by Ellen Wood
A suspicion crossed the dean’s mind, and he spoke in accordance with it. “Did Mr. Pym come from Alnwick on purpose to see him?”
“No,” said the little surgeon, taking the glass of wine the dean passed to him, but declining other refreshment. “I have been summoned to the neighbourhood of Lexington to see a patient; and as I was on the spot, I thought I would call upon you, Dr. Beauclerc. My chief motive in doing so,” he added, after a brief pause, “was to inquire whether you had any particular reason for asking me those questions.”
The dean looked at Frederick St. John, as much as to say, Shall we, or shall we not confide in this medical man?
“I do not inquire from motives of idle curiosity, Dr. Beauclerc,” resumed the surgeon, marking the dean’s hesitation. “Believe me, I have an urgent reason for wishing to know.”
“Better tell him everything,” cried Frederick, who had read the dean’s look, and was vehement in his earnestness. “I am sure Mr. Pym may be trusted; and perhaps he can help us with his advice.”
“Very well,” said the dean. “But you know, Frederick, the suspicion is more yours than mine.”
“Yes, yes; I take it all upon myself,” was the young man’s impatient answer, so fearful was he of losing this new ally.
“Mr. Pym, you have known Mrs. Carleton St. John all her life, have you not? She was Charlotte Norris.”
“Yes, it may be said that I have known her all her life. I brought her into the world.”
“Well, a disagreeable suspicion has recently come upon us in regard to her — upon me, that is. An awful suspicion; one that I do not like to mention.”
“What is it?” cried the surgeon.
“I fear that she is showing symptoms of insanity.”
Frederick St. John looked at Mr. Pym as he spoke, expecting a start of surprise. Far from evincing any, that gentleman quietly raised his wine to his lips, sipped it, and put the glass down again.
“Ah,” said he. “Well?”
Then Mr. St. John poured forth his tale. He who was usually almost coldly impassive, who had every tone of his voice, every pulse of his veins under control, seemed this evening to have become all impulse and excitement. But in telling his story, he grew gradually calm and cool.
Mr. Pym listened in silence. At the conclusion of the story he waited a minute or two, apparently expecting to hear more, but the narrator had ceased. He spoke then.
“You are sure about that telegram — that it was Prance who sent it?”
“Quite sure. There can be no mistake about that.”
“A cautious woman,” observed the surgeon. “She mentioned no name. You see it might have applied to any one as much as to Mrs. Carleton.”
“The very remark I made,” interposed the dean, and it was the first word he had spoken. “I tell Mr. St. John that the symptoms and facts he thinks so much of are very slight.”
“Too slight to pronounce any one insane upon,” said the doctor. “Will you be so good as tell me, Mr. St. John, what first gave rise to suspicion in your mind? It is a rare thing, however eccentric our friends’ actions may be, for us to take up the notion that they are insane.”
“What first gave rise to the suspicion in my mind?” repeated Frederick. “Why, I don’t suppose I ever should have thought of it but for — but I forgot to tell you that,” he broke off, suddenly remembering that he had omitted to mention what Rose Darling had told him at Belport.
He related it now. The assertions of the nurse Brayford that Mrs. Carleton was mad; her terror at the sight of the lighted lanterns in the Flemish town on St. Martin’s Eve. Still Mr. Pym said nothing: he only took out a note-book and entered something in it.
“Can you not help us, Mr. Pym? Do you not think she must be insane?”
“I cannot say that. But I may tell you that I have always feared it for her.”
“Her father died mad, you wrote word to the dean.”
