Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “Very absurd and fantastic in this case!” pronounced Mrs. Darling. “Well, I shall stay with her. It must be either myself or Prance.”

  “Prance won’t do,” said the surgeon. “She and Honour hate each other like poison.”

  The plan was carried out. Mrs. St. John, her child, and Prance departed for the cottage; Mrs. Darling remained at the Hall in attendance on Honour; and Mr. Pym did hardly anything but dodge in and out of it all day, walking to and from Alnwick at the pace of a steam-engine. Honour was dangerously ill.

  In the dusk of evening, when the house was quiet, and Mrs. Darling sat by the bedside, her brain almost as busy as the one she was there to guard, the thought arose to her that she would put at rest (as far as it could be put to rest) a question that troubled her. In closing the nursery-door quietly — as it had been represented the unfortunate child did close it — would the bolt slip into its groove? Was it possible that it could do so? Mrs. Darling had pondered the doubt that day more than she would have cared to tell. Rising from her chair, she was about to cross the room when some one came in.

  “Who’s that?” sharply called out Mrs. Darling, somewhat startled.

  It was only one of the under-maids, bringing in some beef-tea in a cup. “How quietly you must have come up! “ exclaimed Mrs. Darling.

  “I have list shoes on, ma’am,” replied the girl.

  She put down the cup and advanced on tiptoe to take a glance at Honour. The fever still continued, the brain was still at work; but just now the head was quiet.

  “She seems a trifle better!” cried the girl.

  “I fear not in mind,” answered Mrs. Darling. “Her last fancy seems to be that she set fire to the child, and then ran away and left him.”

  “Poor creature! Well, so in a manner she did, ma’am, for it was through her want of caution that it happened.”

  The girl gazed a few minutes and went down. Mrs. Darling — by the way, was that last assertion of hers a true one or a flight of fancy? — listened to the receding footsteps. She thought she heard them come back again, those or others, but silence supervened, and she concluded she was mistaken.

  Now or never! She did want to try that door, and the opportunity seemed favourable: for she would not for the whole world, no, nor for ten worlds, suffer it to be known that any doubt could enter her mind, or any one’s mind, upon the point. Quitting Honour’s room, she stepped to the nursery-door, and there — paused.

  What feeling came over Mrs. Darling at the moment she could never afterwards tell. Had she been of a superstitious nature it might have been accounted for; but she was not. Some feeling or impulse, however, did cause her to walk away from the door without entering, and go on to the dressing-room, intending to see if she could try the experiment from that side.

  As she quitted it she could have declared she heard a chair move within, only that she knew she must be mistaken.

  She went with soft tread across the dressing-room carpet in the twilight of the evening. The door stood half open; to her surprise; for since the fatal night it had been kept rigidly shut. She was about to pull it to, when it was closed from the other side, pretty smartly. In her consternation she opened it at once, and — stood face to face with Surgeon Pym. He had been trying the experiment on his own score.

  Their eyes met; and it was curious to note the difference in the demeanour of the two as they stood gazing at each other. Mrs. Darling, agitated, nervous, almost terrified; the surgeon, collected, keen, perfectly self-possessed. She tried to frame an excuse.

  “I was going to look into the nursery, to see whether the servants have set it to rights to-day. I fancy they have not.”

  “And I,” said the surgeon, “was seeing whether the bolt would slip if a person merely shut the door. I find it won’t.”

  Honour Tritton’s ravings, the effect of a diseased brain, ceased with her recovery; and there remained with her no recollection whatever of having uttered them, for Mr. Pym tested her on the point. With her restoration to reason, Mrs. Darling was less confined, and she divided her time between the Hall and the Cottage, but did not yet finally quit the former. Mrs. Darling resolved to speak to her, and the opportunity came. One evening when she was alone in the drawing-room, Honour knocked at the door and came in. The girl looked the wreck of her former self; thin, pale, shadowy, her black gown seemed much too large for her, and the dark circles under her eyes were excessively conspicuous on her naturally light skin.

  “Could I speak to you for a few minutes, ma’am?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Darling, a feeling of nervousness arising within her at the request. “You had better sit down, Honour; you are weak still.”

