Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “I don’t know. I don’t suppose Charlotte has looked for it. I heard her tell Prance that none of her things must be forgotten.”

  “True. When did Charlotte ever trouble herself to look for anything?” was Mary Anne Darling’s response; but she spoke it more in soliloquy than as a reply.

  Margaret Darling — she was one year younger than her sister — drew her chair in front of the fire, and put her feet upon the fender.

  “Is that the newspaper? Is there any news, Mary Anne?”

  “Yes, there’s news,” was the quiet answer: but Miss Darling’s manner was always quiet. “A baby is born at the Hall.”

  “What? “exclaimed Mrs. Darling, starting up as she caught the words, and all her lethargy was gone. “Is the baby born, Mary Anne?”

  For answer, Miss Darling read out the words: “On the 10th inst., at Alnwick Hall, the wife of George Carleton St. John, Esquire, of a son and heir.”

  “I am glad it’s a boy!” exclaimed Mrs. Darling. “How proud they will be of it! On the 10th — that was yesterday. Then rely upon it those bells Charlotte said she heard ringing, were for this. And now, how can I manage it? I must contrive to see Mrs. St. John before we go away.”

  “But why, mamma?”

  “Why?” repeated Mrs. Darling, turning rather sharply on her daughter Mary Anne, who had asked the question. “Because I should like to do so; because it’s neighbourly to go to her, poor young mother; because it may be months before we are back here, and I have the opportunity of seeing her again; and because I’m curious to hear all the interesting particulars. That’s why, Mary Anne: and I shall go.”

  Mrs. Darling allowed no interference with her will — at least from these daughters, and Mary Anne was dutifully silent. “I was only thinking, mamma, what an unpleasant day it would be for you to walk over,” she presently said. “And I don’t see how you will have time for it.”

  “Plenty of time; and for the unpleasantness I don’t care; you never yet knew me to stop indoors for weather. Pretty Mrs. St. John! Let me read the announcement for myself.”

  She took the paper in her hand, and was gazing at the words with a pleased smile, when the door again opened, and some one else entered the room. A tall, elegant girl of apparently only three or four-and-twenty, an imperious, regal, haughty girl, whose raven-black hair was braided over pale, regular features, and whose rich silk attire glistened and rustled as she walked. Who would have believed that she was older by some three or four years than the Miss Darlings? — who would have believed that they were even half-sisters? — she, with her stately beauty, her costly attire, and they with their homely faces, old-fashioned look, and plain green merino gowns.

  Mrs. Darling had two daughters who absorbed all the money that she could spare for dress; the eldest, Charlotte Norris, and the youngest, whom you will meet by and by; no wonder that these two middle ones, Mary Anne and Margaret, with their meek spirits and quiet tastes, were obliged to dress in plain merinos.

  “Charlotte, here’s news in the paper,” Mary Anne was beginning, but Mrs. Darling drowned the words: and Mary Anne saw with some momentary surprise, that her mother had crushed the paper in her hand, as if not caring that it should be seen.

  “Charlotte, my darling, would you mind telling Prance that I shall want my black silk cloak taken out of the hair-trunk again? Go to her now, dear, before she has it corded.”

  Miss Norris, who had still the door-handle in her hand, quitted the room again. Mrs. Darling turned to her daughters.

  “Say nothing to Charlotte of this announcement. I will tell her of it myself. It is my pleasure to do so.”

  “I beg your pardon, mamma,” said Mary Anne. “Of course you know best.”

  Mrs. Darling did know best. At any rate, the two daughters before her were taught to think so. Mary Anne and Margaret Darling had been reared to implicit obedience in one respect — never to question the line of conduct pursued by Mrs. Darling to their half-sister; never to comment on it in the slightest degree. Mrs. Darling folded the newspaper as small as she could, crammed it into her pocket, and followed Charlotte upstairs.

  Later in the day she set out to walk to Alnwick Hall. It was growing dark, and she had not intended to be so late as this, but one thing or another had detained her. The Hall was nearly three miles distant from her own home, through the village of Alnwick; but the road was by no means lonely in any part of it. She walked quickly, not stopping to speak to any one she met, and had left the village behind her some time, and was nearing the Hall, when the death-bell of Alnwick church rang out suddenly, but not very distinctly, on the heavy air. It was quite dark then.

