Oswald Cray: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Mrs. Cray was in the large drawing-room. She and the tea-table, at which she sat waiting for Mark, looked quite lost in its space. The thought struck Oswald as he entered. It had been the home of his early childhood, the scene of occasional visits since that period, but Oswald always thought that room larger and larger every time he entered it. It was at its window that he, a baby in arms, had been held by the side of his mother, when the grand people from Thorndyke in their carriage and four, her father and mother, would drive past and cast up their faces of stone. He had been too young to know anything then, but afterwards, when he could begin to understand, these stories of the passing by of Sir Oswald Oswald were impressed upon him by his nurse. They remained amidst his most vivid recollections. But that he knew it was impossible to have been so--for his mother had died when he was too young, and there was no more standing there after her death to watch for Sir Oswald--he could have affirmed now that he remembered those times in all their full detail: the steady pace of the fine horses, the bedizened carriage--in those days it was the fashion to have carriages bedizened--the servants in their claret liveries, the impassive faces of Sir Oswald and his lady. The fact was, it had all been described so often and minutely to the young child Oswald, that it remained on his memory as a thing seen, not heard.

Mrs. Cray, gay in attire, wearied in countenance, was quite alone. She wore a low evening dress of blue silk, with lace and fringes and trimmings; and blue ribbons in her hair. Rather more dress than is necessary for a quiet evening at home; but she was young and pretty and a bride, and--very fond of finery in any shape. Her weary face lighted up with smiles as she saw Oswald and rose to greet him: very, very pretty did she look then.

"I am so glad to see you! I had grown tired, waiting for Mark. He went out the moment he had swallowed his dinner--before he had swallowed it, I think--and he is not in yet. Shall I tell you a secret, Oswald?"

"Yes, if you please."

"I am quite disappointed. I shan't at all like being a doctor's wife."

Her dark blue eyes were dancing with smiles as she spoke. Oswald smiled too--at the joke.

"It is true, Mr. Oswald Cray. I don't speak against my own dear Mark: I'd not part with him: but I do wish he was not a doctor. You don't know how little I see of him. He is in just at meals, and not always to them."

Oswald smiled still. "You had lived in a doctor's house, Mrs. Cray, and knew the routine of it."

"My uncle's house was not like this. Who can compare the great Dr. Davenal at the top of the tree, waiting at home for his patients to come to him, to poor Mark Cray at the bottom, just beginning to climb it? It's not the same thing, Mr. Oswald Cray. Mark has to be out, here and there and everywhere. At the Infirmary, dancing attendance on interminable rows of beds one hour; in some obscure corner of the town another, setting somebody's leg, or watching a case of fever. Mark says it won't go on quite as bad as it has begun. This has been an unusually busy week with him, owing to the doctor's absence. He left home on Sunday night, and was not back until Wednesday. A great portion of Sunday also the doctor passed at Thorndyke."

"His patient must have been very ill to keep him away from Sunday until Wednesday," remarked Oswald.