Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “Mrs. St. John says she heard nothing,” he presently observed to himself, as one in abstraction. “Honour, he continued in straightforward tones to the girl, “I think you must be mistaken. There appears to have been no one upstairs who would have bolted it. Mrs. St. John tells me she did not quit the dining-room: the servants say they never came up at all during the afternoon.”

  “One of them was up,” rejoined Honour in the same low voice, and the same roving gaze round the walls, “and that was Prance. I saw her myself; I can’t be mistaken. Does she say she was not upstairs, sir?”

  “She has said nothing to me one way or the other,” replied Mr. Pym. “I heard it said generally that the servants had not been upstairs.”

  “Prance was; and if she says she was not, she tells a lie. She was hidden in the recess outside, opposite the doors.”

  “Hidden in the recess. When?”

  “After I dropped the things from my apron, and was running round to the dressing-room, I saw Prance standing inside the recess; she was squeezing herself against the wall, sir, as if afraid I should see her.”

  “Did you speak to her?”

  “No, sir; and you may feel surprised at what I am going to say, but it’s the truth. I was so flurried at the time, what with finding the first door fastened and with the smell of burning, that I did not seem then to be conscious of seeing her. I suppose my eyes took in the impression without conveying it to my mind. But afterwards it all came into my mind, and I remembered it, and how she was standing. It was just as if she had fastened the doors, and then put herself there to listen to the child’s dying cries.”

  “Hush,” authoritatively reproved Mr. Pym. “You are not yourself, girl, or you would not say it.”

  “I don’t think I am,” candidly acknowledged Honour, bursting into tears. “My brain feels as if it were on the turn to madness. Prance has been cross and hard and cruel to the child always, and I’m naturally excited against her.”

  “But she would not shut the doors upon him if he were burning,” retorted the surgeon, some anger in his tone. “You should be careful what you say.”

  “I wish I could be put out of my misery!” sobbed Honour. “I wish they’d hang me for my carelessness in leaving him alone with a lighted toy! I did do that; and I hope I shall be punished for it. I shall never know another happy moment. Thus far the fault is mine. But I did not fasten the doors upon him, so that he could not escape for his life: and I am perfectly certain that in any fright, or calamity, or danger, the child’s first impulse would have been to fly down the backstairs to me.”

  She threw her apron over her head, sobbing and crying, and swaying her body backwards and forwards on the chair as before, in the intensity of her emotion. The surgeon sat still a few moments, endeavouring to recall his scattered senses, and then rose and touched her shoulder to command attention. She let fall her apron.

  “This thing that you affirm must be investigated, look you, Honour. For — for — for the sake of all, it must be sifted to the bottom. No one in their right minds,” he emphatically added, “would shut the doors upon a burning child; and that appears to be the theory you have adopted, so far as I can gather it. Have you stated these facts to your mistress?”

  “I have not seen her since,” answered Honour. “Except at the first moment, when I ran down in my terror.”

  “And she came out of the dining-room then?”

  “She did, sir. The little child — he is the heir now — ran out after her.”

  “Honour,” said the surgeon, gravely and earnestly, “I do not fancy the bent of your thought just now is a wholesome one. You had better put it from you. I want you to come with me and tell your mistress about the doors being fastened.” He went out of the room, Honour following. In the passage outside, suspiciously near to the door, was Prance. She made a feint of being in a hurry, and was whisking down the back-stairs.

  “Here, ‘Prance, I want you,” said the surgeon. “I was about to ask you to come to me.”

  The woman turned at once, quite readily, as it appeared, and quite unruffled. She stood calm, cool, quiet, before Mr. Pym, in her neat black gown and silk apron, the black ribbon strings of her close cap tied underneath her chin. Not a shade of change was observable on her impassive face, not the faintest hue of emotion lighted her pale, sharp features.

  “This is a very dreadful thing, Prance,” he began.