  “Poor old Mother Tipperton must be gone!” Mrs. Darling exclaimed to herself, standing for a moment to listen. “Pym told me she could not last long. Well, it was time: I suppose she was eighty.”

  Not another thought, except of old Mother Tipperton, entered her mind; not the faintest suspicion that the bell was tolling for one younger and fairer. She went on, over the broad winding way through the beautiful park, and gained the door of Alnwick Hall.

  It might have struck her — but it did not — that besides the man who opened the door to her, other servants came peeping into the hall, as if in curiosity as to the visitor. She stepped over the threshold out of the gloomy night.

  “How is your mistress, Haines? Going on all right?” she asked, rubbing her shoes on the mat.

  “Oh, ma’am, she’s dead!”

  Mrs. Darling certainly heard the words, but they appeared not to penetrate her senses. She stared at the speaker.

  “She is just dead, ma’am; not an hour ago. Two physicians were had to her, besides Mr. Pym, but nothing could be done.”

  Down sat Mrs. Darling on the hall bench. Perhaps only once before, in her whole life, had she been so seized with consternation.

  “Dead! Good Heavens! I came to sit half-an-hour with her before leaving Alnwick, for I may not be back for months. What an awful thing! Poor Caroline Carleton!”

  Drawing her cloak around her, Mrs. Darling crossed the hall towards the housekeeper’s room, unconsciously calling the deceased by her maiden name, the one she had longest known her by. “I should like to see the nurse,” she said, “if she can spare a moment to come to me.”

  The housekeeper, a stout, very respectable woman, who had come to the hall a year ago with its now dead mistress, was at the table writing a note as well as she could for her tears, when Mrs. Darling entered. Laying down her pen, she told all she knew of the calamity, in reply to the low and eager questions. But Mrs. Darling grew impatient.

  “A fine beautiful baby, you say — never mind the baby, Mrs. Tritton. What can have caused the death?”

  The stout old lady shook her head. “She died from exhaustion, they say, ma’am. But she had a fall a few days ago, and I believe that had something to do with it. I can’t bear to think of it just yet. Alive and well and merry but a day or two since; and now dead! It seems like a dream.”

  Her sobs deepened. The ready tears filled Mrs. Darling’s eyes. She wiped them away, and inquired what would be done about bringing up the child. Mrs. Darling was a practical woman, and had never allowed feeling to interfere with business.

  “That’s the first great care,” was the reply of the housekeeper. “Mr. Pym does not know of any one just now that could come in. I suppose it will have to be brought up by hand: and the master, I believe, wishes that it should be. As Mr. Pym says, the boy’s so big and strong, that he’d bring himself up almost, if you put him outside the street-door. And it’s true.”

  “Does Mr. St. John take it much to heart?”

  “Ay, that he does,” was the emphatic reply. “He is shut up in his own room where he keeps his business papers and things. But, ma’am “ — and the tone was suddenly subdued—” a body going by, and pausing a moment, may hear his sobs. If any young husband ever loved a wife, Mr. Carleton St. John loved his. Poor child! she’s gone early to join her parents!”

 
; Mrs. Darling, who had her full share of curiosity — and what woman has not, in a case like this? — stole upstairs to see the baby; to see the baby’s poor young mother; to talk for a minute or two with the nurse, Mrs. Dade, who could not come to her. And then she stole down again; for time was getting on. The housekeeper asked her to take some refreshment, but she declined, explaining that a summons to her sick mother, who was very old, was taking her and her daughters away from home. They were starting that evening by the seven-o’clock night train.

  “And they are at the station already, I am sure,” she said; “and I must run all the way to it. Sad news this is, to cheer me on my journey!”

  Sad indeed. And the public thought so as well as Mrs. Darling. The same week the newspapers put forth another announcement.

  “On the nth inst., at Alnwick Hall, in her twenty-third year, Caroline, the beloved wife of George Carleton St. John.”

