Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Prance obeyed without the slightest hesitation, her account differing in no wise from the one she had just given to the coroner and jury. Mrs. Darling questioned her as to the alleged fastening of the doors: Prance maintained that the one door, at any rate, had been fastened in Honour’s fancy only. It was possible, nay probable, that the poor little boy had himself fastened the one; but as to the other, nothing but Honour’s haste (as she, Prance, believed) had prevented her opening it. “The fact is,” concluded Prance, “Honour was half paralyzed with fear at the time, through smelling the burning; and she has been as one mad ever since.”

  “And your mistress was shut up, I hear, in the dining-room all the time with little George.”

  “Oh yes,” said Prance, “and the servants were shut up downstairs. Nobody could have gone near the room. If that door was fastened, why, the bolt, must have slipped as well as the latch when the child closed it,” added Prance. “The coroner and jury thought so.”

  Mrs. Darling sighed in very perplexity. She could not get over Honour’s positive and solemn assertion; but it seemed equally impossible to believe any one had been near the door to bolt it. This last suggestion, that the bolt had slipped, was a welcome one, and Mrs. Darling would have given half her remaining lifetime to have been able fully to believe in it.

  There went forth another announcement in the local papers, Mrs. Darling wording it.

  “Died, on St. Martin’s Eve, at Alnwick Hall, on his fifth birthday, Benjamin Carleton St. John, eldest son and heir of the late George Carleton St. John, Esquire.”

  CHAPTER XVII.

  HONOUR’S RAVINGS.

  IT needed not many days for Honour Tritton to be in a fever, accompanied by delirium, the symptoms of which had been plainly showing themselves. Mr. Pym pronounced it a malady of the brain, brought on by grief, horror, and remorse. It would prolong her stay at the Hall, for she could not be removed; otherwise Mrs. St. John had given her notice to quit it as soon as the funeral was over. Mrs. St. John had taken a shuddering dislike to her. The word is used advisedly. Once or twice, when she met Honour in the corridors, she was seized with a fit of shuddering that affected her whole frame. Freely she avowed that she could not bear the sight of the girl; but for her, she said, Benja would be still living. But when the girl was taken ill they could not turn her out; and Honour lay in bed, in the room that had been hers and Benja’s. The pretty rosewood cot, shorn for ever of its occupant, was yet in the corner. At first she was not dangerously ill; hot and feverish, and a little excited at times; but not in danger. It was the day before the funeral that she took to her bed.

  Mrs. St. John seemed more affected by the death than was apparent to ordinary observers. Not a shade of emotion had been seen on her impassive face; not a tear, so far as any one could trace, had been shed. But that she was grievously affected by it, those about her saw plainly. A species of nervousness — if the word may be applied to one so outwardly calm — seemed to have taken possession of her. She was ever brooding on the dreadful event; she was afraid to go about the house alone after dark; not all the cordage of a seventy-gun ship would have dragged her into the dressing-room, for it was next to the nursery where Benja was lying. She chiefly sat nursing George, who was ill still — remaining for an hour or two intensely calm and quiet, then starting up and pacing the room violently, as if unable to bear her own reflections — her grief for Benja. “My dear, be still, be calm,” Mrs. Darling remonstrated one afternoon as she paced the room with wild steps. “All the sorrow in the world cannot bring him back: in a little time, if you can only realize it, you will gather comfort from the fact that he is better off.”

  “Mamma, I would hang Honour Tritton if I could!” was the only answer.

  What Mrs. St. John would have done without her mother at this time, it was impossible to tell; though perhaps, had necessity imposed it on her, she might have been aroused to exert herself. Mrs. Darling, forgetting her own ailments, and she was feeling really ill, took everything upon herself, and had to do it. It was she who wrote letters to apprise friends of the calamity; it was she who made arrangements for the funeral: Charlotte would take neither act nor part in it. Mrs. Darling did what she could to amuse her daughter, and divert her mind from the fatal night. She talked to her of family interests, she read letters to her from her daughter Margaret, who was in Berkshire; she enlarged upon the letters from her son Frank. There had been some trouble or escapade, or something unpleasant with Rose, during his visit to Belport in the autumn, she said, but she could not get to the bottom of it, and perhaps never should: she expected it all arose from Rose’s rebellion at being kept at school. These, and similar topics, did Mrs. Darling pursue; but her daughter was as one who heard not. It might, in fact, be questioned whether she did hear; and if she answered it was only mechanically.

