Works of Ellen Wood, page 546
“Yas, they have moche virtue, the sangsues. They do good to Madame; they bite her well.”
Mark was never more at sea in his life. Roaming away in search of camels, his home perceptions were perhaps a little obscured in that moment. Bite Madame? What on earth was “sonsues?”
“I speak of the little black beast that long when she full—” pointing to his finger. “You call them litch — litch—”
“Leeches!” interrupted Mark, with a laugh. “I could not understand, moi; Je pensé, Messeu, que vous — vous — speak of wild beasts.”
“Yas,” said the doctor complacently,” I thought you understand, sare.”
“Bon pour Madame, vous dit, Messeu, the sonsues?”
“Je pense que oui. Mais — but I no say trop before the examen of Madame. I would see the hurt, me. I go to your house, sare, and meet Madame without her robe. I go to-morrow at four of the clock after twelve, if that will arrange you.”
“So be it,” returned Mark, when he had puzzled out the words. “Je dis à ma femme que — que — it was of no use for her to call here, herself; you’d want to see her dishabillayed. Je vous merci, Messeu.”
And when they were walking home Mark said to his wife how very glad he was to find he had kept up his French.
CHAPTER LIV.
A BELL RINGING OUT AT MIDNIGHT.
I WONDER whether you remember that most charming weather we had in the October of that same year 1861. The first fortnight of the month was more lovely than can be imagined of October; it was brilliant and warm as summer.
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 Cote 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 hill-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 to-day 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 for 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 first; 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.”
It was a very obstinate side, as M. Le Bleu would express it, a very persistent, provoking lump, and that renowned practitioner — who was really a skilful man, for all his obscure English — had formed his own opinion upon it. It baffled him and his remedies persistently. Even those highly-regarded bêtes, the sangsues, had tried their best to subdue it — and tried in vain. Evidently the effective remedy was not sangsues. The lump had had its own way all these months. It had been growing larger and larger, giving by degrees more and more pain. Monsieur Le Bleu had once hinted his doubts of a “tumeur fibreuse,” and Mark had politely retorted that he was an idiot to fancy such things. What the end of it all was to be — of the disease, of the semi-starvation, of the next to impossibility to go on in Honfleur, and the equal impossibility to get away from it, of Mark Cray’s little difficulty with England and the shareholders of the old company — would take a wiser head than either Caroline’s or Mark’s to tell.
This day has been noticed because it was a sort of turning-point in this persistent malady: not a turning for better but for worse. Whether the walk up the hill injured her — for perhaps she had grown really unfit for it — or whether the disease itself made a sudden leap onwards, certain it was that poor Mrs. Cray never went up the Côte de Grace again. She walked home with Mark very slowly, and fainted when she got in. Mark did not like her look, and ran off for Monsieur Le Bleu. It was only the fatigue, she said to them: but the next morning she did not rise from her bed.
Several weeks dragged themselves slowly on, Caroline growing worse and weaker. An idea arose to her — it may have almost been called a morbid fancy — that if her Uncle Richard were alive and at hand, her cure would be certain and speedy. From him it was natural perhaps that her hopes should stray to other English doctors; not young men such as Mark, but men of note, of experience, of known skill; and a full persuasion took possession of her mind that she had only to go to London to be made well. It grew too strong for any sort of counter-argument or resistance; it became a mania: to remain in Honfleur was to die; to go to England and the English faculty would be cure and life.
Mark would have gratified the wish had it been in his power; but how was he to find the money? But for Barker, they could not have gone on at all. He sent a trifle to Mark from time to time, and they managed to get along with it. Once, when they were at a very low ebb Mark bad written a pitiful account of their state to his brother Oswald, and a ten-pound note came back again. Ah! what a contrast was this to the prosperity that might have been theirs at Hallingham!
Winter had come now. December was in; its first days were rapidly passing; and so intense had grown Caroline’s yearning for home that Monsieur Le Bleu himself said to keep her would be to kill her. “ It would only be the passage-money, Mark,” she reiterated ten times in a day. “I should go straight to Aunt Bettina’s. Angry as she was with us for leaving Hallingham, she’d not refuse to take me in. Mark, Mark! only the passage-money!”
And Mark, thus piteously appealed to, began to think he must do something desperate to get the passage-money. Perhaps he would, if he had only known what But while Mark was thinking of it help arrived, in the shape of a hundred-franc note from Barker. Things were beginning to look up with him he wrote. Perhaps he meant this as an earnest of it.
“Divide it, Mark,” she said, with feverish cheeks. “I know how badly you want it here: but I want it badly too. I want help, I want medical skill; divide it between us: fifty francs will take me over.”
And so it was done. How willingly Mark would have given. her the whole! — but that was impossible. How willingly he would have gone with her to take care of her on the voyage! — but that was impossible. Mark Cray might not show his face in London. He took her as far as he could, and that was to Havre. On the morning after the arrival of Barker’s letter and its inclosure they were off: and so great an effect had the knowledge that she was really going wrought on Caroline, that she seemed to have recovered health and strength in a manner little short of miraculous.
