Oswald Cray: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"I know that you are companion-attendant to a lady. And that you could not leave her."

"I have been companion and maid to her all in one," said Miss Allister. "When I and Frank had to go out into the world and do the best we could for ourselves, I was obliged to look out for what I was most fitted for. Our dead mother's brother offered to help Frank, and he paid the premium with him to this house, and assisted him otherwise, and I was very glad it should be so----"

"You mean Mr. Brown?" interrupted Oswald.

"Yes. He lived in London. My mother was English born and reared. He was a good friend to us so long as he lived. It was necessary that I should go out; and a situation offered in a lady's family, Mrs. Graham. She wanted some one who would be her companion, sit with her, read to her, some one well reared, of whom she might make an equal, but who would at the same time act as maid; and I took it. But perhaps you have heard all this from Frank?"

"No, not these past details. Though he has talked of you very much. He has told me"--Oswald broke into a frank smile as he said it--"that his sister Jane was worth her weight in gold."

"I should be sorry to think that most sisters are not worth as much as I am," she gravely answered. "I have but done my duty, so far as I could do it, and the worst of us ought to do no less. When Frank found I acted as maid to Mrs. Graham he was very much put out, and wanted me to give up the situation and seek a different one. But I laughed at him for a proud boy, and I have stayed on until now. What am I the worse for it? I dressed her, and served her, and when of late years she got ill and helpless, I nursed and fed her. I had become so useful to her--I must say, so indispensable--that when news reached me of Frank's illness, I could not quit her to come to him. I tried to see which way my duty lay; to leave her for my sick brother, or to leave my brother to strangers, and stay with my dying and helpless friend and mistress, Every week we expected would be her last; she has been slowly dying for these three months; and I felt that it would be wrong to abandon her. That, you see, is why I could not come to Frank."

"Is she dead?" asked Oswald.

"O yes. This mourning that I am wearing is for her. And as soon as it was possible after the funeral I came away. We had a long and bad passage, two days, and I did not reach Frank until three o'clock this afternoon."

"You should have come by land," observed Oswald.

"Nay, but that would have cost more," she simply answered. "And I know that Frank was better, so as to be in no vital hurry for my presence. I have come to you, sir, this evening, to ask your opinion of his state. Will you be so kind as to give it me?"