Oswald Cray: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

The date of her death, probably by an oversight, had not been put in, and Oswald Cray was left to conjecture it. Certainly he did not suppose it had occurred so far back as on the previous Sunday, the day after he left Hallingham.

What had killed her? The accident? He had been given to understand that night that she was not materially injured: he now supposed she must have been. Why had nobody written to acquaint him? He would have been glad to see her for a final farewell; would have thought nothing of his time and trouble in going down for it. Mark might have written: he could not remember having corresponded with Mark in all his life, half-brothers though they were; but still Mark might have gone out of his way to drop him a line now. Parkins might have written; in fact he considered it was Parkins' duty to have written, and he should tell her so: and Dr. Davenal might have written. Of the three mentioned, Oswald Cray would soonest have expected the doctor to write, and the omission struck him as being somewhat singular.

The post brought news. Amidst the mass of letters that came for the firm was one to himself, He saw the Hallingham postmark, and opened it at once.

A look of blank disappointment, mingled with surprise, settled on his face as he read. It was not from Dr. Davenal, from Mark Cray, or from Parkins; it gave him no details, any more than if he had been the greatest stranger to Lady Oswald. It was a formal intimation from the undertaker that her late ladyship's funeral would take place on Friday at eleven o'clock, and requesting his attendance at it, if convenient.

"Her funeral tomorrow!" ejaculated Oswald. "Then she must have died almost immediately. Perhaps the very night I came up. Why couldn't somebody write?"

He arranged business matters so as to go down that afternoon, and arrived at Hallingham between six and seven o'clock. Giving his portmanteau to a porter, he went on to his usual place of sojourn, the "Apple Tree." It was near to the terminus, a little beyond the town, one of the quiet country inns now nearly obsolete. An old-fashioned, plain, roomy house, whose swinging sign-board stood out before its door, and whose productive garden of vegetables and fruit stretched out behind it. No fashionable person would look at it twice. Oswald Cray had been recommended to it long ago as his place of sojourn in Hallingham, where his stay seldom lasted more than two days: and he had found himself so comfortable, so quiet, so entirely at home, that he would not have exchanged it for the grandest hotel in Hallingham, had the said hotel graciously intimated that it would receive him for nothing.

The host, whose name was John Hamos, came forward to receive him; a respectable, worthy man, with a portly person and red face, who might be seen occasionally in a white apron washing up glasses, and who waited on his guests himself. He and Oswald were the best of friends.

"Good-evening, sir. My wife said you'd be down tonight or in the morning. We were sure you'd attend the burying. A sad thing, sir, is it not?"

"It is a very sad thing, John," returned Oswald; "I seem as if I could not believe it. It was only this morning that I received the tidings. What did she die of? The accident to the train?"

"No, sir, she didn't die of that. Leastways, that was not the immediate cause of death, though of course it must be said to have led to it. She died from the effects of chloroform."