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:thatwas, 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 themselves 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.
Very good, the juryman answered She could go on with her evidence.
After preparing the proper quantity of herb, had taken it to the scullery and laid it on what was called the cook's shelf. Did not see any of the servants except the under-housemaid, who was lighting up the lower passages, but heard their voices in conversation. Could not tell whether the under-housemaid saw her; thought not. Went then into the dining-room, to ask if she should not take Master George, as it was getting the hour for the nursery tea. Did not take Master George. He was asleep in the large chair. Waited some time, hoping he would wake; but he did not. At last got tired of waiting, and left the dining-room, Master George still asleep, with his feet on his mamma's lap. Went straight upstairs then, and was about to get a light in her own room, when she heard alarming cries from Honour. Could only see the outline of her form as she flew along the corridor to the grand staircase. The upper part of the house had not been lighted up, only the lower, and a very faint reflection came upstairs. The cries were alarming, full of terror. Witness was frightened, and it was not a little thing that frightened her. Ran down after Honour, and saw Mrs. St. John come out of the dining-room, frightened also at the cries. For the next few minutes could not give a precise account of what happened. The chief thing she remembered was running back with others to the nursery. Poor little Master George also went. He stole up unnoticed in the confusion, and saw what was left of his brother burning, or, rather, smouldering. That was all she knew.
Mrs. St. John was not called as a witness. Having been shut up--as was understood--the whole of the time in the dining-room with little George, her evidence could not be of importance, and the jury had respect to her feelings and did not call her. It was announced to the jury that she freely acknowledged having gone from her dressing-room into the nursery in the morning, and that it was very possible she had omitted to fasten the door afterwards. That, however, was of no consequence: the door had been left open as Honour had proved: by whom did not matter.
All the evidence was taken, and a discussion ensued in regard to the point not cleared up, the fastening of this door. Half the jury, including Mr. Pym, inclined to the view that it had not been bolted at all, only shut; but that Honour's state of haste and agitation had prevented her getting the door open at the first moment, and caused her to fancy that it was fastened. The other half of the jury including the coroner, thought that when the unfortunate little child had pushed-to the door in obedience to Honour, the bolt had shot into the groove with the movement: and this appeared the more reasonable solution. In vain Honour protested that neither was correct: that the doorwasbolted, and that itcould nothave bolted itself when the child closed it; he shut it very gently, and she must have heard the movement had there been any. She might as well have talked to the wind: and to her excessive surprise Mr. Pym approached her with a stern whisper and a warning look.
"I wouldn't say any more about this, Honour."
Will it be believed that Mrs. Darling only heard of this calamity when the jury were sitting? Living some distance on the other side of Alnwick, news did not at all times penetrate quickly to her house. At any rate,thishad not done so: reversing for once the popular saying that ill news travels fast. Mrs. St. John had omitted to send to her--perhaps it was excusable in the dreadful confusion--and it was a positive fact that the inquest was being held before the tidings were carried to Mrs. Darling.
She might not have heard it even then, but that she happened to send a servant into the village to execute a commission, and the maid brought back the news. As is usual in such cases, she ran open-mouthed with it to her mistress. Mrs. Darling, who had been feeling very poorly ever since the previous day, and was saying to herself that if no better on the following one she should send for Mr. Pym, was lying on the sofa, when the door abruptly opened, and the servant burst in with the news, her very haste rendering her incoherent. Mrs. Darling started from the sofa in terror, only half comprehending.
"Whatdo you say has happened, Cole?"
"One of the little boys is killed," spoke up the servant eagerly. "Oh, ma'am, it's true! He was killed last night, and they are already holding the inquest on him. It was the heir, Master Benja."
Almost as one turned to stone, stood Mrs. Darling. If ever woman looked in awful fear, it was she. She could not speak at first: she only gazed at the maid-servant, her lips apart, her eyes wild.
"Killed! Master Benja!" she gasped.
