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(Princeton University)
ST. MARTIN'S EVE
A NOVEL
BY
MRS. HENRY WOOD
AUTHOR OF
"EAST LYNNE," "THE CHANNINGS," "JOHNNY LUDLOW," ETC.
_NINETIETH THOUSAND_
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1901
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. THE LITTLE HEIR.
II. FAITHFUL TO THE DEAD.
III. THE UNEXPLAINED REASON.
IV. A NEW MISTRESS AT ALNWICK.
V. ON ST. MARTIN'S EVE.
VI. THE ALNWICK SUPERSTITION.
VII. A SHADOW OF THE FUTURE.
VIII. WASTING AWAY.
IX. CHANGES AT ALNWICK.
X. MISS ROSE DARLING.
XI. GEORGINA BEAUCLERC'S LOVE.
XII. THE FAIR AT ALNWICK.
XIII. ONLY AS BROTHER AND SISTER.
XIV. ST. MARTIN'S EVE.
XV. CONFLICTING STATEMENTS.
XVI. INVESTIGATION.
XVII. HONOUR'S RAVINGS.
XVIII. ADELINE DE CASTELLA.
XIX. TAKING A PORTRAIT.
XX. LOVE'S FIRST DREAM.
XXI. A FADING CHILD.
XXII. ALL ABOUT A STUPID FRENCH MARIGOLD.
XXIII. JEALOUSY.
XXIV. FOILED!
XXV. A CRISIS IN A LIFE.
XXVI. THE SICK CHAMBER.
XXVII. THE LITTLE CHILD GONE.
XXVIII. MRS. BRAYFORD'S BELIEF.
XXIX. LOUISE'S WHISPERED WORDS.
XXX. THE RECEPTION OF THE DEAD.
XXXI. UNAVAILING REPENTANCE.
XXXII. SOME MONTHS ONWARDS.
XXXIII. A TELEGRAM.
XXXIV. WALKING OUT TO DINNER.
XXXV. ON THE TERRACE.
XXXVI. LOCKED IN.
XXXVII. A MEETING IN PARIS.
CHAPTER I.
THE LITTLE HEIR.
The dull sombre light of a November afternoon was rapidly giving place
to twilight. The day had been wet and cold; and the sodden leaves that
strewed the park of one of England's fair domains did not contribute
to the cheerfulness of the scene. The mansion belonging to it stood on
a gentle eminence, well open to view, and looking boldly down on its
lands: a long but not high house of red brick, with many windows; a
cheerful house, rising behind a wide and gently sloping lawn, which on
this ungenial day gave out as wretched an appearance as did all else
of outward nature.
But if the weather was rendering the demesne desolate, it seemed not
to affect the house itself. Lights were gleaming from many of its
numerous windows, were passing from room to room, from passage to
passage; and fires added their red glow to the general brightness. A
spectator might have said that some unusual excitement or gaiety was
going on there. Excitement in that house there indeed was, but of
gaiety none; for grim Death was about to pay it a visit: not to call
any waiting for him in weary old age, but to snatch away the young and
lovely.
Had you entered the hall, so bright with light, what would have struck
you most was the hushed, unusual silence. Nearly all the servants of
the establishment were gathered there; but so still were they, so
motionless in their repose, that it had something unnatural about it.
They stood in small groups, for the most part only half showing
themselves, and gazing towards a closed dining-room, sorrow and
consternation imprinted on their faces. Two physicians, almost as
hushed in manner just now as the servants themselves, were partaking
of refreshment within it. The butler himself waited on them; and as he
came out and crossed the hall with noiseless tread, he repeated an
ominous opinion he had heard hinted at. One of the women-servants, her
tears streaming, started up the broad, carpeted staircase with
impulsive but soft footfalls, and a younger girl, looking frightened
to death, followed her. They stole along the corridor to the right,
and halted at a door there. Why, or for what purpose, they could not
have told, since they might not presume to enter the chamber; for
their lady was lying there at the point of doom.
A handsome, spacious bed-chamber, opening into a dressing-room, but
the door was almost closed between them now. Over the dressing-room
fire was a tall, upright, middle-aged woman, more intelligent and
respectable-looking than are some of her class. She wore a clean print
gown, and a close white cap shaded a cheerful countenance. The fire
shone full on her brown eyes, and on the tears that glistened in them.
