Oswald Cray: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Toiling up the ascent of the Côte de Grace went Mark Cray and his wife on one of these delightful days. The word toiling would be misapplied to you, I hope, for the way is gentle, the ascent easy; but it was toil now to Caroline Cray. The past three or four months had made a great change in her: health and spirits had alike sunk. As the lump got larger--we may as well call it by its familiar name--the body got weaker, and she felt the fatigue of walking now. Mark and the weather's unusual beauty had tempted her out, and they had taken the way through the town to the Cête de Grace.

Winding up the shady road--and the sun was too hot not to make the shade welcome--they gained the top. Caroline sat down at once on a bench that faced the sea: Mark stepped forward to the edge, dangerous enough if unprotected, and looked down. Was any panorama ever more beautiful? It happened to be full tide, as it was that morning when you saw him looking at it before--the same view, from the windows of the Cheval Blanc. But the same view, extended, enlarged, altogether grander, from the height on which he now stood.

Mark Cray took a glass from his pocket--it belonged to Monsieur Le Bleu, with whom they were now passably intimate--one of those small but effective telescopes rather rare to meet with. Adjusting its focus, he swept it round the horizon. He turned it to the right, and saw the women winding up the paths on their way from Honfleur market, their unbecoming borderless caps of everyday wear quite plain to him. Opposite was Harfleur, flickering in the light and shade; underneath him, beyond the cultivated precipice, were the walks by the sea--if you call it sea--the road winding on afar, the bathing establishment with its seats, and its linen spread out to dry. Havre itself looked rather cloudy from local smoke, but its entrance was beautifully clear, and Mark put up his glass again to gaze at it. Vessels, great and small, were rounding the point. A large steamer, which he recognised as the London boat, was turning into it, her steam so full, seemingly so close, that he might have fancied he heard its hiss. A fine sailing vessel was being towed out, to commence her long voyage; she looked like an Indiaman. The steamer plying between Havre and Trouville had reached its midway passage; a little funnelled boat was bearing swiftly on in the direction of Fiquefleur bay; an ugly, black-looking yacht had pointed its nose towards the dangerous bar of Quillebeuf; one of the everlasting flat barges was moving imperceptibly up the Seine; smaller boats and more picturesque were coquetting on the manche, and the Honfleur steamer was coming on quickly, leaving Havre far behind her. Mark extended the glass in the direction of the extreme left, and studied the vessels in the distance. Not a breath seemed to fill their sails. The blue and clear waters of the Seine were not calmer than that sometimes turbulent sea: river, manche, sea, were today still as a lake. A fair scene! none fairer throughout the department of the Calvados.

How familiar the scene had grown to Mark Cray he could tell you now. His days unfortunately were days of idleness, and he, had nothing to do but look at it from some point or other of the heights. Mark's fondly-anticipated patients had not come to him: whether the handful of English stationary at Honfleur preferred Monsieur Le Bleu or one of his compatriots to attend them, or whether they were so disobliging as to keep in perfect health, Mark Cray never clearly ascertained. All he could be sure of was, that he was not summoned. His professional services had been called into requisition but three times, including the stranger at the hotel who gave him the large fee. An English maid-servant had come to him once to have a tooth drawn; she could not speak French, she said, and did not like to go to a chemist's shop for it; Mark drew it, borrowing his friend Monsieur Le Bleu's pincers--or whatever you call the things--and charged her three francs. He said five at first; but she slightly reproached him, said she could have it done in a shop fer one and in fact had but three francs with her. So Mark took the three. The third time he was called in to a gentleman who said he had lived in Honfleur six years and had never been ill yet. He had now got an attack of what he called "La grippe," which Mark interpreted into the gripes, utterly unconscious that la grippe in French means influenza in English. The patient soon got well, despite a little wrong treatment at that; and Mark's remuneration was ten francs. That was all he had earned, this ten francs and the three for the tooth, besides the present made him at the hotel.

How were they to get along? How had they got along? They, poor sufferers, looking to the past, could hardly tell. Barker, who was in Paris still, full of wild hopes as usual, had sent Mark once a hundred-franc note in a letter and a promise of more; a little had come to Caroline from Barbadoes, for she had told of her woes; and so they existed somehow. Mark Cray was by no means one to sit down tamely and starve; any hopeless scheme rather than that; but Mark was caged, as it were, at Honfleur, and did not see how to get away from it, or where to travel to. Under happier auspices that "lump" might not have got so large as it was now getting: had that Great Wheal Bang mine only sent its ore to market instead of getting drowned it might never have shown itself at all; or, at least, not for years.

Mark Cray lowered the glass and turned to speak to his wife, who was seated but three or four yards behind him. Towards her left were those enclosed and accommodating gardens of entertainment, where you might order a dinner and eat it al fresco, or where you might take your own basket of provisions and they would bring you drink from the house, wine, milk, beer, lemonade, or coffee, at choice. Behind her, looking beyond, rose the little Chapelle de Nôtre-Dame-de-Grâce, on whose interior walls were recorded accounts of devoted pilgrims who had toiled on crutches up to the shrine, and whose faith Our Lady had rewarded by an instantaneous cure, whereupon they went down rejoicing, leaving their crutches behind them, a memento of the miracle. On the right was the small building called, surely by courtesy, the Observatoire, where innumerable wonders might be seen for two sous. And on the near plateau close around was many a bench similar to the one occupied by Mrs. Cray; the grass forming a carpet underfoot, the trees a shade overhead. A pleasant spot to rest in on a summer's day; a charming tableau to look upon in silence.

"Won't you come and have a look, Caroline I don't think I ever saw the atmosphere so clear on a brilliant day."

She only shook her head by way of answer: wearily, despondently.

"The boat's coming in," he resumed. "Two minutes more, and she'll pass us. You'll like to see her go by."

"I can't Mark. My side is paining me worse then ever. I must not walk up the hill again."