Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “To-morrow morning you quit my service, Honour Tritton? I never tolerate insolence, and I find that you have been here too long. Take that boy out of my sight.”

  Somehow in the fray, they had all hemmed themselves into a corner, and the broken glass was cracking under Mrs. St. John’s feet. Honour picked up the watch with a jerk which bespoke the temper she was in, clasped the sobbing boy tenderly in her arms, and went upstairs with him, meeting Prance at the diningroom door, as she was gliding in.

  “It’s a burning shame!” broke forth Honour, sitting down by the nursery fire and dashing the coals about with the poker, while she held Benja to her with the other hand— “it’s a burning shame that he should be so treated! If she does turn me away, I’ll go every step of the way to Castle Wafer and tell all I know to your guardian, Benja. If I don’t do it, may Heaven never prosper me!”

  Poor little ill-treated child! He lay there in her lap, smarting with the pain, his trembling heart beating.

  “Let the worst come to the worst, my precious lamb, it can only be for a few years,” began Honour again. “I know it said in my master’s will that you were to be sent early to Eton.”

  “What’s Eton?” sobbed Benja.

  “Something very good,” rejoined Honour, who had no definite ideas on the subject herself. “And when you are of age, my darling, all Alnwick will be yours, and she and Master Georgy must turn out of it.”

  “Where will they go?” asked Benja.

  “I don’t know where, and it don’t matter where,” continued the woman in her injudicious partisanship. “You will be master at Alnwick, and nobody can live here then unless you choose to let them.”

  “Who is master now?” questioned Benja.

  “You are, my pretty boy, and have been ever since your papa died; only she lives in it and gives orders because you are not old enough. Master’s wits must have gone a wool-gathering,” added the exasperated Honour in soliloquy, “when he left her with any power over the child at all.”

  Honour was right in the main.

  Benja remained on her lap, his sobs gradually subsiding. He lay thinking of many things, such as occur to children, his ideas running from one topic to another. Presently he spoke.

  “Honour, when is my church to be finished?”

  “Suppose I finish it this afternoon,” cried Honour, starting up. “There’s scarcely anything left of it to do, and if I am turned away it may never get done at all.”

  Opening a closet-door, she took from it what seemed to be the model of a very pretty country church, with its spire, begun in pursuance of her promise to Benja after the visit to the “Emporium of Foreign Curiosities.” Like many another thing entered upon in haste, this coveted treasure had not yet been completed. The fact was, Honour found more trouble over it than she had anticipated, and Benja, in the protracted waiting, forgot his eagerness. All that was left to be done now was the pasting on of the coloured windows. They were cut out of thin rose paper; the walls of the structure being of thicker paper and white, and the framework of thin wood.

  Honour collected her materials, and soon accomplished her task, though she had not been sparing of her windows. Benja forgot his troubles in watching her. She had taken off his velvet dress, with many a lamentation over the rent, and put on him a brown-holland tunic, handsomely trimmed with black silk braid. Over that she tied a white pinafore, lest he should make too free acquaintance with the paste.

  At dusk all was completed, and this famous church lighted up by means of the bit of candle inside. Benja clapped his hands with delight. It was a novel, ingenious, picturesque sight, especially to a child. The fire had burned low and there was no other light in the room, so that the church was shown off to perfection, and was a really striking and conspicuous object.’ Suddenly the flame inside began to whiffle.

  “It’s the draught from that door,” observed Honour. “Shut it, Benja; shut it gently.”

  She spoke of the door which opened into Mrs. St. John’s dressing-room. It is possible that you may remember there was formerly no door there; but Mrs. St. John had caused one to be made at the birth of George, that she might pass into the nursery at will, without going into the corridor. Now that George was beyond babyhood, this door was generally kept bolted, the bolt being on Mrs. St. John’s side, not any on that of the nursery; but it was sometimes, as now, left open.