Strange sight! for the continuous scenes of sickness, sometimes of
death, in which these hired nurses' lives are passed, tend to render
them callous to outward emotion.
Pacing the carpet slowly and sadly, his eyes cast down in thought, was
a little man of ruddy complexion, sharp, thin features, and hair going
grey with years. It was Mr. Pym, the family medical attendant. His
hands were clasped behind him, as he walked, and his gaze, worn and
anxious, was never lifted from the ground.
"This will make the second case we have lost this year," suddenly
observed the woman, whose name was Dade, in whispered tones. "What can
make it so unlucky a year?"
The surgeon gave no answer. Perhaps he did not like the "we" in her
remark. But he knew that his duty was always performed to the very
utmost of his skill and power; that it had been so in the two cases to
which she alluded; and his conscience, so far, was at peace before
God.
"There are no further means that can be tried?" resumed the nurse,
using the words as an assertion, more than a question, and she glanced
towards the partially-open door connecting the two apartments.
"None," was the conclusive reply. "She is sinking rapidly."
A long pause. The nurse stood motionless, the surgeon pursued his slow
and noiseless tread. Suddenly he stopped and turned his head, speaking
in quick tones.
"Where's the baby, Mrs. Dade?"
"He's in the cradle, sir, by her side. She looked as if she wanted him
left there."
And then the doctor remembered, and paced on as before. He had spoken
in momentary forgetfulness.
The silence within the sick chamber was as great and more painful: the
moments of bustle and anxiety had passed away. The fire in the grate
had burnt down to embers; a pale light was emitted from the shaded
lamp; the air was redolent, almost to faintness, of perfume. Essences
had been sprinkled about in profusion, as if they would make pleasant
the way to death! The heavy blue velvet curtains were drawn back from
the bed; and, lying there, was a form young and fair, with a pale,
exhausted face. Everything in the chamber spoke of wealth, comfort,
luxury: but not all the wealth and luxury of the whole world combined,
had they been brought together, could have arrested the fast-fleeting
spirit already on its wing. On the far side of the bed stood a pretty
cradle, ornamented with blue silk and lace: the little child so
quietly and unconsciously sleeping in it, had seen the light but
yesterday.
Leaning over the bed was a young man bowed down with grief, of
attractive features and gentlemanly bearing. Not long had they been
man and wife; but a year at most; and now it was hard to part; doubly
hard with this new tie which had been born to them. Yet they both knew
it must be so, and he had thrown his arm lightly across her, and laid
his cheek, wet with tears, against hers, vainly wishing, perhaps half
hoping, that his heart's bitter prayers might avail to renew her life.
The silence between them had been long and agonizing: each heart was
aching with painful thoughts; yet it seemed in that last hour as if
they could not give them utterance. May Heaven shed its balm on all
such partings!
He raised his face and pushed his hair from his brow as he looked at
her, for she had moved restlessly, as if in sudden pain. It was not
pain of body: of that she was free in this, the passing: but pain of
mind. An anxious care, one of the many she must leave on earth, was
pressing upon that lady's brain.
"When the months and the years go by," she murmured, breaking the
silence, and clasping her hands in feeble supplication to him, "and
you think of another wife, oh choose, one that will be a _mother_ to
my child. Be not allured by beauty, be not tempted by wealth, be not
ensnared by specious deceit; but take one who will be to him the
loving mother that I would have been. Some one whom you know well and
can trust. Not a stranger, not a----"
"I shall never marry again," he interrupted in impassioned tones, when
his first surprise allowed him to speak. "You, my first and only love,
shall be the sole wife ever taken to my bosom. Never shall another
woman usurp your place. And here I swear----"
"Hush! hush!" she panted, laying her hand upon his lips to stay the
incautious words. "It were cruel of me to exact such a promise from
you: and it would be useless for you to make it, for you would never
keep it, save with self-upbraiding. The remembrance of this scene will
pass away; the remembrance of me will pass; and then you will ask
yourself why should your life be condemned to solitude. No, no. To
remain faithful to the dead is not in man's nature."
He thought in his own heart, honestly thought it then, that her
opinion was a mistaken one, and he marvelled that she should so speak.
