that the sixpence was a good one, and put it in his till, and the lady had left the shop before Dick recovered his bewilderment. He had believed Mr. and Mrs. Cray were abroad. From a shrewd boy like Dick it had been impossible to guard the secret that something was wrong; besides, he had heard of the failure of the Great Wheal Bang, and that its promoters were away, abroad or somewhere.

But that was surely Caroline gone out of the shop with a paper of meat in her hand! Dick's spirit went down to zero. However _he_ might condescend to the purchase of hot potatoes, and such like stray escapades, he did not like to see Caroline buy cooked meat and carry it away with her. Dick knew that something or other must be all wrong, and he suddenly felt as timid as Leo.

She crossed the road and went down a by-street, where the lights were scanty and the houses poor. Dick followed her. He saw how tightly her veil was drawn over her face; and she walked with her head down: it might be to keep out the cold, or it might be to avoid observation.

She turned into a house on the left-hand side whose door stood open; a shabby-looking house, but sufficiently large. Dick, hardly certain in his own mind yet, deliberated whether he should follow her and show himself: and when he at length went to the door nobody was in sight. He took courage and knocked; and a woman came out of the parlour on the right.

"Is Mrs. Cray here?" asked Dick.

"Mrs. who?"

"Mrs. Cray. She's just gone in."

"There's nobody here of that name. Who's Mrs. Cray? You have mistook the house, young man." Dick had his wits about him, as the saying runs, and they were sufficiently alert to prevent his insisting on the point of its being Mrs. Cray. "I'm sure I saw some lady come in," said he.

"Mrs. Mark came in a minute ago, for I met her in the passage. First floor if you want her."

"Can I go up?" asked Dick.

"That's as you please," returned the woman, who was crusty enough to be first cousin to Mrs. Benn. "The other lodgers in the house is nothing to me, who goes up to 'em or who doesn't."

She retreated inside the parlour and banged the door. Dick stumbled upstairs in the dark, the words "first floor" having guided him. Some light came in from a window on the landing, and he distinctly heard Caroline's voice in the front room. Dick-fashion, he burst in without knocking.

Caroline gave a short scream. She was untying her bonnet, and the paper of meat, slowly unfolding itself, lay on the table. It was a plain sitting-room carpeted with drugget, a large sofa covered with dark blue stuff seeming to take up one side of it. A white cloth was spread on part of the table, with some tea-cups and saucers, a loaf of bread, and a piece of butter.

"Caroline, I was sure it was you!" The first moment of surprise over, Caroline threw herself on a chair and burst into tears. Dick sat down opposite to her and stared round the room, staring off his bewilderment. Poor Dick was not possessed of any superfluous sentiment, and the sobs and emotion only made him feel awkward. The sight of a home face was too much for Mrs. Cray.

"Is Mark here?"

Dick asked presently.

"No." Dick glanced round again, but he could see no door except the one he had entered at.

"I'm sure I heard you talking to somebody, Caroline. It made me know which was the room."

"I was talking to myself. The words I said were, 'I hope Mark will not be long,' and I suppose I spoke them aloud."

A few final sobs, and the emotion passed. Dick was timid, almost nervous, and he never remembered to have been so in his life. A thought crossed the boy's mind of what his uncle Richard would say, could he see this curious state of things.

"Do you live here, Caroline!"

"Yes. We went away in the country for a little time at first; but it was so out of the way of hearing anything, so dull, so wretched, that we came back again. Mark thought it would be better to come pretty near to the old neighbourhood; that there was less chance of our being looked for there than elsewhere."

"You don't have all the house."

"All the house!" echoed Caroline. "We only have this room and the use of the kitchen, which I hardly ever go down to. That sofa is a bed," she added, pointing to it. "Mark draws it out at night."

Dick felt more at sea than ever. "Has Mark got no money?"

Caroline shook her head. "There's a little left; not much. We did not save a thing from Grosvenor Place. People came in and took possession while Mark was away, and I got frightened and left it. Afterwards, when my clothes were asked for, they sent me a boxful of the poorest I had, and said those were all. I don't know whether it was that they kept the best, or that the maid-servants helped themselves to them. Dick!" she passionately added, "I'd rather die than have to bear all this."

"Do you have to go out and buy the meat?" questioned Dick, unable to get the practical part he had seen out a his head.

"There's a boy that waits on the lodgers, the landlady's son, and he goes on errands sometimes. Mark thought we should be safer in a house like this, where there are different lodgers, and one does not interfere with the concerns of the others; that we should be less likely to attract notice. In truth we were afraid to venture on a better place where persons might recognise us."

"Afraid of what?" questioned Dick.

"I'm sure I hardly know," she answered. "Of his being arrested, I suppose."