“He died raving mad. You have confided in me, and I see no reason why I should not tell you all I know — premising, of course, that it must not be repeated. His madness, as I gathered at the time, was hereditary; but he had been (unlike his daughter) perfectly well all his life, betraying no symptoms of it. I was sent for in haste one night to Norris Court. I was only a young man then — thirty, perhaps; I’m turned sixty now. My predecessor and late partner, Mr. Jevons, had been the usual attendant there, but he had retired from business, and was very infirm. I thought I was wanted for Mrs. Norris, whom I was to attend in her approaching confinement; but when I reached the Court, I found what it was. Mr. Norris had suddenly become mad; utterly, unmistakably mad; and Mrs. Norris, poor thing, was nearly as much so with terror. He had always been of a remarkably jealous disposition; some slight incident had caused him to become that day jealous of his wife, without, I am certain, the least foundation, and after an awful scene, he attempted her life with his razor. In her endeavour to escape from him, she dashed her hand through a mirror, whether accidentally or purposely she could not afterwards remember. Never shall I forget her dismay and terror when I reached the Court. Her husband was tolerably quiet then; exhausted, no doubt, from violence; and his own man, James, was keeping guard over him. That night we had to put him into a strait-waistcoat. — Mrs. Norris, poor young lady — and she was not twenty then — cried most bitterly as she told me the tale of her husband’s jealousy. She could not imagine what had given rise to it. She had only received some gentleman, a friend of theirs who had often called, and had sat and talked with him in the drawing-room, as she would with any other visitor; but the jealousy, as I explained to her, preceded the attack of madness. In three or four days the child Charlotte was born. I took the baby in to Mr. Norris, thinking it might possibly have a soothing effect upon him. It had just the contrary — though it is unnecessary to recall minor particulars now. He had seemed better that day, quite collected, and his servant had removed the strait-waistcoat. An accession of violence came on at sight of the child; he sprang out of bed and attempted to seize it; I put the baby down under the bed, while I helped James to overpower his master; but it was the hardest struggle I had ever been engaged in. Mr. Norris never was calm afterwards, and died in a few days, raving mad.”
“But,” interrupted the dean, “how was it possible to keep this state of things from transpiring in the house? The domestics understood, I believe, that their master died of fever.” —
“True, Dr. Beauclerc. Fortunately the room to which Mr. Norris was taken was shut in by other surrounding apartments, and no sound penetrated beyond it. The servants were kept away by a hint of infection; a confidential man from an asylum was had in to assist James and take turn in watching — the servants supposing him to be merely a sick-nurse. Poor Mrs. Norris entreated for her child’s sake that the nature of its father’s malady might be suppressed, if possible; and the secret was kept. Whether it was well in the long-run that it should be so kept, I have often asked myself.”
Mr. Pym paused in thought. Frederick St. John interrupted it.
“You say this madness was hereditary?”
“Mr. Jevons managed to get to the Court when he found what had happened. It appeared that some near relatives of Mr. Norris — two, I think — had died abroad, insane. Mr. Norris was aware of this, and had been fond of talking of it to Mr. Jevons: the latter thought he had feared the malady for himself. He had used to say that he should never marry; and that resolution Mr. Jevons emphatically endorsed. However, he did marry, and, of course, Mr. Jevons had no power to prevent it. These particulars I learned of Mr. Jevons as I was driving him to the Court. Mrs. Norris begged to be made acquainted with all details; and after her husband’s death Mr. Jevons disclosed them to her, suppressing nothing. What a changed woman she was from that time! and I believe would then have been thankful had her baby died. ‘It must be my care to prevent its marrying, should it live to grow up,’ she said to Mr. Jevons in my presence; and ten times over during that one interview she begged him to tell her whether he t
hought the child would inherit the fatal disease.”
“But the child did marry,” interrupted the dean. “Married Mr. Carleton St. John.”
“Yes. I believe Mrs. Darling did try to prevent it, but it was of no use. Whilst she concealed the reason, arguments could not fail to prove powerless. It might have been better — I don’t know — had she allowed her daughter to become acquainted with the truth. My opinion is, that Charlotte has more than once, even before her marriage, been on the verge of insanity. In her attacks of temper the violence displayed was very great for a person perfectly sane.”
“Did Mrs. Darling ever attempt to excuse this violence to you?”
“Mrs. Darling has never spoken to me on the subject at all since her first husband’s death,” replied Mr. Pym. “She has ignored it. But for an expression at times in her face, I might suppose she fancied that all recollection of the tragedy had faded from my mind. When I heard that George St. John was about to marry Miss Norris, I called on Mrs. Darling, and in the course of conversation I said, incidentally, as it were, ‘Will this marriage be for your daughter’s benefit, think you?’ and she seemed offended, and said, Of course it would — what did I mean?”