He felt as sure as he could feel of anything in this world, that he
should prove a living refutation of it. Dying though she was,
partially oblivious already to earth and earth's interests, she yet
saw clearer into human nature than he.
"Yet oh, forget me not wholly!" she whispered. "Let there be brief
moments when the remembrance of me shall return to you; when you will
dwell upon me as having been the one you once best loved on earth!"
Another deep silence from words, for he could not answer: his sobs
were choking him; the pulses of his anguished heart were beating
wildly. _She_ spoke not from exhaustion; and several minutes passed
on.
"What will you have, him named?" he asked abruptly, pointing towards
the cradle.
"Call him Benjamin," she replied, after a minute's thought, and she
spoke now with difficulty. "He cost Rachel her life, as this child has
cost mine. And oh, may he be to you the solace that Benjamin was to
old Jacob; and may you love and cherish this child as he did his!"
Her voice gradually failed her, a spasm smote her features, and she
lay more heavily on the pillow. Her husband raised her: he clasped her
fluttering heart to his; he wildly kissed her pallid face. But that
face was losing its look of consciousness, and no tenderness could
arrest the departing spirit. In a paroxysm of alarm: as if, now that
the moment had come, it took him by surprise, a thing that had not
been looked for: he cried out to the medical man in the adjoining
chamber.
Mr. Pym came in, followed by the nurse. He gave one glance at the bed,
and then whispered the woman to summon the physicians. He knew their
presence would be utterly useless, but at such times man deems it well
to fulfil these outward forms.
They hastened up the stairs. They remained but a few minutes in the
room, and then left it; soon left the house. The better part of that
lovely lady had quitted it before they did.
And it was only the previous day that the joy-bells had rung out in
the adjacent village on account of the birth! Only this same morning
that the local newspaper, wet from the press, had given forth the
festal news to the world!
"On the 10th inst., at Alnwick Hall, the wife of George Carleton St.
John, Esquire, of a son and heir."
And the journal went its way, as journals do go their way, into many a
neighbouring home, whose inmates made their comments on the one piece
of news that was of more interest to them than all the rest, and
congratulated each other on the birth of Alnwick's heir, little
conscious of the tragedy that was supervening upon it.
Amongst the houses to which the journal penetrated was one on the
other side the village of Alnwick. A small, unpretending dwelling,
this house, standing a little away from the highroad, but a pretty
place withal, hidden amidst its surrounding shrubs and trees. It was
called "The Cottage." Its mistress had named it so with a sort of
affectation of humility, for it was superior to a cottage, even to an
elegant one.
Lying back in a lounging chair, in one of the pretty sitting-rooms,
where she had just thrown herself, not from illness but from fatigue,
was the owner of the house, when the newspaper was taken in. A woman
of nearly fifty years, but looking a great deal younger, with her
still bright blue eyes and her auburn hair. She was a widow; a widow
for the second time. Barely twenty years of age when her first
husband, Mr. Norris, died, she had soon espoused another, Colonel
Darling. In ten years after that she was a widow again, and had
remained so. She chose to retain the name of Norris, without any right
to it, and her cards were printed "Mrs. Norris Darling," so that
people, especially strangers, hardly knew by which to address her, and
sometimes called her Norris and sometimes Darling. The fact is, Mrs.
Darling was a little given to pretension, as ladies will be, when
conscious of a want of dignity in themselves or their surroundings.
She had been packing things all the morning; she, her maid, and two of
her daughters; for they were summoned from home unexpectedly; and she
was falling into a doze when the footman entered.
"What is it?" she asked in peevish accents; and the man looked up in
surprise at hearing it from his usually easy-tempered mistress.
"It is only the newspaper, ma'am."
"Put it down, Tomkins," she answered, too idle to take it. "I think I
was asleep. I am very tired."
The man laid it on the table and quitted the room, meeting a
staid-looking, rather old-fashioned young lady who was entering it,
for whom he made way. It was Miss Darling, and she looked thirty years
of age if she looked a day. But she was only five-and-twenty.
"Well, Mary Anne, is it all done?"
"It is all done, mamma. Prance is waiting for Tomkins to cord the
boxes."
Mrs. Darling closed her eyes again, and her daughter took up the
unopened newspaper, when another young lady, very much resembling the
first, and looking quite as old, came in. She gave a slight shiver as
she passed the window, and began to stir the fire.