  CHAPTER II.

  FAITHFUL TO THE DEAD.

  “To remain faithful to the dead is not in man’s nature.”

  Such were the words spoken by Mrs. Carleton St. John in dying; and a greater truth was never recorded by Solomon.

  The seasons had gone on; spring had succeeded to winter; summer to spring; autumn was succeeding to summer. Nothing like a twelvemonth had passed since the death, and yet rumour was whispering that George Carleton St. John had begun to think of a second wife.

  The baby had thrived from its birth. Mr. St. John appeared to have an invincible repugnance to any woman’s supplying the place of its mother; and so they fed the child upon the next best food that was proper for it, and it had done well. The housekeeper strongly recommended Mr. St. John a niece of her own to take care of it, and the young woman arrived from a distance; a comely, fair-complexioned, nice-looking young woman, named Honoria Tritton; and she entered upon her charge. All things went smoothly; and Mr. St. John’s first grief yielded to time and change: as all griefs must so yield, under God’s mercy.

  Friends had come to visit Mr. St. John during the summer. Relatives, they were, indeed, but distant ones. Gay people they proved to be; and they stayed on, and gradually the Hall held its festal gatherings again, and its master began to go out amongst the county families. Whether it might be to escape the sorrow left on him by his great loss, or to make things pleasanter for these visitors, certain it was that George St. John no longer eschewed gaiety, whether in his own house or abroad. Mrs. Tritton’s opinion was, that he had invited his relatives to stay with him, because he found his life now at the Hall so monotonously dull. If so, their advent had had the desired effect, and had taken him out of himself and his trouble.

  It is surprising, when once an effort of this sort is made, and we awaken from a prolonged grief, how easily that grief is laid aside. Unconsciously it seems to slip away from us, and is forgotten. From that eleventh day of November down to June, Mr. St. John had done nothing but indulge his sorrow. It had grown calmer, of course, by degrees; but he had not in the least striven to lift from himself its bitterness. No very long term, some may say, this seven months; but let me tell you that it is long when given wholly to tears and solitude. A reaction must succeed to all violent emotion, even to that caused by the death of one dearly beloved; and it came to George St. John; came with the sojourn of his visitors. A fortnight’s association with them, and he was not the same man. As host, he had to exert himself, and with the exertion came the pleasure in it. Ere June was ended, he had forgotten three-parts of his sorrow. It seemed, as he might have described it himself, to have slipped away from his heart, leaving healing and semiforgetfulness in its place. He would have told you that he regretted his wife as much as ever; but he did not do so; for other interests were reasserting their sway within him. Sorrow had nearly spent itself, and was dying out. Do not blame him: man cannot act against his nature; least of all when in the heyday of youth.

  He could not offer a churlish reception to his visitors, who had journeyed far to sojourn with him. They were of the world, and expected to be entertained. Mr. St. John invited people to the Hall to meet them; and went out with them in return. In July the county families began to seek their homes after the whirl of the London season, bringing their guests with them, and gay parties were the rule of the hour. Archery, boating, lawn dances, dinners; never a day but something more agreeable to the rest succeeded to the other. Mr. Carleton was pressed to attend all, and did attend a great many. Can you wonder at it? Of great prospective wealth, heir-presumptive to a baronetcy, and withal an attractive man — the world knew how to estimate him. But the prize was not as great as it had been, since no other woman who might succeed in gaining him, or whom he might choose himself irrespective of any seeking on her own part, could reasonably hope to give birth to the heir that should succeed. That heir was already in the world — the little child whose advent had cost a precious life.

  It could not be said that Mr. St. John had very much right, especially now, to the name of Carleton. His name had been simply George St. John, until he married the rich heiress, Caroline Carleton: and with her property he had to assume her name, for her dead father had so enjoined it in his will. But for that expectant baronetage, he might have added the new name after his own. As it was, he did not do so. The new name was rather a convenience: there were several branches of the St. John family, one of them far higher in the world’s social scale than George St. John of Alnwick, or even his uncle the baronet; and people fell into the habit of calling him Mr. Carleton, as a distinction. The little child had also been christened Carleton.