“Could you not” — Frederick St. John hesitated as he spoke—” have whispered a word of warning to Mr. George St. John?”
“I suppose not. The thought crossed me, but I could not see that I was justified in carrying it out. Had Mrs. Darling met me in a different manner, I might have ventured. I don’t think it would have done any good, though. George St. John was in love with Miss Norris, or fancied himself so; and would most likely have married her in spite of caution.”
“In her life, subsequently to her marriage, were there at any time indications of insanity?”
“I feel tempted to say there were, though I could not bear witness to it in a court of law,” was the reply of Mr. Pym. “One thing is indisputable — that she inherited her father’s jealousy of disposition. I don’t know what it might have been in him; but in her it was in excess so great as to be in itself a species of madness. She was not, that I ever heard, jealous of her husband; it displayed itself in her jealous love for her child. Until he was born, I don’t think she had one of those paroxysms of violence that those about her called ‘temper.’ George St. John could not understand them. These fits of passion, coupled with the fierce jealousy that was beyond all reason, all parallel in my experience, were very like madness.”
- There was a pause. Frederick St. John broke it with a question.
— “Did you suspect — I mean, was there any cause to suspect — that she had a hand in the little boy’s death — Benja’s?”
“I did suspect it. That is, I doubted whether it might not be so,” said Mr. Pym, in low tones. “There was an ugly point in the matter that I have never liked — that of the doors being fastened. But I am bound to say there was no proof against her. Still I could not get rid of my doubts, and I think her mother entertained them also.”
“Mrs. Darling!”
“I think so. We both caught each other in the act of trying whether the bolt would slip when the door closed, in the manner asserted. You see, when a suspicion of insanity attaches to a man or woman, we are prone to imagine things that we should never think of doing under ordinary circumstances.”
“Very true,” emphatically assented the dean.
“The most bitter person upon the tragedy was Honour; it was only natural she should be so; but even she did not suspect Mrs. Carleton. She spoke against her in her ravings, but ravings go for nothing. If Honour suspected any one, it was Prance rather than Mrs. Carleton.”
“Prance!” echoed Mr. St. John.
“She told some tale, at the time, of having seen Prance hiding in a niche of the corridor, opposite the nursery door. I did not think much of it, from the state of confusion in which Honour must then have been; and Prance denied it in toto: said she had never been there.”
“Then you cannot give me any help?” said Frederick St. John, in tones of disappointment. “You are unable to bear out my suspicions of her present madness?”
“How can I bear them out?” asked Mr. Pym. “I have not seen her.”
Frederick drummed for a minute on the table. “Don’t you think it strange that Prance should telegraph for Mrs. Darling in the manner she did, and that Mrs. Darling should hasten to respond to it — on the wings of the wind, as one may say — and stay on at Castle Wafer?”
“I do,” was the surgeon’s reply: “assuming that the message related to Mrs. Carleton, of which I suppose there can be no doubt. Mrs. Carleton is not ill in body; therefore it must have had reference to her mind.”
“I wish you could see her!” impulsively spoke Frederick, “and watch her as I have done.”
“I intend to see her,” said Mr. Pym. “I thought of calling at once on Mrs. Darling; now, as I leave you.”
“Do so,” cried Frederick, “Contrive to remain a few days at Castle Wafer, You can say that you are my guest. Stay; I’ll give you the invitation in a careless sort of way before them all to-night, and you can accept it.”
“We will see about that,” said the surgeon, rising. “I had better be going, if Dr. Beauclerc will excuse me, or it may look late to call. Perhaps you will direct me the nearest way to Castle Wafer.”
“I will go with you,” said Mr. St. John. “The nearest way is through the shrubberies. We shall be there in five minutes.”
They went out together, the dean saying he would follow with the ladies, as they were all to spend the evening at Castle Wafer. But when the dean reached the drawing-room he found they had already gone, and he did not hurry himself.