"What a miserable day it is! I wish we could put off our journey."
"Where's the use of wishing that, Margaret?" said Miss Darling. "But
it _is_ miserable. Has Charlotte found the cover of her desk?"
"I don't know. I don't suppose Charlotte has looked for it. I heard
her tell Prance that none of her things must be forgotten."
"True. When did Charlotte ever trouble herself to look for anything?"
was Mary Anne Darling's response; but she spoke it more in soliloquy
than as a reply.
Margaret Darling--she was one year younger than her sister--drew her
chair in front of the fire, and put her feet upon the fender.
"Is that the newspaper? Is there any news, Mary Anne?"
"Yes, there's news," was the quiet answer: but Miss Darling's manner
was always quiet. "A baby is born at the Hall."
"What?" exclaimed Mrs. Darling, starting up as she caught the words,
and all her lethargy was gone. "Is the baby born, Mary Anne?"
For answer, Miss Darling read out the words: "On the 10th inst., at
Alnwick Hall, the wife of George Carleton St. John, Esquire, of a son
and heir."
"I am glad it's a boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Darling. "How proud they will
be of it! On the 10th--that was yesterday. Then rely upon it those
bells Charlotte said she heard ringing, were for this. And now, how
can I manage it? I must contrive to see Mrs. St. John before we go
away."
"But why, mamma?"
"Why?" repeated Mrs. Darling, turning rather sharply on her daughter
Mary Anne, who had asked the question. "Because I should like to do
so; because it's neighbourly to go to her, poor young mother; because
it may be months before we are back here, and I have the opportunity
of seeing her again; and because I'm curious to hear all the
interesting particulars. That's why, Mary Anne: and I shall go."
Mrs. Darling allowed no interference with her will--at least from
_these_ daughters, and Mary Anne was dutifully silent. "I was only
thinking, mamma, what an unpleasant day it would be for you to walk
over," she presently said. "And I don't see how you will have time for
it."
"Plenty of time; and for the unpleasantness I don't care; you never
yet knew me to stop indoors for weather. Pretty Mrs. St. John! Let me
read the announcement for myself."
She took the paper in her hand, and was gazing at the words with a
pleased smile, when the door again opened, and some one else
entered the room. A tall, elegant girl of apparently only three or
four-and-twenty, an imperious, regal, haughty girl, whose raven-black
hair was braided over pale, regular features, and whose rich
silk attire glistened and rustled as she walked. Who would have
believed that she was older by some three or four years than the
Miss Darlings?--who would have believed that they were even
half-sisters?--she, with her stately beauty, her costly attire, and
they with their homely faces, old-fashioned look, and plain green
merino gowns. Mrs. Darling had two daughters who absorbed all the
money that she could spare for dress; the eldest, Charlotte Norris,
and the youngest, whom you will meet by and by; no wonder that these two
middle ones, Mary Anne and Margaret, with their meek spirits and quiet
tastes, were obliged to dress in plain merinos.
"Charlotte, here's news in the paper," Mary Anne was beginning, but
Mrs. Darling drowned the words: and Mary Anne saw with some momentary
surprise, that her mother had crushed the paper in her hand, as if not
caring that it should be seen.
"Charlotte, my darling, _would_ you mind telling Prance that I shall
want my black silk cloak taken out of the hair-trunk again? Go to her
now, dear, before she has it corded."
Miss Norris, who had still the door-handle in her hand, quitted the
room again. Mrs. Darling turned to her daughters.
"Say nothing to Charlotte of this announcement. I will tell her of it
myself. It is my pleasure to do so."
"I beg your pardon, mamma," said Mary Anne. "Of course you know best."
Mrs. Darling did know best. At any rate, the two daughters before her
were taught to think so. Mary Anne and Margaret Darling had been
reared to implicit obedience in one respect--never to question the
line of conduct pursued by Mrs. Darling to their half-sister; never to
comment on it in the slightest degree. Mrs. Darling folded the
newspaper as small as she could, crammed it into her pocket, and
followed Charlotte upstairs.