  Honour turned her head to the door as she spoke, and saw the little boy place his hands upon the panel to push it to, after the manner of children, and it closed gently. Benja came to the table again to feast his eyes. The flame was steady now.

  “There ought to be moss all round here,” observed Honour, pointing to the board on which the church rested. “But it’s too late to put it on to-night: and, for the matter of that, I have no moss. If I stop, we will ask the gardener to get some.”

  Benja did not care for the moss. To his admiring eyes nothing could improve its present aspect. He gazed at it on the drawers, he danced before it on the table, he carried it to and fro in the room, obeying Honour’s injunctions to keep it upright and steady. In this manner some time passed, and they allowed the fire to go out.

  “Bother take the fire!” ejaculated Honour. “And I have neither wood nor matches up here.”

  She had her hand upon the bell, when it suddenly occurred to her that she would go down for the things herself. No one living liked a gossip better than she, and the scene in the dining-room was burning her tongue. Placing the church on the table, and strictly charging Benja not to touch it while she was away, Honour went out by the ordinary door, and descended the back-stairs. To this door, and I would have you note the difference, the fastening was inside. It was not a bolt, but a common button, placed high up beyond reach of the children.

  Never had Honour relished a gossip more than the one she now entered on with the servants. Every little detail of the dining-room affray, so far as she had been a witness to it, was related by her to the servants, who did not spare their comments or their sympathy. Honour was quite unable to tear herself away, until by the striking of the clock she found she must have been there nearly half-an-hour. Hardly believing her ears, she caught up a bundle of faggots and a box of matches, popped them into her apron, together with a pair of snuffers and an extinguisher, and ran up the stairs. Turning the handle of the door to enter hastily, she was surprised to find that she could not open it.

  “Master Benja, why have you fastened the door?” she called out. “Come and undo it.”

  There was no reply.

  “He must have got upon a chair and turned the button,” soliloquized Honour. But at that moment she became conscious of a smell of burning, as of wool. Letting the things she carried fall with a crash, she flew along the passage and turned into her mistress’s dressing-room, that she might obtain entrance that way. That door was also fastened, but on the outer side. It was no unusual occurrence — in fact, it was usually kept bolted, as was just now observed, and Honour at the moment thought nothing of it. Slipping back the bolt, she went in.

  Oh! what did Honour see! Where was the young heir of Alnwick? A dark mass smouldering on the floor at the far end of the room, the carpet smouldering, no trace whatever remaining of the pretty and dangerous toy she had made, no trace of him, save that shapeless heap from which the spirit had flown!

  With awful cries, with wild shrieks of terrified alarm, Honour flew through the dressing-room, and down the grand staircase, her cries arousing the household, arousing Mrs. St. John.

  CHAPTER XV.

  CONFLICTING STATEMENTS.

  How the night subsequently went on, few at the Hall could tell. For some time it was one scene of horror and confusion. One of the grooms, unbidden, saddled a horse and went galloping for Mr. Pym; and in an almost incredibly short space of time, the surgeon was there. But what could he do? That one precious little spirit had gone, never to be recalled by leech of this world. Another, however, wanted the attentions of Mr. Pym, — and that was little George
. The child, aroused by the cries of Honour from a sleep he had fallen into in the dining-room, had escaped upstairs into the nursery. A rush of terror overtook him, baby though he was, at what he saw there, and at being told it was Benja, and he fell into a succession of fits of sickness and shivering.

  It must be assumed — it was so assumed in the house — that this burning was the result of accident; the result, it may also be said, of Honour Tritton’s carelessness. She had gone down secure in the belief that the boy would obey her mandate and not touch the church. Oh, how could she have been so foolish! To look at a new toy and not touch it, to gaze at its attractions from a distance and not examine them, is philosophy beyond a child. Perhaps the little boy — for he was an obedient boy naturally — tried for some minutes to exercise his patience; but no doubt could be entertained that he at length took the church in his hands again. In how short a time the accident occurred, and how it occurred, was as yet unknown — it may be said, it was hidden in mystery.

