On St. Martin's Eve.
"At Alnwick Hall, on St. Martin's Eve, the wife of George Carleton St.
John, Esquire, of a son."
This was the next announcement in the local papers; some ten months,
or a trifle more, having elapsed since the last one. And I hope you
will have patience with these notices, and not find fault with their
frequency: they are not yet over.
"On St. Martin's Eve!" Was Mr. Carleton St. John a Roman Catholic,
that he should chronicle the birth of his children by the saints'
days? No. And it was not by Mr. St. John's wish that it had been so
worded, but by Mrs. Darling's.
It was no doubt a somewhat singular coincidence that this second child
should have been born on the same day as Benja, the 10th of November.
Mrs. Darling, who was temporarily sojourning at Alnwick Hall, and was
naturally a little inclined to be superstitious, regarded it as a most
ominous event. What, she thought, if the advent of this child should
be succeeded by the dreadful tragedy that had so fatally characterized
the last? And it would perhaps hardly be believed, but that some of
you may have had opportunities of witnessing these foolish fancies,
that she dreaded the announcement being made in the newspapers in the
same words as the last.
"I cannot bear it," she said to Mr. St. John, "I could not look at it
without a shudder. Put anything else you like, but don't put 'On the
10th of November!'"
Mr. St. John laughed outright; he could not help it. "Charlotte is as
well as she can be," he rejoined.
"I know; but a change might take place at any moment. Pray do not
laugh at me, Mr. St. John. Call it folly; superstition; what you will;
only don't word this announcement as you worded the last."
"But how am I to word it?" he asked. "If the child was born on the
tenth, I can't put it the ninth or the eleventh. I won't send any
notice at all, if you like; I don't care about it."
"Not send any notice of Charlotte's child!" she echoed in displeasure.
"That would be a slight indeed."
"As you please. But you see the little fellow has chosen to come on
the tenth, and we can't send him back again to await a more convenient
day."
"Put 'On St. Martin's Eve,'" said Mrs. Darling, after a pause of
somewhat blank consideration.
"St. Martin's Eve!"
"Yes; why not? It _is_ St. Martin's Eve, you know."
"Indeed I don't know," returned Mr. St. John, very much amused. "I'm
not sure that I knew we had a St. Martin at all in the calendar."
"That comes of your having lived so little out of England. The English
pay no attention to the saints' days. I have been abroad a good deal
with my children, and know them all. St. Martin's is a great day in
some parts of France. Please let it be so worded, Mr. St. John."
He took a pen and wrote it as she desired, laughing much. "I should
like to see Dr. Graves's eyes when he reads this," quoth he, as he put
it into the envelope.
"A rubbishing old Low Churchman!" slightingly spoke Mrs. Darling.
"He's nobody."
So the notice was sent off; and in due time returned to the house in
the newspapers. Mrs. Darling carried one upstairs proudly to her
daughter. "See, Charlotte! How well it looks!"
Mrs. St. John took the paper in her delicate hand and read it in
silence; read it twice. "How came George to put it in like that--'St.
Martin's Eve?'"
"Because I requested it. You are quite well now, darling, as may be
said: but I would not have the announcement made to the world in the
same words as the last."
"It never could have been so made, mamma."
"Yes it could. Were not the two children born on the same day of the
year?"
"Oh, that," coldly returned Mrs. St. John, as if the fact were not
worth a thought. "The other had an addition which this must lack. It
ran in this way: 'the wife of George Carleton St. John, of a son _and
heir_.'"
Mrs. Darling made no rejoinder. But she cast a keen, stealthy glance
at Charlotte from time to time, as she busied herself with some trifle
at a distance.
Things had gone on very smoothly at the Hall during the past few
months. Mrs. St. John had been at least kind to Benja, sufficiently
loving in manner; and Honour liked her new mistress tolerably well.
The girl's feeling towards her may best be described as a negative
one; neither like nor dislike. She did not dislike her as she had
formerly believed she should do; and she did not very much like her.
Perhaps if there had been a characteristic more prominent than another
in the disposition of Charlotte Morris, it was jealousy. Mrs. Darling
had been obliged to see this--and to see it exercised, too--during the
course of her daughter's past life; and one of her objections to the
master of Alnwick Hall, as a husband for Charlotte, was the fact that
he had been once married and his heir was already born. That Charlotte
would be desperately jealous of the little Benja, should she bear a
son of her own, jealous perhaps to hatred, Mrs. Darling felt sure of:
she devoutly hoped there would be no children; and an uncomfortable
feeling had been upon her from the hour she learnt of the anticipated
arrival. So long as Charlotte was without a son, there could be no
very formidable jealousy of Benja. But there might be afterwards.
Certainly, there existed a wide difference between the future of the
two-year-old boy, sturdily stamping about the gravel-path underneath,
the great St. Bernard's dog, "Brave," harnessed with tape before him;
and that of the young infant lying in the cradle by the fireside. Many
a mother, far more gentle and self-forgetting than was Charlotte St.