Later in the day she set out to walk to Alnwick Hall. It was growing
dark, and she had not intended to be so late as this, but one thing or
another had detained her. The Hall was nearly three miles distant from
her own home, through the village of Alnwick; but the road was by no
means lonely in any part of it. She walked quickly, not stopping to
speak to any one she met, and had left the village behind her some
time, and was nearing the Hall, when the death-bell of Alnwick church
rang out suddenly, but not very distinctly, on the heavy air. It was
quite dark then.
"Poor old Mother Tipperton must be gone!" Mrs. Darling exclaimed to
herself, standing for a moment to listen. "Pym told me she could not
last long. Well, it was time: I suppose she was eighty."
Not another thought, except of old Mother Tipperton, entered her mind;
not the faintest suspicion that the bell was tolling for one younger
and fairer. She went on, over the broad winding way through the
beautiful park, and gained the door of Alnwick Hall.
It might have struck her--but it did not--that besides the man who
opened the door to her, other servants came peeping into the hall, as
if in curiosity as to the visitor. She stepped over the threshold out
of the gloomy night.
"How is your mistress, Haines? Going on all right?" she asked, rubbing
her shoes on the mat.
"Oh, ma'am, she's dead!"
Mrs. Darling certainly heard the words, but they appeared not to
penetrate her senses. She stared at the speaker.
"She is just dead, ma'am; not an hour ago. Two physicians were had to
her, besides Mr. Pym, but nothing could be done."
Down sat Mrs. Darling on the hall bench. Perhaps only once before, in
her whole life, had she been so seized with consternation.
"_Dead!_ Good Heavens! I came to sit half-an-hour with her before
leaving Alnwick, for I may not be back for months. What an awful
thing! Poor Caroline Carleton!"
Drawing her cloak around her, Mrs. Darling crossed the hall towards
the housekeeper's room, unconsciously calling the deceased by her
maiden name, the one she had longest known her by. "I should like to
see the nurse," she said, "if she can spare a moment to come to me."
The housekeeper, a stout, very respectable woman, who had come to the
hall a year ago with its now dead mistress, was at the table writing a
note as well as she could for her tears, when Mrs. Darling entered.
Laying down her pen, she told all she knew of the calamity, in reply
to the low and eager questions. But Mrs. Darling grew impatient.
"A fine beautiful baby, you say--never mind the baby, Mrs. Tritton.
What can have caused the death?"
The stout old lady shook her head. "She died from exhaustion, they
say, ma'am. But she had a fall a few days ago, and I believe that had
something to do with it. I can't bear to _think_ of it just yet. Alive
and well and merry but a day or two since; and now dead! It seems like
a dream."
Her sobs deepened. The ready tears filled Mrs. Darling's eyes. She
wiped them away, and inquired what would be done about bringing up the
child. Mrs. Darling was a practical woman, and had never allowed
feeling to interfere with business.
"That's the first great care," was the reply of the housekeeper. "Mr.
Pym does not know of any one just now that could come in. I suppose it
will have to be brought up by hand: and the master, I believe, wishes
that it should be. As Mr. Pym says, the boy's so big and strong, that
he'd bring himself up almost, if you put him outside the street-door.
And it's true."
"Does Mr. St. John take it much to heart?"
"Ay, that he does," was the emphatic reply. "He is shut up in his own
room where he keeps his business papers and things. But, ma'am"--and
the tone was suddenly subdued--"a body going by, and pausing a moment,
may hear his sobs. If any young husband ever loved a wife, Mr.
Carleton St. John loved his. Poor child! she's gone early to join her
parents!"
Mrs. Darling, who had her full share of curiosity--and what woman has
not, in a case like this?--stole upstairs to see the baby; to see the
baby's poor young mother; to talk for a minute or two with the nurse,
Mrs. Dade, who could not come to her. And then she stole down again;
for time was getting on. The housekeeper asked her to take some
refreshment, but she declined, explaining that a summons to her sick
mother, who was very old, was taking her and her daughters away from
home. They were starting that evening by the seven-o'clock night
train.
"And they are at the station already, I am sure," she said; "and I
must run all the way to it. Sad news this is, to cheer me on my
journey!"
Sad indeed. And the public thought so as well as Mrs. Darling. The
same week the newspapers put forth another announcement.
"On the 11th inst., at Alnwick Hall, in her twenty-third year,
Caroline, the beloved wife of George Carleton St. John."