"He was burnt to death," cried the woman, with sobs of emotion. "I don't know the rights of it, though the place is full of nothing else; some said one thing and some another. Any way, the fault was Honour's. She left him alone with a lighted candle, and he set himself on fire. There is a tale that somebody fastened the doors upon him to let him burn; but you know, ma'am, it can't be true. Not a bit of business is doing at Alnwick, and most of the shops have a shutter or two up. The inquest is on now, at the Carleton Arms."
With a prolonged shudder, Mrs. Darling seemed to come to herself. "How is it that I was not sent for?" she asked: and though the servant took the question to herself, and answered that she did not know, it was evident that it was not put to her.
All her indisposition forgotten, her bodily pain no longer felt in the greater mental pain, Mrs. Darling put on her cloak and bonnet and went out. The maid remonstrated that she was not fit to walk; wished her to at least wait until a fly could be sent for: she was as one who heard not. Striking into the field-path, by which means she avoided the gossiping village--and she was in no mood for it then, Mrs. Darling emerged from the fields almost close to Alnwick Hall, just below the Carleton Arms. Had there been any way to avoid passing the inn, Mrs. Darling had surely chosen it: but there was none. As she came within view of it, and saw the idlers congregated around it in small groups, a sick feeling of dread took possession of her, and she shuddered as she had done in her own drawing-room. Dread of what? Perhaps Mrs. Darling could not precisely have defined what: but she did think it would be a mercy had the earth opened and let her through to the opposite side of the globe, away from all trouble and care.
Not a word did she speak to any one, not a question ask. She drew her veil over her face, pulled her cloak more closely around her, and was hastening on, looking neither to the right nor to the left, when she nearly ran against Mr. Pym the surgeon, who had just strolled outside from the heat and bustle of the crowded inquest-room.
"Is it you, Mrs. Darling?"
"Whatisall this?" was the rejoinder of Mrs. Darling, throwing back her veil for a moment, and then seeming to recollect herself, and putting it down again. "Is Benja really dead?"
"Really dead!" echoed Mr. Pym. "He has been dead since yesterday evening. Had you not heard of it?"
"I never heard a word until half-an-hour ago. What was it? How was it done?"
"Honour left him alone in the nursery with some paper toy that had a candle in it. When she got back he was burnt to death."
Mr. Pym was speaking strangely, in a cold, hard sort of manner; and, instead of looking at Mrs. Darling, his eyes were directed straight over her head.
"Then it was an accident," said Mrs. Darling, after a pause.
"That will no doubt be the verdict of the jury."
The two stood in silence. Mr. Pym with his far-away gaze, Mrs. Darling stealing surreptitious glances at him through her veil. Presently she spoke, scarcely above a whisper.
"What tale is it that people have got hold of, about the child being locked in the room?"
"Ah," said Mr. Pym, "that's Honour's tale. She says that when she left the boy, to go downstairs, the nursery doors were unbolted; that when she returned, both were fastened.Hertheory is, implied if not avowed, that the doors had been deliberately closed upon the burning child."
Mrs. Darling turned her face away. She was as little given as any one to betraying signs of emotion, but the eyes, for all they were not looking at her, saw that the face was turning livid.
"It can't be true," she whispered.
"As I tell Honour. Are you going to the Hall? Most of its inmates are here, at the inquest."
"Charlotte is not here!" exclaimed Mrs. Darling, turning to him in what looked like alarm.
"No. The jury dispense with her evidence."
"Is--is--little Benja here?"
Mr. Pym shook his head. "The coroner and jury went up to look at the remains, and adjourned here. It is a dreadful thing;verydreadful."
At the emphasized word, a sound, that was as much like a groan as anything, escaped Mrs. Darling's lips. The surgeon turned towards the inn door, she continued her way. Striking into the avenue amongst the fine old park trees, she threw back her veil where no eye was on her, gasping as it seemed for air in the twilight of the coming night.
A servant answered her summons, and she walked straight through the hall to a small sitting-room, where the man said he believed his mistress was. She went in gently, not to disturb her: but Mrs. St. John was standing still in the midst of the room in an attitude of breathless expectation; of what looked like terrified expectation; and unless the darkness of the evening deceived her, Mrs. Darling had never seen her face so intensely pale, or with that haggard look upon it.