  The day of the funeral arrived, and friends and relatives came from far and near to follow to his last resting-place the ill-fated little heir of Alnwick. As it had been in the days when George St. John died, so it was again. Mr. St. John of Castle Wafer was too ill to attend, but Frederick St. John came down from London in his place. Captain Darling ‘also came. Neither of them stayed beyond the day, and they agreed to travel back to town together. Indeed, none of the guests were asked to remain: the Hall was not in a mood for welcoming visitors just now.

  Mrs. Darling took the opportunity of asking her son what the hinted escapade of Rose’s might have been; but he only laughed it off, and did not explain. He had corrected her for it, he said, and he didn’t think she would attempt a second.

  So the child was laid in the vault with his father and his poor young mother, whose life he had cost; and the train of mourners and attendants returned to the Hall, and then dispersed, none of them, Captain Darling excepted, having seen Alnwick’s mistress. Something had been said about little Georgy — now the heir — going to the funeral; but it was decided that he was too young. And besides, he was not well.

  There was estrangement still between Isaac St. John and his brother; but the aspect of affairs had changed, and Isaac, on his part, would have been all too willing to be reconciled. Lady Anne St. John was on the point of marriage with Captain Saville, who had unexpectedly come into a large inheritance. Anne confessed all to Isaac. How there had been a secret understanding between her and Captain Saville, and Frederick was keeping league with them, and to screen Anne, taking on himself the blame of refusing to marry her. Isaac St. John would then have been reconciled to his brother. He did not make any decisive move towards it, but he allowed his wishes to become known to Frederick through Mrs. St. John. Mr. Frederick, however, had a spice of obstinacy in his composition, and chose to hold on his own way. He had recently come into some money through an aunt, and this he was applying to liquidating his own debts, living meanwhile quietly in London, and spending all his time at his favourite art — painting.

  The day of the funeral came to an end. Everything had passed off quietly, without undue bustle and agitation, which might perhaps have been expected under the circumstances of the case. Little George had burst into wailing sobs when the mourning carriages came back to the Hall, saying he wanted Benja. They told him Benja was gone to heaven to be happy for ever, and to play upon a golden harp. But the child still cried bitterly. Captain Darling carried him out on the slopes, and in due time brought him back soothed; having entered upon some magnificent promises touching a live pony, when the young gentleman should have grown as tall as Benja was.

  On the following morning Mrs. St. John was to leave the Hall for a time. It was her own proposition, but Mrs. Darling seconded it. At first she was only going to the cottage, her mother’s residence; later she would take Georgy to some watering-place, and return to the Hall for Christmas.

  You cannot keep gossiping tongues still. Since the inquest, a great deal of discussion had taken place as to the disputed question of the dressing-room door. In the Hall, and out of it for miles, it formed the theme of conversation, and speculation wa
s rife as to the real truth. Once establish the fact of the door’s having been previously bolted, and there was an end to all mystery. Honour’s unwavering assertion that it was bolted when she arrived, made weight gradually and silently; the almost as indisputable fact that no one had been near to bolt it received full credence; and the solution gradually arrived at was, that when the little boy had closed the door, the bolt had slipped. It appeared to be the only feasible explanation. The more it was talked of and dwelt upon, the more certain did it appear, and by the day of the funeral it was received as an undoubted fact. Mr. Pym so received it; Mrs. Darling spoke of it as a discovery, not a supposition. Even Honour, weak, ill, and miserable, was brought to acknowledge that such might have been the case.

  “What a mercy that it’s cleared up!” cried Mrs. Darling to her daughter. “It was so very unpleasant to have any mystery connected with it: the event was unhappy enough in itself, without that. We can so far dismiss the unpleasantness from our minds now, Charlotte.”

