Oswald Cray: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

COMPANY FOR MR. OSWALD CRAY.

For some days subsequent to the interview with Neal, and that valuable servant's startling communication, Mr. Oswald Cray remained in what may be called a sea of confusion. The unhappy circumstances attendant on Lady Oswald's death never left his mind, the strange suspicions first arising naturally, as they did arise, and then augmented by Neal's disclosure, seemed to be ever waging hot war within him, for they were entirely antagonistic to sober reason, to his life-long experience of Dr. Davenal.

It cannot be denied that Oswald Cray, calm of temperament though he was, sound of judgment, did fall into the snare that the web of events had woven around him; and, in the midnight watches, when things wear to our senses a weird, ghost-like hue, the disagreeable word murder suggested itself to him oftener than he would have cared to confess in broad matter-of-fact daylight. But as the days went on his senses came to him. Reason reasserted her empire, and he flung the dark doubt from him, as unworthy of himself and the present enlightened age. It was impossible to connect such a crime with Dr. Davenal.

But still, though he shook off the worst view, he could not shake off the circumstances and their suspicion. Perhaps it was next to impossible, knowing what he did know of the doctor's sentiments as to chloroform, hearing, as he had heard, Neal's account of the words spoken at the midnight interview, that he should shake them off. They turned and twisted themselves about in his mind in spite of his will; he would have given much to get rid of them, but he could not. Now taking one phase, now another, now looking dark, now light, there they were, like so many phantoms, ever springing up from different corners of his mind, and putting legitimate thoughts out of it. Up and in bed, at work or at rest, were those conflicting arguments ever dancing attendance on him, until, from sheer perplexity, his brain would seem to lose its subtle powers, and grow dull from very weariness. But the worst aspect of the affair gradually lost its impression, and reason drove away the high colours of imagination.

The conclusion to which he at length came, and in which he finally settled down, was that Dr. Davenal had been in a partial degree guilty. He could not think that he had given that chloroform to Lady Oswald with the deliberate view of taking her life, as some of our worst criminals have taken lives: but he did believe there was some hidden culpability attached to it. Could it have been given in forgetfulness?--or by way of experiment?--or carelessly? Oswald Cray asked himself those questions ten times in a day. No, no, reason answered; Dr. Davenal was not a man to forget, or to experimentalise, or to do things carelessly. And then, with the answer, rose the one dark, awful doubt again, tormenting him not less with its shadows than with its preposterous absurdity.

What clung to his mind more than all the rest was, that he could see no solution, or chance of solution, to the question of why chloroform was administered, why even it was taken to the house. Had Dr. Davenal frankly answered him when questioned, "I thought, in spite of my conversation with you, that chloroform might be ventured upon with safety, that it would ease her sufferings, and was absolutely necessary to calm her state of excitement," why he could have had no more to say, however lamenting the fatal effects. But Dr. Davenal had answered nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he had been mysterious over it, and at length flatly refused to satisfy him at all. So far as Oswald Cray could see, there was no other solution, then or ever, that could be arrived at, save that the chloroform had been administered wilfully and deliberately. If so, then with what view had Dr. Davenal----

At this point Oswald Cray always pulled his thoughts up, or strove to do so, and plunged desperately into another phase of the affair as if he would run away from dangerous ground. Once he caught himself wondering whether, if the doctor had been deliberately guilty, it lay in his duty--his, Oswald Cray's--to bring him to account for it. No living being save himself, so far as he trusted, had been cognisant of Dr. Davenal's strong opinion of chloroform as applied to Lady Oswald. Ought he, then, not only in the obligation which lies upon all honest men to bring crime to light, but as a connection of Lady Oswald's, ought he to be the Nemesis, and denounce----

With a quicker beating of the heart, with a burning flush upon his brow, Oswald Cray started from the train of thought. Into what strange gulf was it carrying him? Ah, not though it had been his fate to see the crime committed, and to know that it was a crime, would he be the one to bring it home to Richard Davenal! The man whom he had so respected; the father of her who possessed his best love, and who would possess it, in spite of his efforts to withdraw it, for all time? No; not against him could his hand be raised in judgment.

In spite of his efforts to withdraw his love? Had it come to that with Oswald Cray? Indeed it had. He could not fathom the affair, it remained to him utterly incomprehensible, but that Dr. Davenal was in some way or other compromised by it, terribly compromised, seemed as plain as the sun at noonday. And Mr. Oswald Cray, in his haughty spirit, his besetting pride, decided that he could no longer be on terms of friendship with him, and that Sara Davenal must be no wife of his.

What it cost him to come to this resolution of casting her adrift, none save Heaven knew. The struggle remained on his memory for years afterwards as the sorest pain life had ever brought him. It was the bitter turning-point which too many of us have to arrive at, and pass; the dividing link which dashes away the sunny meads, the flowery paths of life's young romance, and sends us stumbling and shivering down the stony road of reality. None knew, none ever would know, what that struggle was to Oswald Cray.