  “It is, indeed, sir,” she answered in her measured tones, which, if they had not any demonstrative feeling in them, had certainly no irreverence.

  “How did the doors get fastened on the unfortunate boy?”

  Prance paused for about the hundredth part of a minute. “I was not aware they were fastened, sir.” And the answer appeared to be really genuine.

  “Honour says they were. Upon returning from the kitchen, and attempting to enter by this door” — pointing to the one still closed on the miserable scene—” she found she could not enter. The inside button had been turned during her absence below. Did you go into the nursery yourself and fasten it? No one else, I believe, is in the habit of frequenting the nursery but you and Honour.”

  “I did not go, sir. I did not go into the nursery at all during the afternoon. Master George was downstairs with his mamma, and I had nothing to take me into it. If the button was turned in the manner described, I should think Master Benja must have got upon a chair and done it himself.”

  Still the same impassive face; and still, it must be acknowledged, the same air of truth.

  “That may be,” remarked Mr. Pym. “The same thought had occurred to me. But there’s another point not so easily got over. Honour says that the other door was also fastened, the one leading into the dressing-room — was bolted on the outside.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” replied Prance; and this time there was a shade of uncertainty, of hesitation, in her voice; not, however, very perceptible to ordinary ears. “That door generally is kept bolted,” she added more freely, raising her eyes to the doctor’s. “My mistress took to keep it so, because Master George was always running in while she was dressing.”

  “But—”

  “Be quiet, Honour,” said Mr. Pym, cutting short the interruption. “You are in the habit of attending on your mistress, I believe, Prance, and therefore are sometimes in her dressing-room,” he continued. “Do you remember whether that door was open to-day?”

  “No, sir, I don’t,” said Prance, after a minute’s consideration. “I dressed my mistress this morning for the early dinner, and put the room straight afterwards, but I do not remember whether the door was open or shut. I should think it was shut.”

  “It was wide open this afternoon,” burst forth Honour, unable to keep quiet any longer, and believing Prance could remember if she chose. “The poor dear child shut it with his own hands while I was finishing his church.”

  “Is it possible?” responded Prance, her perfect coolness of demeanour, her propriety of tone, presenting a contrast to the excitement of the miserable Honour. “I cannot remember how it was when I was dressing my mistress, and I had nothing to do in the room after that.”

  “And did not go into it?” pursued the surgeon.

  “And did not go into it?” repeated Prance.

  “Then you know nothing at all as to how the doors could have got fastened?” proceeded Mr. Pym.

  “No, sir, I do not. I could take an oath, if need be, that I did not know the doors were bolted until you spoke to me how,” added the woman, the least possible sound of emotion, arising as it seemed from earnestness, at length perceptible in her tones. “I assure you, sir, I had no idea of it until this moment. I — I should scarcely think it could have been so.” There was an ominous glare in Honour’s eye at the expressed doubt. Mr. Pym did not want a passage-at-arms between the two then, and raised his hand to command silence.

  “Did you hear the child’s cries, Prance?” he asked. “It is incredible to suppose that he did not cry; and yet no one seems
to have heard him.”

  “You mean when he was on fire, sir?”

  “Of course I mean when he was on fire.”

  “I never heard them, sir. A child could not burn to death without making cries, and desperate cries, but I did not hear them,” she continued, more in soliloquy than to the surgeon. “It is an unfortunate thing that no one was within earshot.” Honour looked keenly at her from her swollen eyes. Mr. Pym spoke carelessly.

  “By the way, you were in the recess, Prance, just about the time. Did you neither see nor hear anything then?”

  “In the recess, sir?” rejoined Prance, turning her impassive face full on Mr. Pym in apparently the utmost astonishment. But not her eyes. “I was in no recess, sir.”

  “Yes you were. In that recess; there,” pointing to it. “Honour passed you when you were in it.”.

  “It is quite a mistake, sir. What should I do in the recess? If Honour says she saw me there, her sight must have deceived her.”