"Charlotte!"
"Is it you, mamma? I thought you were ill."
"I was ill; ill for me, who never ail anything. But this--this---- What's that?"
Mrs. Darling sprang aside. A heap of something covered over on the sofa had startled her. Surely her nerves were unstrung tonight!
"It's Georgy," answered Mrs. St. John. "He has been ill since yesterday. Hush! don't wake him."
She took off her cloak and untied her bonnet, and sat down by the fire near Gher daughter. Mrs. St. John did not speak.
"Charlotte, I have been dreadfully shocked. You should not have allowed me to hear of this by accident. How did it happen?"
"You must ask Honour that."
"Was no one with him? Could no one hear his cries?"
"It seems not."
"Will you not give me the details, Charlotte?"
"I only know them from hearsay."
"But you--were--in the house at the time?"
"I was in the dining-room."
Mrs. St. John was evidently not inclined to be communicative. She sat looking at the fire, and Mrs. Darling stole surreptitious glances at her face, as she had recently done at Mr. Pym's; not that the face was very discernible in the increasing gloom of the November evening.
"Do give me the particulars, Charlotte!"
"I can't, I tell you, mamma. I only know them myself from hearsay. I was shut up in the dining-room with Georgy, and knew nothing until startled by Honour's cries."
"You were shut up in the dining-room!"
"Just as you found me shut up in this room now. Georgy was asleep, and I had his feet on my lap. I wish you wouldn't ask me about it. It is not a pleasant thing to talk of. I am sorry now for having beaten him."
"You beat him?--Benja?"
"He was naughty after dinner. He had a new watch, and would not lend it to Georgy, and they got quarrelling. He beat Georgy, and I beathim. I am sorry for it now."
"But it was not then that he was burnt!" exclaimed Mrs. Darling, scarcely understanding.
"No. Honour took him away, and I stayed in the dining room with Georgy."
"Did the accident happen immediately?"
"Not for a long while. Two hours, perhaps, I don't know how long exactly. I had been to sleep. It was daylight when he went away, and it was dark when we heard the screams."
"And you, my poor child, had never moved from the dining-room!"
"Don't I say so, mamma!" came the answer, a shade of peevishness at being questioned in the otherwise impassive tone. "I had kept Georgy with me."
Mrs. Darling drew a long sigh: it seemed like a relief from some nightmare. "How came Honour to leave him with a lighted candle?" she exclaimed in anger.
"Mamma, Iwishyou would not ask me these things! I don't care to talk of them."
For some minutes there was silence, but Mrs. Darling was an impulsive woman, and it was almost impossible for her to think of any fresh point without breaking out with a question. She did so now; suddenly, abruptly.
"Is it true that the doors were fastened?"
"Who told you they were?" exclaimed Mrs. St. John.
"Mr. Pym. I saw him as I came up here."
"Mr. Pym told you the doors were fastened?" repeated Mrs. St. John, fixing her strange eyes upon her mother.
"Yes. At least---- What he said was, that Honour asserts they were fastened."
"Ay,that'strue. But no one believes her. Mr. Pym does not believe her; he told her she must be careful what she said. Prance thinks Honour was so flurried at the time, that her recollection is not clear."
Again there was a pause. Mrs. St. John sat as before, gazing at the fire, her haggard face--yes, it certainly was unnaturally haggard--bent on her hand. Mrs. Darling seemed buried in perplexity, and her fingers unconsciously smoothed down her bonnet-strings. Georgy stirred in his sleep, and they both looked at the sofa; but he did not awake, and both were silent for a moment.
"Is the inquest over, do you know?" asked Mrs. St. John.
"It was not when I came past. Charlotte, have you written to Castle Wafer?"
"I have not written to any one. Surely there's time enough!"
"My dear, I did not mean to anger you. I---- What's this? They must be coming back from the inquest!"
The noise of many steps outside had called forth the interruption. Mrs. St. John rose from her seat and stood in the middle of the room, facing the door; waiting defiantly, as it seemed, to confront any who might enter. It was just the same position, the same look that had surprised Mrs. Darling when she arrived. The butler came in.