  And so George Carleton St. John, yielding to the soothing hand of time, forgot in a degree her who had lain on his bosom and made the brief sunshine of his existence. He went out in the world again, and held gatherings of his own, and was altogether reinstated in social life.

  On a lovely day in September, Alnwick Hall was filled with guest. Chiefest of all the fêtes by which that autumn and the neighbourhood had been distinguished, was this last one held at the Hall. Mr. St. John had spared neither pains nor money to render it attractive: and he certainly succeeded. Brilliant groups were in the park, in the temporary marquee on the lawn, and in the house itself; a sort of fête-champètre. Was it out of place, all that glittering gaiety, with the closing scene of only ten months before? — the young life so suddenly sacrificed? Perhaps so: but the idea did not once occur to George St. John. It was not likely to do so now, when another was casting her spells upon his heart. I have told you that rumour had already whispered of a second mistress at Alnwick.

  In a pleasant room, opening on one side to the conservatory, its front windows looking to the park, several ladies were assembled. They were of various ages, of various degrees of beauty. One stood conspicuous amidst the rest. Not for her beauty, though that was great; not for her dress, though that was all that can be imagined of costly elegance; but for a certain haughty, imperious air, and a most peculiar expression that would now and again gleam from her eyes. An expression that many had observed and that none could fathom; a sort of wild expression of absolute with It was not often noticed; but it was apparent just now. You have seen that tall, finely-formed girl before, her well-set head, her swan-like neck; you have seen the pale features, regular as any ever carved in sculpture, the thin lips so firmly closed, the luxuriant raven hair. Quiet to a degree in bearing and manner, in spite of her haughty air there was an indisputable attraction about her. Could the rumour be true — that the greatest match of the county was about to be laid at Charlotte Norris’s feet? If so, what a triumph for her mother; what a triumph for herself, so proud and portionless.

  Mrs. Norris (she was Mrs. Darling, you know) stood by her side. Very pretty still, but not half as grand a woman as her daughter. Charlotte looked well to-day; never better; in her pretty white gossamer bonnet and sweeping white bernouse, you could not have thought her to be much past twenty. And the ladies around looked on her with envious eyes, and repeated over to themselves, what a triumph for Mrs. Norris Darlin
g!

  Perhaps so; but that lady was as yet unconscious of it. She had no more idea that that particular triumph was in store for her, or that Charlotte had, even in rumour, been given to Mr.

  St. John of Alnwick, than had Alnwick’s little heir, who was crowing before her eyes at that moment. This was the first time Mrs. Darling had been to the Hall since that melancholy evening visit in the past November. Only the previous day had she returned to her cottage home.

  In the centre of the ladies stood a young woman, holding the baby. That he was a fine baby none could dispute. He was not indeed what could be called a pretty child, but a rather unusual look of intelligence for one so young distinguished his features and his clear grey eyes, rendering his face excessively pleasing. And had he possessed all the beauty that since the creation of man has been said or sung, those fair women, displacing one another around him, could not have bestowed more praise upon him — for he was the heir of Alnwick, and Alnwick’s possessor was there to hear it.

  George St. John’s cheeks were flushed with pleasure, and his eyes shone as he listened to the flattery; for he fondly loved his child. The little boy wore a broad black sash on his white frock, black ribbons tied up his sleeves, and his pretty round fat arms were stretched out to any one who would notice him.

  “Yes, he is a fine little fellow,” observed Mr. St. John, more gratified as the praises increased. “He will walk soon.”

  “Pray is that his nurse?” inquired Mrs. Norris Darling, scanning the maid through her eye-glass. “What is your name, young woman?”

  “My name is Honoria, madam,” replied the girl, looking pleased and curtseying, “but they call me Honour. Honoria Tritton.”

  “And what is the name of this dear child?” asked Miss Norris, drawing nearer. “I have always heard him called Baby.”

  “Well, his name gets abbreviated for the same reason that we shorten Honour’s,” laughed Mr. St. John. “He was christened Benjamin, but is universally known amongst us as Benja.”