  “How do you account for your time at the period of the occurrence?” inquired Mr. Pym. “What part of the house were you in?”

  “I suppose I must have been in the dining-room, sir,” she answered readily. “I was in there until just before the alarm was given, and then I had come up to my bedroom.”

  “Let’s see. That is the room on the other side Mrs. St. John’s bedroom?”

  “Yes, sir; formerly my master’s dressing-room. After his death, Mrs. St. John placed me and Master George in it. She felt lonely with no one sleeping near her.”

  “And that’s where you were when you heard the alarm?”

  “I was in there with the door shut when I heard Honour come screaming along the passage, running towards the grand staircase. I had not been in my room above a couple of minutes at the most. I had come straight up from the diningroom.”

  “And you did not go into the recess?”

  “Certainly not, sir What object could I have in doing so? I’d rather keep out of the place.”

  Mr. Pym looked at Honour. His expression said plainly that he thought she must have been mistaken.

  “What had you done with yourself all the afternoon?” he demanded of Prance.

  “I was about in one place or another,” she answered. “Part of the time I was in the onion-room. I went there for a handful of a particular herb I wanted, and stayed to pick the leaves from the stalks. And I was twice in the dining-parlour with my mistress, and stayed there pretty long each time.”

  “Talking to her?”

  “No, sir, scarcely a word passed. My mistress rarely does talk much, to me or to any of us, and she seemed a good deal put out with the scene there was after dinner with Master Benja. Master George was put out, too, in his little way, and I stayed in the room soothing him. My mistress gave me a glass of wine then, and bade me drink the children’s health. I went in later a second time, and stayed longer than the first, but I was waiting for Master George to awake that I might bring him up to the nursery, for it was getting the children’s tea-time.”

  “But you did not bring him?”

  “No, sir, he did not awake, and I got tired of waiting. I came straight upstairs, and went into my room, and I had not been there two minutes when Honour’s cries broke out. I had not had time to strike a match and light any candle, and when I ran out of the room to see what was the matter, I had the match-box in my hand.”

  This seemed to be as comprehensive an account as Prance could give; and Mr. Pym himself saw no reason to doubt her. Honour did. She had done nothing but doubt the woman ever since she came to the house. Honour believed her to be two-faced, thoroughly sly and artful; “a very cat in deceit.” But in a calmer moment even Honour might not have brought herself to think that she would deliberately set fire to an innocent child, or close the doors on him that he might burn to death.

  Again Mr. Pym went into the presence of Mrs. St. John, the two servants with him. She looked more ghastly than before, and she was sitting with Georgy on her lap, the child sick and trembling still. Mr. Pym mentioned to her what Honour said about the doors being fastened, asking if she could remember whether the one leading from her dressing-room was open in the morning. She answered at once — and she spoke with the calmest and coldest self-possession, which seemed as a very contrast to her ghastly face — that she could not say with any certainty whether the dressing-room door was open that day or not. She remembered quite well that she had unbolted it that same morning while she was getting up, upon hearing the children’s voices in the nursery. She had gone in to kiss them and wish them happiness on their birthday. Whether she had rebolted the door afterwards or not, she could not say. She generally rebolted it when she had been that way into the nursery, but it was possible she had not done so this morning. “I wish you would not ask these questions,” she concluded, momentarily raising her eyes to Mr. Pym, for she had spoken with her face bent down, almost hidden.

  “But I must ask them,” said the surgeon.

  “It frightens George so,” she added. “See how he is shivering.”

  And in truth the child was shivering; shivering and trembling as one in an ague. Almost as his mother spoke, he raised himself with a cry, and was violently sick: and all Mr. Pym’s attention had to be given to him.

  CHAPTER XVI.

  INVESTIGATION.