It was a lovely moonlight night, clear and bright, and Mr. St. John and the surgeon commenced their walk, talking eagerly. Mr. St. John told him, what he had not liked to mention before the dean — Mrs. Carleton’s jealousy of Miss. Beauclerc; the occasional wildness of her eyes when she looked at her, and the little adventure in Georgina’s chamber at midnight. “It is an awful responsibility that rests upon us,” he remarked. “I feel it so, Mr. Pym, now that I have heard your story tonight. If her father went mad from jealousy, and attempted the life of his wife, Mrs. Carleton may be attempting some violence to Miss Beauclerc.”
“Miss Beauclerc is young and good-looking, I suppose.”
“Both; and her manners are perfectly charming. She is just the girl that would be obnoxious to a rival.”
“It is all fancy, I presume, on Mrs. Carleton’s part. There is nothing between Miss Beauclerc and Sir Isaac?”
Frederick St. John broke into a laugh. “Sir Isaac loves her as he would a child of his own; and she venerates him as a father. There is no other sort of love between them, Mr. Pym.”
Mr. Pym took a side glance at the speaker. Something in the tone had struck him that some one else might be a lover of Miss Beauclerc’s, if Sir Isaac was not.
“Even allowing that Mrs. Carleton has been sane hitherto, and my suspicion a myth, it would never do for her to marry Sir Isaac,” resumed Frederick. “You would say so if you knew my brother and his extreme sensitiveness. The very thought of his wife being liable to insanity would be to him perfectly horrible.”
“It would be to most people,” said the doctor.
“I think he must be told now. I have abstained from speaking out hitherto, from a fear that my motives might be misconstrued. My brother, a confirmed old bachelor, has brought me up to consider myself his heir; and it would look as though I were swayed by self-interest.”
“I understand,” said the surgeon. “But he must be saved from Mrs. Carleton.”
“I cannot bring myself to think that he is in real danger; I believe still that he has no thought of marrying, and never will have. But Mrs. Carleton is undeniably attractive, and stranger things have been known.”
“The better plan would be to lay the whole case before Sir Isaac. It need not be yourself. I should suggest Dr. Beauclerc. And then — —”
The su
rgeon ceased, arrested by the warning hand of Frederick. They had turned into the dark labyrinth of a place where the artificial rocks rose on the confines of the Rectory grounds. Georgina Beauclerc was walking very deliberately towards them. Not at her did Frederick lift his hand; but at a swift, dark figure, who was following her silently as a shadow, stealthily as an omen of evil. Frederick St. John sprang forward and clasped Georgina in his arms.
The dark figure turned suddenly and vanished; but not before its glaring eyes and its white teeth had been seen by the unwelcome intruder. He recognized Mrs. Carleton, her black lace shawl thrown over her head.
“Well, I’m sure!” exclaimed Georgina.
It all passed in an instant. Georgina had heard nothing, seen nothing; and she felt inclined to resent Mr. St. John’s extraordinary movement, when the first surprise was over. He held her for a moment against his beating heart; beating more perceptibly than usual just then.
“What did you do that for? Were you going to smother me?”
“I did it to shield you from harm, my darling,” he whispered, unconscious, perhaps, that he used the endearing term. Rarely had Frederick St. John been less himself than he was at that moment. Miss Beauclerc looked at him in surprise; in the midst of her bounding pulses, her glowing blushes, she saw that something had disturbed his equanimity.
“What are you doing out here alone?”
“You need not be cross” — and indeed his sharp quick question had sounded so. “As if I could not take a stroll by moonlight if I like! Perhaps you are afraid of the moon, as mamma is.”
“But what were you doing? Had you come from Castle Wafer? You must not go out at night alone, Georgina.”
“Oh indeed; who says so?” she returned, with wilful impertinence; but it was all put on to hide the ecstatic rapture his one word had brought to her. “If you must know, mamma and Miss Denison kept up such a chorus of abuse of me as we went to Castle Wafer, that I would not go on with them. I came slowly back to meet you and papa.”