Oswald Cray: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Brackenbury said it was. He didn't know it otherwise. Brackenbury--Halloa! what's that?"

It was a shout in the street. A shout composed of roars, and hisses, and groans. Drawing up to the door of the offices was the handsome carriage of Mark Cray; and the crowd had turned their indignation upon it.

One look, one glimpse of the white and terror-stricken faces of its inmates, and Oswald Cray bounded down the stairs. They were the faces of Mrs. Cray and Sara Davenal.

What could have brought them there?

[CHAPTER XLVIII.]

DAY-DREAMS RUDELY INTERRUPTED.

Before a costly breakfast service of Sèvres porcelain, with its adjuncts of glittering silver, on the morning subsequent to the visit of Mr. Brackenbury, had sat Caroline Cray, in a charming morning robe of white muslin and blue ribbons, with what she would have called a coiffure, all blue ribbons and white lace, on her silky hair. A stranger, taking a bird's-eye view of the scene, of the elegant room, the expensive accessories, the recherché attire of its mistress, would have concluded that there was no lack of means, that the income supporting all this must at least be to the extent of some thousands a-year.

In truth Mark Cray and his wife were a practical illustration of that homely but expressive saying which must be so familiar to you all; they had begun at the wrong end of the ladder. When fortune has come; when it is actually realised, in the hands, then the top of the ladder, comprising its Sèvres porcelain and other costs in accordance, may be safe and consistent; but if we begin there without first climbing to it, too many of us have an inconvenient fashion of slipping down again. The furniture surrounding Caroline Cray was of the most beautiful design, the most costly nature; the lace on that morning-robe, on that pretty "coiffure," would make a hole in a £20 bank-note, the silver ornaments on the table were fit for the first palace in the land, and Mr. and Mrs. Cray had got these things about them--and a great deal more besides which I have not time to tell you of--anticipatory of the fortune that was to be theirs; not that already was. And now their footing on that high ladder was beginning to tremble: just as that of the milkmaid did when she sent the milk out of her milk-pails, and so destroyed her dreams.

Caroline sat at her late breakfast, toying with a fashionable newspaper--that is, one giving notice of the doings of the fashionable world--sipping her coffee, flirting with some delicate bits of buttered roll, casting frequent glances at the mirror opposite to her, in whose polished plate was reflected that pretty face, which in her pardonable vanity she believed had not its compeer. All unconscious was she of that turbulent scene then being enacted in the City; of the fact that her husband was at that moment finding his way to her in a cab, into which he had jumped to hide himself in abject fear and dismay. Caroline had slept sound and late after her night's gaiety, and awoke in the morning to find her husband had gone out.

The French clock behind her struck eleven, and she finished her breakfast quickly, and began thinking over her plans for the day. Some excursion into the country had been spoken of for the afternoon, and now Mark was gone she was at an uncertainty. Mrs. Cray tapped her pretty foot in petulance on the carpet, and felt exceedingly angry with the tiresome stranger who had disturbed her husband when he was dressing on the previous evening, and kept him from going out with her to dinner.