  Mrs. Darling intended to return to the cottage with her daughter. She was busy in her room after breakfast on the morning of departure, putting together the few things which had been sent over for her use from home, when one of the housemaids happened to mention that Honour was worse, and “saying queer things.”

  “What queer things?” asked Mrs. Darling, in the midst of folding a crape collar.

  “Oh, ma’am, about the accident; about the bolting of the door, that there has been so much talk over—”

  “The door bolted itself when Honour caused it to be closed; it has been conclusively decided so,” sharply interrupted Mrs. Darling.

  “I know it has, ma’am,” replied the maid. “But Honour is off her head, and does not know what she is saying. She has been raving about her mistress, fancying she’s at the bedside, and asking her whether she did not bolt the doors on Master Benja when he was burning, or whether she set him on fire? It’s dreadful to hear her, poor thing.”

  If ever a sudden change was seen in a woman, you might have seen it then in Mrs. Darling. Her ruddy, good-humoured countenance assumed the hue it had worn when shunning Mr. Pym’s look that night before the Carleton Arms — though for the matter of that, he had equally shunned hers.

  “I’ll go to her,” she said, presently. “Poor creature, she must be quite mad! I’ll go and see what can be done for her. Perhaps a strait-waistcoat will be necessary.”

  Accordingly Mrs. Darling made her way along the corridor. Crouching against the nursery-door, as she turned the corner, was what at first looked like a huge black balloon. It proved to be the petticoats of her daughter, who appeared to be listening to something in the nursery.

  “Charlotte!”

  Mrs. St. John lifted her scared face: a white face, not so much of terror as of some great anguish, with wild eyes gazing from it. Softly rising, she spoke in a whisper.

  “I can hear his cries — his. — I heard them last night, all night long.”

  Mrs. Darling’s heart leaped, as the saying runs, into her mouth. Was she going mad — was every one going mad?

  “Listen! There it is again!”

  “Charlotte, my dear child, you cannot be well this morning. These troubles have unhinged you. When you—”

  Mrs. Darling suddenly stopped, and began to feel a little “unhinged” herself. There certainly was a sound within the room; a repetition of faint whining or moaning.

  “I knew they could never take him out of it!” whispered Mrs. St. John. “Hark! But his cries were louder then.”

  Mrs. Darling looked at her. Could she be succumbing to superstitious fears? Mrs. Darling hardly thought it possible, being herself so very practical a woman, in contradistinction to an imaginative one. She no more believed in ghosts than she did in the spirits recently become fashionable: and she opened the nursery-door very gingerly and peeped in.

  It was the dog Brave. Poor Brave must have found his way into the room on the previous day, on the removal of the coffin, and had been shut in ever since. Not barking, not making any noise to attract attention, simply sitting there under the trestles, whining and crying. There had been some trouble with Brave since the death: he would find his way into the corridor, and there howl and moan.

  “See, Charlotte!” said Mrs. Darling, in reassuring tones. “Poor dumb creature!”

  Deeming it well that her daughter should see, as the most effectual antidote to any such fears as those alluded to above, she gently took her arm to pull her forward. Charlotte drew back in sudden fear.

  “I can’t look!” she gasped. “You dare not force me! Is he walking about with the lighted church?”

  “Oh, Charlotte, do, do just glance in! You are not yourself, I see” — and poor Mrs. Darling looked as terrified as her, as she was looking at the door. “It is only poor Brave; he must have been shut in here.”

  She threw the door open, went in, and drove out the dog. Mrs. St. John stood against the wall as it passed her, carefully avoiding all sight of the chamber. Her mood changed to anger when she saw Brave.

  “I gave orders that he should not be allowed to enter the house — that he should be kept chained up in the stables — sent away — sold — anything. How dare they disobey me!”

  Mrs. Darling put her daughter’s arm within her own and led her to her own chamber. “I will see that the dog does not annoy you again, Charlotte. Lie on the sofa and keep yourself quiet: we shall be ready to go in half-an-hour.”