John, might have felt a pang in contemplating the contrast. Benja had
a title in prospective; he would be rich amidst the rich. George (by
that name the infant was already registered) might count his future
income by a few hundreds. The greater portion of the Alnwick estate
(not a very large one) was strictly entailed; and the large fortune
brought to Mr. St. John by his first wife, was now Benja's. Mr. St.
John would probably have wished to do as well by one child as by the
other, but he could not help himself; he could not alter the existing
state of things. The settlement he had been enabled to make on Miss
Norris was very, very small; but he intended to redeem this by putting
by yearly some of his large income for her and her children. Still the
contrast was great, and Mrs. Darling knew that Charlotte was dwelling
upon it with bitterness, when she laid that emphasis just now on the
"son _and heir_."
That Mrs. St. John would inordinately love this child of hers, there
was no doubt about--far more so than might be well for herself or for
him. Mrs. Darling saw it as she lay there--lay looking with eager,
watchful eyes at the little face in the cradle; and Mrs. Darling
decided within herself--it may have been from experience--that such
love does not bring peace in its wake. "I wish it had been a girl!"
thought Mrs. Darling.
Charlotte Norris had all her life been subject to taking likes and
dislikes--occasionally violent ones; and she took a strong dislike to
the nurse that was now in attendance upon her, barely suffering her in
the room, and insisting on Prance's seeing to the baby instead, for
Prance was at the Hall with her mistress. The result was, that when,
at the end of a fortnight, Mrs. Darling quitted the Hall, Prance was
transferred to Mrs. St. John's service, and remained as nurse to the
infant.
Some months went on, and spring came round. Mr. Carleton St. John, who
was in parliament, had to be in London; but his wife remained at
Alnwick with her baby, who seemed delicate. Not to have brought to
herself all the good in the world, would she have stirred without him.
The frail little infant of a few days had become to her the greatest
treasure earth ever gave; her love for him was of that wild,
impassioned, all-absorbing nature, known, it is hoped, but to few, for
it never visits a well-regulated heart.
And in proportion to her love for her own child, grew her jealousy of
Benja--nay, not jealousy only, but dislike. Mrs. Darling had foreseen
correctly: the jealousy and the dislike had come--the hatred would
only too surely follow. Charlotte strove against this feeling. She
knew how wrong it was, how disloyal to her husband, how cruel to
Benja; and she fought against it well. She would take Benja on her
knee and fondle him; and the child grew to love her, to run into her
at all moments when he could triumphantly escape from Honour, and she
would take him and pretend to hide him, and tell Honour to go into the
woods and see if the little wild boy had flown thither. It is true
that once or twice, upon some very slight provocation, she had fallen
into a storm of passion that literally rendered Honour motionless with
alarm, seizing the child somewhat after the manner of a tiger, and
beating him furiously. Honour and Benja were alike frightened; even
Prance looked on aghast.
Matters were not improved by the conduct of the two nurses. If dislike
and dissatisfaction had reigned between them when Prance was only an
occasional visitor at the house, how much more did it reign now! They
did not break frequently into a quarrel, but a perpetual system of
what the other servants called "nagging" was kept up between them.
Fierce and fiery was the disposition with which each regarded
the other; a war of resentment, of antipathy--call it what you
will--smouldering ever in their hearts.
It did not want fuel. Honour naturally wished Benja to be regarded as
first and foremost in right of his seniority and position as the heir.
Prance held up the infant as the chief; and it need not be said that
she was tacitly, if not openly, supported by Mrs. St. John. It was
doubly unfortunate. The squabbles of the nurses need not have done
harm, but their rivalry in regard to the children enhanced the feeling
in their mistress. To do Mrs. Darling justice, she absolutely
discouraged any difference being made, even in thought, between the
children, if such came under her notice in her temporary visits at the
Hall; and once, when she heard a sneer given by Prance to Honour and
Benja, she had called the woman to her privately, and taken her
sharply to task.
Well, the time went on to Easter. On the Thursday in Passion-week Mr.
St. John was expected home; and his wife, who loved him much,
anticipated his return in a sort of impassioned eagerness, not the
less strong because it was controlled under her usual cold and calm
demeanour. The pony-carriage went to the station in the afternoon to
meet the train; and Alnwick's mistress took her place at an open
window that overlooked the approach, long and long before the carriage
could return.
It was a warm, brilliant day; one of those lovely days that sometimes
come in spring, presenting so great a contrast with the past winter,
and raising many a heart to Heaven. As she sat there, Benja darted in.
The door was not firmly closed, and the child pushed it open
triumphantly and flew to Mrs. St. John, black as any little tinker:
hands, face, dress, a sight to be seen. She wore a charming gown of
apple-green figured silk, and a coquettish little lace head-dress,
fastened with large gold pins.
"Benja, what have you been doing to yourself?"