She walked down to the Honfleur boat; she would walk; she was quite well enough to walk, she said. As they turned out of the house the postman was approaching it, selecting a letter from his bundle.
“Pour Madame,” he said, giving it to Mark.
It was from Sara: they could see that by the handwriting. Caroline thrust it into her pocket There was not time for reading letters there; the bell of the starting boat had sounded over the town, and they and the man behind, who was wheeling Caroline’s trunk on a barrow, had much ado to catch it. They read the letter going over. It was merely a friendly letter of news, the chief item of which news was, that they were expecting Captain Davenal and his wife hourly from India.
“Then, Caroline, they won’t be able to take you in,” was Mark Cray’s remark.
“Oh, yes, yes, it can be managed,” was her answer, so feverishly and eagerly delivered that Mark suspected she feared he might wish to detain her; and he said no more.
But now, when they reached Havre, Mark discovered that he and Caroline between them had made a very stupid mistake as to the departure of the London boat He afterwards found that they had inadvertently consulted the list of departures for November, instead of December. There was no London steamer departing from Havre that day.
They stood on what is called the English Quai, Caroline weak, sick, depressed. A check of this kind thrown upon one in her state of health is as very despair. Opposite to them was moored a small English steamer; a board upon her, on which was inscribed “for London,” indicating her destination. “I could go by that,” she said, feverishly; “Mark, I could go by that.”
“I don’t think it is a passenger boat,” was Mark’s reply.
They advanced to the edge of the quai and looked down. Two or three men, apparently English, were taking bales of goods on board by means of a crane. “Is this a passenger boat?” Mark asked them.
“No sir. She’s for goods.”
The answer was unmistakably English. A stout, middle-aged, respectable-looking man, who was seated across a bar, watching the men and smoking a pipe, looked up and inquired of Mark why he asked.
It was the master of the vessel. They got into conversation with him, and told him their dilemma. He was a kind-hearted man, and he offered to convey the lady to London if she could put up with the accommodation. She was quite welcome to go with them, free of expense, he said, and his wife had come the trip with him this time, so she’d not, as it were, be alone on board. How eagerly Mrs. Cray seized upon the offer, rather than go home again to wait a day or two for the regular boat, I’ll leave you to judge.
She went at once on board, and the vessel got out of harbour in the course of the afternoon, the master saying they should make London on the afternoon of the following day. But there’s no time to linger over this part, or to give any details of the voyage; it is enough to say that the passage, from unavoidable causes, was an unusually slow one, and they did not reach their destination in the Thames until late in the evening. It was a memorable day for us that; Saturday the 14th of December; a day of sadness irreparable for our land. Not quite yet, however, had the hour of calamity come; and the astounding grief, half paralysing England with its suddenness, had not fully broken upon it. It was getting on for ten o’clock before Mrs. Cray was able to leave the steamer. To present herself, an unexpected intruder, at Miss Davenal’s at midnight was not to be thought of. All the way over she had been revolving the news contained in Sara’s letter, of which she had made so light to Mark: should Captain Davenal and his wife have arrived, she did not think there would be room for her; and the untoward lateness of the hour increased her difficulty.
There came a thought flashing into her mind, welcome as a ray of light “I wonder if Watton could take me in for the night?”
Her kind friends, the captain and his wife — and very kind and hospitable they had been to her — had a cab called, and Mrs. Cray and her trunk were placed in it, a tide-waiter allowing the disembarkment She was then driven to St Paul’s Churchyard.
Watton came out in a state of wonder. A lady in a cab inquiring for her! Perhaps it was not lessened when she recognised Mrs. Cray: but Mrs. Cray looking so awfully ill, so greatly changed! Watton, always of a demonstrative temper, could not conceal her shock of dismay; and perhaps the woman’s words first imparted to Caroline a suspicion of what her real state might be. Always with Mark, he could not detect the ravages in her face as a stranger detected them; and the recent voyage of course added its evil effects to her looks.
“Watton, could you take me in for the night?”
She was too fatigued, too worn and ill to enter upon her demand with introductory circumlocution. Watton only stared in reply. This, coupled with Mrs. Cray’s appearance, momentarily took her wits away.
“I could lie on a sofa, or on a blanket put down on the carpet, anywhere just for to-night. I don’t like to go on so late to Aunt Bettina’s; they do not expect me, and will have gone to bed. And you know what she is, Watton.”
“To be sure I can take you in, Miss Caroline,” returned Watton, recovering herself partially, and warming to the poor sick girl. “Thirty hours in a steamer! My goodness! And they are horrid things always. I crossed over to Jersey once in my young days, and I shall never forget it Of course you can’t go on to Pimlico tonight Bring in the trunk, cabman.”
The trunk was placed inside the passage, the man paid and dismissed, and Watton was closing the street-door, when it was pushed against She flung it open with an impatient word, and a gentleman entered. Watton was token by surprise. “I beg your pardon, sir, I’m sure. I thought it was the cabman wanting to stand out for another sixpence.”
He passed her with a smile, glanced at Caroline and the trunk, and was making his way up the stairs, when she again addressed “him, “Is there any fresh news, sir?”