  The position of those in the house during this time appeared to be as follows. The servants were all downstairs, with the exception of Prance; and Honour, as you have heard, was with them. Mrs. St. John and George were shut up in the dining-room, the latter asleep, the former, as she said, nearly if not quite asleep also. Where Prance was at the time did not as yet appear, neither had any question been raised in regard to it.

  But in the midst of the dreadful horror which had taken possession of the unhappy Honour, two points thrust themselves prominently forward in her brain. The one was, How did the child get fastened in the room? the other was, that she had seen Prance hiding in a recess of the passage as she ran along it. This was not so much a remembrance as a conviction; and it seemed to Honour as if she had not noticed, or had very superficially noticed, Prance’s being there at the time, but the fact had flashed into her mind afterwards. On the opposite side of the passage, about midway between the nursery-door and the dressing-room door, the recess was situated — a small arched recess. Poor Mr. Carleton St. John in his life-time had wondered laughingly whether the architect Lad put it there for ornament or for use.

  The first person Mr. Pym sought on his arrival, after he had taken a hopeless look at that sight in the nursery, where the floor was now half-inundated by the water employed to put the fire out, was Mrs. St. John. She was in the dining-room, and he found her almost unnaturally calm and collected; some people are so in these moments of calamity. The only sign of emotion was her death-like pallor. She gave him the account of what had occurred, so far, she observed, as she knew it; candidly confessing to the fracas that had taken place in the room after dinner. Benja had set upon George unmercifully, and in return she had corrected Benja: boxed his ears, and, she really believed, had shaken him. It was very rare indeed that she was so hasty with either of the children; and she would give the whole world not to have touched him, now that he was gone. After Honour took him away to the nursery, she had remained in the dining-room, not quitting it until disturbed by the shrieks of Honour. Prance came in once or twice to ask if she should take George, but she did not let him go. The boy went to sleep in his papa’s large chair, and she sat down by him and took his legs upon her lap. She was nearly asleep herself when the cries began, and she had felt startled almost to death. The whole fault, she feared, lay with Honour. The woman had confessed the facts in the first moment of terror: she had left Benja alone with some dangerous paper toy lighted up with a candle, while she went downstairs and stayed gossiping with the servants. The poor little fellow must have set himself on fire.

  “But did no one hear his cries?” asked Mr. Pym, who had not previously interrupted the narrative.

  Mrs. St. John supposed not. All she knew was, that they had not penetrated to the dining-room. The surgeon listened. He knew the walls on that side the house were massive, and if the child was shut up in the nursery — as it appeared he had been — it was hardly likely that he would be heard, unless any one had happened to be upstairs. The dining-room was in the other wing of the house, its doors were double; and the kitchens were beyond the dining-room.

  “The odd thing to me is, that he did not run out of the room,” cried Mr. Pym. “A strong lad of five years old would hardly stop in a room to be burnt, for the want of escaping out of it. The first thing most of us attempt -in a similar calamity is to run from the room: often a fatal step. But he does not seem to have attempted it.”

  Mrs. St. John shook her head. She did not know any of the details: they must of course be left to supposition. Honour deserved hanging for having left the child alone with a lighted toy.

  It was at this juncture that Mr. Pym’s attention was called to George. The child was very sick; had been sick at intervals since the fright After attending to him; Mr. Pym went in search of Honour. He found her alone, in a lamentable state of distress, in the bedroom that had been hers and the unhappy child’s.

  And now it must be mentioned that Honour had been arriving at a sudden and very dreadful doubt. As the mists cleared away from her brain and she was able to reflect more calmly upon the probabilities of the accident, she began to think whether it had not been wilfully caused. And the doubt was assuming the aspect of certainty in her mind, when Mr. Pym came in.