  Honour obeyed. She had come to speak of her own departure; to thank Mrs. Darling for her care of her, and to say that the sooner she was away now, the better. She thought of going on the following day, or the day after, if Mrs. Darling would allow it.

  Mrs. Darling heaved a sigh of relief, perhaps she could hardly tell why or wherefore. “I did not think you were strong enough to go anywhere yet. But as you please. Are you aware, Honour, what cruel things you said of your mistress?” she resumed, in low tones.

  Honour looked up in genuine surprise. “I said cruel things, ma’am! What did I say?”

  “I hardly like to tell you what you said,” replied Mrs. Darling. “You accused her over and over again of having set fire to the child and left him to burn to death. Were you to say such words in your right senses, you might be in danger of transportation for speaking them.”

  Honour burst into tears. She had no recollection whatever of her fault, and humbly begged pardon for it.

  “Of course we do not look upon you as responsible for what you said,” continued Mrs. Darling; “the ravings of a diseased mind go for nothing. But they are not the less unpleasant to hear, and your mistress feels enough grief from this matter without its being unnecessarily added to. You, of all persons, should be careful not to add to her sorrow. It was only this very day, when we were speaking of Benja, that she fervently exclaimed, if her whole fortune could bring him back to life, it should be given. There are moments” — Mrs. Darling dropped her voice as though she were speaking to herself, rather than to Honour—” when I have fancied she would sacrifice even George’s life, could that bring his brother back again. Believe me, she regrets him as much as you can do.”

  Subdued, weak, humble, Honour could only give vent to excuses and penitent tears. She had never really suspected her mistress, she said, and, indeed, she had never suspected any one of her own good will; it was her wicked thoughts that would rise up in spite of her. Not her mistress, however; if she had indulged these thoughts, it was of Prance. It was desperately wicked, she knew, but the boy’s death seemed to take her reason from her. She hoped Prance would not come to hear of it; and for herself, she would never, never harbour such fancies again.

  So Honour left Alnwick Hall. She had to go first of all to Castle Wafer, Mr. St. John having sent for her. The fact was, the occurrence had made a most startling and unhappy impression on the master of Castle Wafer. The account he had received of it was a very partial one, and he naturally wished for correct details. When the summons came, Honour had flung up her hands in a sort of terror. How should she dare to meet Mr. Isaac St. John, and proclaim to him personally her wicked carelessness? Mrs. Darling also had seemed much put out: but there was no help for it, and she cautioned Honour.

  “Take care,” she gravely said, “that not a hint of those wicked and foolish suspicions is dropped to Mr. St. John.”

  In anything but an enviable frame of mind, did Honour enter on the interview with Mr. St. John at Castle Wafer. He sat on the sofa in his own sitting-room, his back propped up with soft pillows, and Honour, whom he invited to a seat, sat in her new mourning, and wept before him. The first timidity over, she confessed the whole; made, as it were, a clean breast of it, and told how her own thoughtlessness, in leaving the child alone with the lighted toy, had been t
he cause of the calamity. Mr. St. John was painfully interested in the little coincidence she mentioned — that the first idea of the toy, the lighted church, had been gathered at the fair that was being held the very day he came to Alnwick. It was at this point that Honour burst into tears, which she was quite unable to control.

  However Mr. St. John might have been disposed to condemn the carelessness, he could only feel compassion for the sufferer. She should never know another truly happy moment, she sobbed, should never cease to reproach herself as long as life should last. She gave herself the whole blame; she said not a word of the old doubts; and when Mr. St. John questioned her as to the fastening of the doors, she declared that she could not tell herself how they had become fastened, but mentioned the conclusion come to by the household and the coroner. They decided that the little boy had himself fastened the one; and for the other, some thought it had never been fastened at all; only she, Honour, had fancied it in her flurry; others thought it must have bolted itself when the little boy shut it, and she could only suppose that it did so bolt. She spoke of the great sorrow of her mistress, as testified to by Mrs. Darling, and told how she had left the Hall because she could not yet bear the sight of it: and not a whisper did she breathe of the unseemly scene which had occurred on that memorable afternoon. In short, it seemed that Honour was striving to make amends for the harsh and unjustifiable words she had used of her mistress in her delirium.