  THE inquest was held the day following the death. A somewhat hurried arrangement; but in these small local places the convenience of the coroner has to be studied. It happened that the county coroner was coming to Alnwick that day to hold an inquest on a poor old man who had been accidentally killed; and the Alnwick parish officials, represented chiefly by the beadle, decided that the second inquest should take place as soon as the first was over.

  It did so. The first was held at the workhouse, and was over and done with in half-an-hour; the second was held at a public-house nearer the Hall: the Carleton Arms. The same jury sworn for the other inquest, attended for this one; and the witnesses were hurriedly collected without any formal process of summons-serving.

  It was universally believed that the ill-fated little child had taken the lighted church, in defiance of the nurse’s injunction and had then fastened the door to prevent her surprising him in his disobedience. Honour’s conviction alone protested against this; in silence, not openly; she was weary of arguing against the stream. That he had taken the church in his hands, she feared was too probable, but not that he had fastened the door to conceal his disobedience. A more open, honourable nature than his, child never possessed: he was always the first to tell candidly of a fault; and she thought he would rather have thrown wide the door that Honour might see him at his disobedience, than close it against her. This, however, was not the popular view of the case: that was, that the child had taken the dangerous toy in his hand, had slipped the button, not to be caught, and then by some means set himself on fire; the remote distance at which all the inmates of the Hall happened to be, just then, preventing them from hearing his cries.

  The fastening of the dressing-room door, which was spoken of by Honour, who was the principal witness, gave rise to some discussion. Nothing could be clearer or more positive than her sworn testimony that the dressing-room door was not fastened when she went downstairs, and that it was fastened when she came up — bolted on the outer side. The puzzle was, who had fastened it? No person whatever had been in the rooms, so far as could be learned. Witnesses were examined on this point, but nothing was elicited that could throw any light on the affair. It was Honour’s word against facts — facts so far as they seemed to be known. The housemaid, whose duty it was to attend to Mrs. St. John’s rooms, proved that she had not been into them since the morning. From the time of putting them to rights after breakfast, she was not in the habit of again entering them until about seven o’clock in the evening, after Mrs. St. John had dressed for dinner; neither did she on this unfortunate day. The other servants said they had not been upstairs at all: some wine had been given to them, and they were making t
hemselves comfortable below. Honour was with them, talking, but not Prance. Prance was not downstairs, so far as the servants knew, after she left the housekeeper’s room at the conclusion of dinner. Prance herself was called as a witness, and accounted for her time. Had gone into the dining-room whilst her mistress was at dessert with Master George, she said, Honour having then taken Master St. John upstairs. Had stayed there some little time. Her mistress had given her a glass of wine. She (witness) said that she had already taken a glass downstairs, but her mistress answered that she could no doubt take another. She did so, drinking to the two young gentlemen’s health. After that, went upstairs to her room; stayed there some time, doing a bit of work for herself, and putting up Master George’s morning things, which she had not had time to see to after dressing him to dine with his mamma. Yes, she said in answer to a question from the coroner, this room was very near the dressing-room; Mrs. St. John’s bedroom only dividing them; but could swear most positively that she did not go into the dressing-room. She entered no room whatever except this, her own.

  A juryman interrupted with a question. Where was deceased at this time?

  With Honour in the nursery, the witness answered. It was then that the paper toy, spoken to, was being finished and lighted up — as the Hall had learnt subsequently. Afterwards, witness continued, pursuing her evidence, she had gone downstairs into the onion-room, as it was called, a place where herbs were kept; had stayed there some time, getting an herb she wanted, and plucking its leaves from the stalks. Then —

  Another juryman interrupted, a worthy grocer and oilman, with whom the Hall dealt. What might witness have wanted with the herb?

  The witness replied, with exemplary patience and the impressive manner that always characterized her, that she occasionally took a decoction of this herb medicinally. The cook was in the habit of preparing it for her, but when it was left entirely to that functionary, as much stalk as leaf was put in, and the decoction suffered in consequence; therefore she liked to pluck it herself.