  For some minutes she could not speak; she could only cry and sob, and cover her face with her apron in very shame and remorse. Mr. Pym did not reproach her in her distress: he rather set himself, when she had gathered calmness, to learn what he could of the particulars. Honour freely confessed all. She told of the affair in the dining-room, giving a different colouring to it from that her mistress had done, and causing Mr. Pym’s grey eyebrows to scowl themselves into ugliness. She told how she had afterwards finished the church for him, describing what it was, and where the idea had been taken from. She said she had left it with him lighted, had gone down for wood, and stayed talking the best part of half-an-hour. Not a thing did she conceal; not a point that could tell against herself did she gloss over.

  “He was always an obedient boy,” she wailed, “and I did not think he would touch it when I bade him not. And I never thought I had been down so long, till I heard the clock strike!”

  “It is strange you did not hear his cries!”

  “The kitchens are too far off.”

  “And it is very strange that the boy did not run out of the room: unless smoke overpowered him from the first. I cannot make out why he did not. It is a bad plan in general, but in this instance it might have saved his life by bringing help to him.”

  Honour made no immediate remark. She had been sitting in a low chair, swaying her body backwards and forwards in her distress. Suddenly she looked up at the surgeon and spoke in a low tone.

  “I want to know who fastened the doors.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Mr. Pym, after a pause of surprise.

  “I don’t think he was burnt by accident, sir,” she continued, glancing at the walls as if afraid of being overheard, and speaking in the faintest possible whisper. “I think it was done on purpose.”

  “Good Heavens, woman!” exclaimed the astonished surgeon, really wondering whether the trouble was turning her brain.

  “There are things connected with it that I can’t understand,” she continued. “They did not strike me particularly at the moment, but they do now that I can think of them. He couldn’t get out of the room; he was fastened in.”

  That she was not suffering from mental aberration at present, was apparent enough to the surgeon; the girl was as sane as he was. Honour thought he was never going to leave off staring at her.

  “When I left him upstairs, I left both doors open; that is, unfastened,” she went on, “When I got back again, both were fastened; the one on the inside, the other on the out. I want to know who did it.”

  It might have been a fancy of Honour’s, but she thought the doctor changed countenance. “Are you sure of this?” he asked.

  “As sure as I am that I am living and my darling child is dead.”
>
  Mr. Pym’s eyebrows contracted themselves yet more. “Just describe to me consecutively what occurred, will you?” he said. “How did you know that the doors were fastened?”

  “Because I couldn’t get in,” said Honour, thinking it rather a simple question. “When I got back with my little bundle of faggots, I found the door was buttoned inside. I thought the child had got upon the chair and done it; but, short as the moment was that I had for thought, it struck me as being strange, for I had never known him to do such a thing before. As I called to him to unfasten it, I fancied there was a smell of burning, and I ran round through my mistress’s dressing-room and turned the handle of the door to open it, and found that door was also fastened, bolted on the outside. The smell was very strong then, and in my frenzy I forgot the strangeness of the circumstance, for the door is in general kept bolted—”

  “Then why should you be surprised at finding it bolted then?” interrupted Mr. Pym.

  “Because it was not bolted when I went down,” returned Honour. “It was open while I was finishing the church, and I told the child to shut it, as the draught caused the flame inside the paper walls to whiffle about. He pushed the door to with his dear little hands, and I watched him. That’s how I know it was unfastened then, sir.”

  “In your flurry afterwards, when you attempted to enter, you perhaps only fancied it was fastened,” suggested Mr. Pym.

  “No, sir. When I tried to open it and could not, I found the bolt was pushed into the grove to its full extent. The end came beyond the grove, and I pushed it back with my fingers.”

  Mr. Pym rose impulsively, as if he would look at the door for himself; but halted suddenly and sat down again.

  “That could not have been done without hands,” proceeded Honour. “And why was it done?”

  The surgeon made no attempt to answer the question. He seemed very greatly put out, as if the revelation had alarmed or unnerved him, scarcely noticing Honour.