  Mr. St. John inquired whether she was going back to the Hall. “Never, never!” she answered; she should take service as far away from it as possible, where folks would not point at her as having caused the death of an innocent child. Not as a nurse — who would be likely to trust her in that capacity now? — but as a house or laundry maid. A moment’s deliberation with himself, and then Mr. St. John offered her a service in his own household. One of the housemaids was about to leave to be married; if Honour would like the situation the housekeeper should engage her.

  Again burst forth the tears. Not suppressed sobs this time, but soft tears of gratitude. For there was a tone of compassion in Mr. St. John’s voice that found its way to the heart of the unhappy woman; none had addressed such to her since that miserable day, the Eve of St. Martin; and she could have been his slave in all reverence for life. Thankfully did she accept the offered situation; and it was decided with the housekeeper afterwards that she should enter upon it in a month’s time, when both health and spirits might be somewhat renewed.

  Before the first week of that month had elapsed, Mr. St. John made an effort, and went over to Alnwick. In his courteous sympathy he deemed that a visit was due to Mrs. Carleton St. John; the more especially that he had not been able to make it at the time, or to attend the funeral. There were also certain little matters of business to be mentioned to her, now that George was the heir, to whom he was also guardian; but without any of the additional power vested in him, as it had been in regard to Benja.

  He went this time by rail. Brumm said so much of the additional length of the journey by road in his master’s present weak state, that Mr. St. John yielded for once, and a compartment was engaged, where he would be alone, with Brumm to attend upon him. On arriving at Alnwick, they found Mrs. Carleton St. John was still at her mother’s cottage; and to the cottage Isaac went.

  Had he arrived only a day later, he would not have seen her whom he came to see. Mrs. Carleton St. John was on the wing. She was starting for Scarborough that very evening, as Mrs. Darling sharply expressed it, as if the travelling by night did not meet her approbation; but she had allowed Charlotte to have her own way as a child, she whispered to Mr. St. John, and Charlotte chose to have it still.

  What struck Mr. St. John more than anything else in this visit, was the exceeding stillness that seemed to pervade Mrs. Carleton St. John. She sat in utter quietness, her hands clasped on her knee, her black dress falling around her slender form in soft folds, the white crape lappets of her cap thrown behind. The expression of her bent face was still, almost to apathy; her manner and voice were subdued. So young and pretty did she look in her grief, that Mr. St. John’s heart went out to her in compassion. He saw a slight shiver pass through her frame when she first spoke of Benja: she grieved for him, she murmured; and she told the tale of how she had struck him that fatal afternoon — oh, if she could only recall that! it weighed so heavily upon her. Oh, if she could — if she could — and Mr. St. John saw the fervour with which the wish was aspirated, the drawn lines about the pretty but haggard mouth, the hands lifted for once and clasped to pain — if she could only recall him back to life!

  She wanted change, she said; she was going to Scarborough. George did not seem to grow strong again, and she thought it might do him good; he was fractious and ailing, and perpetually crying for Benja. Mamma was angry at her travelling by night, but no one but herself knew how long and tedious her nights were; she seemed to be always seeing Benja. When she went to sleep she dreamt he was alive again, and to awake up from that to the reality was more cruel than all.

  Isaac St. John, as he sat and listened to the plaintive voice, pitied her beyond everything. There had not been wanting people, even within his small sphere of daily life, to comment on the gratification it must be to Mrs. Carleton St. John (apart from the loss of the child and its peculiar horror) to see her own son the inheritor. Isaac St. John resentfully wished they could see her and hear her now. He acquiesced in the expediency of change, both for herself and the child, and warmly urged her to exchange Scarborough for Castle Wafer. His step-mother, Mrs. St. John, was there, and they would make her so much more comfortable than she could be at any watering-place. But he urged in vain. She thanked him for his kindness, saying she would prefer to go to Scarborough now, but would keep his invitation for a future opportunity.

  To the business matters she declined to listen. If it was at all necessary that he should discuss them, let it be with her mamma; or perhaps with Mr. Drake the lawyer. Mr. Drake knew all about everything, she supposed; and he would attend on Mr. St. John if requested.