"The verdict is 'Accidental Death,'" he said. "Appended to which was a severe censure on Honour Tritton for leaving the child alone with so dangerous a toy. And ma'am," he emphatically added to his mistress, "she deserves it: and she seems to think so."
The mistress of Alnwick sat down again. Mrs. Darling caught up her cloak and went out of the room, her curiosity on the rack for the sad details withheld by her daughter.
Honour did seem to think she deserved the censure, as the butler had observed. Fully, fully had her repentant heart echoed the condemnation of the jury. A never-dying remorse had taken up its abode within her. Mrs. Darling came upon her on the staircase. The girl's face looked flushed, her eyes glistening; and there was a wildness in their expression that spoke of incipient fever, had any been at leisure to note the signs, or been capable of understanding them.
"Oh Honour! what an awful thing this is!" breathed Mrs. Darling.
"It's more than awful," answered Honour. "I suppose I shall get over it sometime, if I live: I don't know. Perhaps God will be pleased to take me."
She spoke almost with the unnatural calmness of her mistress. That alone would have told of something mentally wrong, or becoming so.
"Honour--indeed I don't wish to reproach you, for I'm sure your pain must be too great to need it; but I must speak--howcould you leave the child alone with that lighted candle?"
"Will you see him?--what's left of him?" was the rejoinder. And without waiting for reply, Honour went into the nursery. Something was resting there on trestles with a sheet thrown over it. Whether it was a coffin, whether it was not, Mrs. Darling did not stay to inquire. She arrested Honour's hand.
"No," she said. "I don't know that I could bear the sight."
Honour dropped the corner of the sheet again. "Well," she said, "he is there; my darling treasure that was dearer to me than anything in life. They were beating him black and blue in the dining-room, and I brought him out, and I finished the paper toy to soothe and comfort his poor little sobbing heart, and I did leave him alone with it, the candle lighted inside it. If I ever forget my folly, or cease to mourn for it in repentance, I hope God will forget me. But, I am not the sole author of his death; Mrs. Darling, I amnot. Those who came and fastened the doors upon him, and so let him burn, are more guilty of it than me."
"Hush, Honour! You were mistaken. The doors could not have been so fastened."
Honour laid her hand upon the sheet again, touching what was beneath it.
"Mrs. Darling, don'tyoube deceived. Some do not believe what I say, and some are wishing to hush the matter up. I swear that it was as I assert: I swear it bythis, all that's left of him. They say Benja must have buttoned the one door himself; let it go so: I don't think he did, but let it go so: but he could not have bolted the other on the outside. They are hushing the matter up; and I must do the same: I am only one against many."
"Who is hushing it up?" asked Mrs. Darling, from between her white lips.
"Mr. Pym, for one. I say nothing about others, I am only one amongst them. From this time I shall drop the matter, and speak of it no more: but I should like you to remember what I say, and to believe me. It is the truth. Heaven knows it is. The doors were fastened upon him, and he was left there--in a living tomb--to burn to death. When the facts come to light, as they will sometime, if there's justice in the world, we shall learn the truth. At present I don't pretend to understand it."
Mrs. Darling felt frightened at the girl's words, at her resolute manner (her impassiveness had now changed to passion), at her hectic cheeks and wild eyes--all the symptoms of threatening fever or insanity. She quitted the room, retaining a last glimpse of Honour's throwing herself beside the trestles in a burst of anguish, and sought Prance. Scarcely able to speak from an agitation which she vainly endeavoured to suppress, Mrs. Darling commanded Prance to furnish her with the particulars, to the minutest detail.
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."
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 wouldhangHonour 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, andhadto 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.Hehad 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 was rife as to the real truth. Once establish the fact of the door's having beenpreviouslybolted, 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 whethershedid 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. Wasshegoing 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 daughtershouldsee, 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.
"Ican'tlook!" 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, asshewas 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 themurderof her stepson.
"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.Yousaid 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. Shedid, 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 may be 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."
"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 thatsheset 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 today. 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."