  Closing the door on Charlotte, she proceeded to Honour’s chamber at the end of the passage. The girl was in bed, lying in all the restlessness of delirium. Her head was turning from side to side, her face was flushed, her speech rambled. Mrs. Darling involuntarily asked herself whether the whinings of the dog through the night in the adjoining chamber, which must have penetrated to Honour’s ears, had contributed to this increase of the malady.

  No less than three maid-servants were posted round the bed, staring, listening, whispering. The sound of Mrs. Darling’s entrance seemed to attract the attention of the patient, who looked momentarily towards her; but the ominously-bright eyes evidently saw nothing: they turned to the opposite wall, gazing, as it were, beyond it. The words that escaped from her lips — not consecutively as they are about to be written, but by fits and snatches — startled Mrs. Darling as few things had ever startled her in all her life before. They were equivalent to accusing her mistress of the murder of her step-son.

  “He was the heir, you see, sir,” she said, addressing some imaginary personage; “he was keeping her own flesh and blood out of the inheritance. I saw all along that it was more than she could bear. Don’t you remember the scene that day when you came home from London, and we took the two children to meet you in the park? You took up Benja and carried him in, but the little one cried and we left him. Don’t you remember it, sir? — she struck Benja to the ground and bruised him. You said it was an accident, but I knew better. Oh, sir, why did you leave him under her charge? Wasn’t it as well to make your will one way as the other?”

  She was evidently in the past, and he whom she was addressing in imagination, was her dead master.

  “It was so easy to accomplish!” went on Honour, her head turning faster than ever, but her eyes fixed as before. “It was only the running up the stairs from the dining-room, where she was shut in, and setting fire to him, and bolting the doors on his screams, and running back again. Oh, why did you leave him to her? Didn’t you remember that he was keeping out Georgy? She says she never left the dining-room, but don’t you believe her. She did, and I can speak to it.”

  Mrs. Darling, who had been slowly gathering her presence of mind, and could not do it all at once, turned her ashy countenance on the gaping servants. Perhaps she hardly knew what to say, or how to treat the ravings.

  “It is a very bad case of brain fever,” she said, striving to speak with unconcern. “Her mind is quite gone, poor thing,” — as indeed it was. “I had a governess once who suffered under an attack of the
same. She persisted that I had killed my youngest daughter, Miss Rose Darling, and all the time the child was alive and well at her elbow. The two cases seem precisely similar. Go down, will you? I think the room ought to be kept quiet: and send one of the men instantly to hasten Mr. Pym.”

  They filed out of the room in obedience, and Mrs. Darling sat down to remain, thinking, poor woman, that her lines were hard just now. She sat there until the doctor entered.

  “Ah, ha,” said he, “so the brain’s touched in earnest. I thought it would be so.”

  “She is quite deranged, Mr. Pym; she has been saying the strangest things.”

  “What things?”

  Mrs. Darling turned the question off. “All sorts of nonsense,” she said, coughing. “Mr. Pym, I think I shall stop here and nurse her myself. She is too ill to be left to servants.”

  “And let Mrs. St. John go alone?”

  “I think I must. Prance will be with her, and she will have her child. Perhaps in a few hours Honour may be better.”

  Mr. Pym had drawn nearer to the bed. Honour was wandering again; was repeating again the same “nonsense,” as Mrs. Darling had called it. Alas! she must go on repeating it until some turn to the malady came. The excited brain had its task to perform, and could only go over it, over it, over it, until better moments should dawn. The surgeon listened and heard as much as Mrs. Darling had heard.

  “Yes,” said he, “it maybe as well that you should nurse her. Servants are such gossips.”

  “Three of them were in, listening, just now. Mr. Pym, how is it that these false notions take possession of an invalid’s brain?” asked Mrs. Darling.

  Mr. Pym paused before he replied. “How is it that dreams take possession of it?” he returned. “The girl has had an awful shock, and the brain is suffering. The imagination is apt to be erratic at these times, indulging in absurd and fantastic fancies.”