  So, after a two hours’ sojourn at the cottage, Isaac St. John quitted it, and the following day he returned to Castle Wafer. He had not mentioned that Honour was about to enter on service at Castle Wafer. Upon Honour’s name occurring in conversation in connection with the accident on St. Martin’s Eve, Mrs. Carleton St. John had shown symptoms of excitement: she wished Honour had died, she said, before she had wrought such ill: and Isaac, perhaps feeling rather ashamed to confess that his household was going to shelter her, let the subject drop.

  Mrs. St. John and the child started for Scarborough, Prance and three or four other servants in attendance upon her. Not Mrs. Darling. The younger lady had civilly but firmly declined her mother’s companionship. She would rather be alone, she said, and Mrs, Darling yielded — as she had done all through Charlotte’s life.

  But it appeared that Scarborough did not please her. She had been in it little more than a week, when Mrs. Darling heard that she had gone to some place in Westmoreland. From thence, after another short sojourn, she made her way to Dover. It was getting close to Christmas then, and Mrs. Darling, feeling an uneasiness she could not well define, hastened to her, under the pretext of accompanying her home. She found Charlotte anything but benefited by her travellings, if looks might be trusted, for she was more thin, more wan, more haggard than before; and George was ill still.

  Whether George St. John had eaten too much at that memorable birthday dinner, or whether the shock and horror of seeing Benja, as he had seen him, was telling upon his system, certain it was the child had declined from that night. Mr. Pym had treated him for indigestion, and he seemed a little better for a few days, but the improvement did not continue. Never again was he the merry boy he had been: fractious, irritable, and mourning incessantly for Benja; his spirits failed, his appetite would not return. He had not derived benefit from the change of scene any more than his mother, and that, Mrs. Darling on her arrival saw.

  “What can be t
he matter with him?” was the first question Mrs. St. John addressed to her mother, and the anxiety visible in the wild eyes alarmed Mrs. Darling.

  “Charlotte, calm yourself, my dear; indeed there is no cause for uneasiness. I think you have moved him about too much; children want repose at times as well as we do. The quiet of the Hall and Mr. Pym’s care will soon bring him round. We will go back at once.”

  “I am not going back to the Hall,” said Charlotte.

  “Not going back!” repeated Mrs. Darling.

  “Not at present.”

  “My dear Charlotte, you must go back. How is the Hall to get on at Christmas without you?”

  “Must?” significantly returned Charlotte. “I am my own mistress; accountable to none.”

  “Of course, my love; of course. But, Charlotte” — and Mrs. Darling seemed unduly anxious— “it is right that you should spend Christmas there. Georgy is the heir now.”

  “He is the possessor,” said Charlotte, calmly. “He is the possessor of Alnwick, he will be the inheritor of more; he will be Sir George Carleton St. John — as his father would have been had he but lived.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Darling, stealing a side glance at her daughter, who was resting her cheek upon her slender fingers, her gaze fixed upwards.

  “But, mamma, I wish now it were Benja; I wish Georgy was as he used to be. I think a complete change of scene may do him good,” she added after a pause, “and I shall take him abroad: immediately: for perhaps a year.”

  Mrs. Darling stood aghast. “But, what’s to become of the Hall? what’s to be done with it?”

  “Anything,” was the indifferent reply. “It is mine to do what I choose with — that is, it’s Georgy’s — and who is to question me? Live in it yourself, if you like; let it; leave servants in it; I don’t care. Georgy is my only care now, mamma, and I shall take him abroad to get him strong.”

  Yes, Alnwick Hall and its broad acres were George’s now, but they did not seem to have brought pleasure in their train. Was it that the almost invariable law of nature was obtaining in this case, and the apples, coveted, proved bitter ashes in possession? Charlotte St. John looked back to the days and nights of warfare with existing things, to the rebellion of her own spirit at her child’s secondary position, to the vain, ardent longing that he should be the heir and supplant Benja. Well, she had her wish. But where was the pleasure she had looked forward to as in a vision, where the triumph? It had not come; it seemed to have vanished utterly and outwardly, even as had poor Benja. What was, what could be, the cause for this?