"I say, does Sara know you are here?"

Caroline shook her head. "I have written her a note twice, saying we are safe; but Mark would not let me give the address. Aunt Bettina has shaken us off, there's no doubt; she'll never forgive Mark."

"Forgive him for what!"

"Oh, altogether," returned Caroline with a gesture of impatience. "There was the leaving Hallingham, and Sara's money, and other things."

"Where is Mark?" continued Dick.

"He won't be long. He strolls out a little after dark, but he does not care to venture abroad by daylight. And so, you are up for the holidays, I suppose?"

Dick nodded. "Aunt Bett wouldn't have us at midsummer. But Leo broke his arm, and he wasn't strong, and she sent for him; and then she said I might come up for Christmas, and we could both go back to school together. I say, wasn't it unkind of her not to have us in the summer? She said her house was small. Summer holidays are jollier than winter ones, especially when they don't let you go on the ice."

Did a remembrance cross Caroline of somebody else who would not have them in the summer?--whose house was not small? Probably not. Caroline had room only for her own griefs. Since the falling of the blow she had existed in a state of bewilderment. The change was so great, the order of things so completely altered, that at times she believed she must be in a prolonged dream, and should shortly wake up to reality. As one who has suddenly put ashore in a foreign country, where the land, the customs, the people, and the tongue, are all strange to him, and he can only accept them passively, yielding himself perforce to the necessity of circumstances, so it was with Caroline Cray. Believe me, I am telling you no untrue story.

"How you cough?" exclaimed Dick, as she was interrupted by a heavy fit of coughing, not for the first time.

"I caught a bad cold. It was very bad for a day or two, and I lay in bed. O Dick! I wonder if I shall ever have a bedroom again!"

"Couldn't you have a bedroom as well as this room?" sensibly answered Dick.

"There was only this room to let when we came here, and we thought it would do. It's tolerably good-looking you see, and we are more to ourselves. Every week, too, we are hoping to leave it."

"Where to go to?"

"I don't know. Mark says something will be sure to turn up."

"I say, do they know about this in Barbadoes?"

"Not from us. I daresay Aunt Bettina has taken care to tell them. Is she as deaf as ever, Dick?"

"She's deafer. And she's getting a regular old woman. What do you think? she'd not let me go out skating this morning, for fear----"

A gentleman entered, and cut Dick's revelations short. The boy looked at him in puzzled bewilderment, for he thought he knew him, and yet did not. It was a full minute before Dick recognised him for Mark Cray.

Formerly Mark had whiskers and no moustache; now he had a moustache and no whiskers, and his beard was growing, and his face looked longer. He had on blue spectacles too. Altogether, Dick was hardly certain yet.

Mark did not seem glad to see him. In manner he rather appeared to resent the accident which had discovered them to Dick, than to feel pleasure at it. Caroline put the slices of beef upon a dish, made the tea, and asked Dick to partake.

But Dick declined. And nobody, perhaps, would have given careless Dick credit for the true motive, or for the real self-denial that it was to a hungry boy. He had somehow drawn a conclusion that Mr. and Mrs. Cray had not too much meat for themselves, and he would not lessen it.

"I can't stay now," he said rising, "I shall have Aunt Bett at me as it is. Goodnight, Mr. Cray; goodnight, Caroline."

Mr. Cray followed him down the stairs. "You must be very cautious not to say that you found us here," he said. "Can we depend upon you?"

"As if you couldn't!" returned Dick. "I know! A fellow of ours at school has got a big brother, and he has to be in hiding nine months at least out of every year. I'll tell nobody but Sara." He vaulted off, or perhaps Mark Cray's injunction might have been extended to Sara in particular. When he reached home, Miss Bettina, who had believed nothing less but that he was drowned, and had sent Neal to a circuit of police-stations, met him in the corridor, followed by Sara and Leo.

"You ungrateful boy! Where have you been?"

"Don't, Aunt Bettina! No need to seize hold of me in that way. I have only been sliding. I haven't been to the water."

"You shall go back to school tomorrow," said Miss Bettina, as she turned into the dining-room.

Dick caught his cousin by the arm. "You be off after Aunt Bett, Leo; I want to speak to Sara. I say," he continued in a whisper, as Leo obeyed him, "I have seen Caroline and Mark Cray!"

"Nonsense, Dick! Why did you stay out so and frighten us?"

"I have. I should have been in earlier but for that. Frightened? How stupid you must all be! As if I couldn't take care of myself. I saw Carine in a beef and pudding shop, buying cold meat, and I watched where she went to, and I've been there for half an hour, and I saw Mark. He has shaved off his whiskers, and wears blue----"

"Hush!" breathed Sara, as Dorcas came up the stairs. "You must tell me later."