Benja laid his little black hands on her gown, and told her a tale not
very easy to be understood--his grey eyes laughing, his pretty teeth
glistening. Brave had run somewhere, and Benja had run after him, and
the two--or perhaps only Benja--had fallen down by the cocks and hens,
where it was dirty. And they had _stayed_ down apparently, and rolled
about together.
"Then Benja's a naughty boy to get himself into such a state," she
cried, having quickly interposed her handkerchief between the silk and
the dirty hands. "Where's Honour?"
Benja broke into a merry laugh. He had contrived to double upon Honour
and evade her, while she was looking for him.
The child kept his place at her knee, and chattered on in his
imperfect language. Mrs. St. John did not give herself further trouble
to understand it; she fell into a reverie, her fingers unconsciously
rambling amidst the child's fair curls.
"Oh! so you are here, sir!" exclaimed Honour, looking in. "My
goodness! I've been all over the house after you."
"Me wid mamma," chattered Benja.
"And a fine pickle you are in, to be with your mamma, naughty child!"
"You should not let him get into this state, Honour."
"It's not my fault, ma'am; he ran away from me after the dog."
"Take him into the nursery," concluded Mrs. St. John, turning her eyes
again to the window and the winding road.
Honour carried him away, talking lovingly to him--that he was a sad
little boy to make himself so dirty, and dirty little boys never went
to heaven, unless they got clean again. And Mrs. Carleton St. John sat
on, dreamily watching.
The first thing that aroused her from it was the sound of voices
outside. She looked out and saw Honour and Benja. Master Benja was now
dressed in a handsome green velvet tunic, and looked as if he had just
come out of a bandbox. Honour had her things on for walking.
"Where are you going?" inquired Mrs. St. John.
"Me going to see papa," responded Benja, before Honour could speak,
his eyes bright, and his cheeks glowing.
"I am taking him to meet the carriage, ma'am."
"But----" Mrs. St. John was beginning, and then suddenly stopped; and
Honour was half scared at the blank look and the momentary flash of
anger that succeeded each other on her face. "Why should you take him
there?" she resumed. "He will see his papa soon enough at home."
"Why should I not take him, ma'am?" rejoined Honour, quite
respectfully, but in a bold spirit.
And Mrs. Carleton St. John could not say why; she had no plea for
refusal at hand. Honour waited a minute, but no words came.
"It's as well to walk that way as any other, ma'am," she said, taking
Benja's hand. "His papa might be disappointed, else. When he used to
return home last year, and did not meet Master Benja in the avenue,
he'd cry out for him before he got well inside the doors."
"Oh, very well," said Mrs. St. John. "Keep in this upper part, within
view."
They turned away slowly, Honour secretly rebelling at the mandate; and
the mistress of Alnwick looked after them. She had been lost in a
reverie, anticipating the moment of her husband's entrance, when,
after her first welcome to him was over, she should summon her child
and place it lovingly in his arms. It seemed that another child was to
be first in those arms; and she had not bargained for it. One wild,
unhealthy longing was ever haunting, half-unconsciously, the mind of
Mrs. St. John--that her husband should love _her_ child better than
that other one.
She ran upstairs to Prance. She bade Prance hasten to attire the baby,
and take him out to meet his papa. The child was asleep. Prance
glanced at it as if she would have said so; but her mistress's tone
was imperative, evidently admitting neither contradiction nor delay.
"Oh, so _you've_ come!" was Honour's salutation, not very graciously
expressed, when she found herself joined by Prance. "What's the matter
with him?"
The question applied to the crying baby, fractious at being awakened
out of its sleep. Prance, who rarely condescended to quarrel in words,
went on with her quiet step and supercilious manner, her head in the
air.
"I've as much right here as you," she said: "and Master George as the
other. Mind your own business, and don't talk to me."
Presently the carriage came in view, Mr. St. John driving. He pulled
up when he found himself near the children, gave the reins to the
groom, and leapt out. Little Benja danced about his papa in an ecstasy
of joy, and Mr. St. John clasped him in his arms.
Two minutes at the least elapsed before he remembered Prance, who had
stood perfectly still, she and her charge. He turned to the baby to
caress it, but his voice and face were strange, and of course it set
up a loud cry, the more loud that it had not recovered its temper. Mr.
St. John left it and walked across the grass with Benja, his whole
attention absorbed by his first-born. The boy was sometimes caught up
in his arms for a fresh embrace, sometimes flitting along by his side
on the grass, hand in hand, the steel buttons on the child's green
velvet tunic flashing in the sun. He had taken off his cap, throwing
it to Honour, and his pretty curls blew away from his brow with every
movement, displaying that winning expression of feeling and
intelligence of which his features had given promise in his infancy.
Mr. St. John waved his hat to his wife at the open window. She had
seen it all; the loving meeting with the one child, the neglect of the
other. Passion, anger, jealousy, waged war within her. She could no
more have controlled them than she could control the wind that was
making free with her husband's hair. All she saw, all she felt, was
that he had betrayed his ardent love for Benja, his indifference to
_her_ child. In that one moment she was as a mad woman.
What exactly occurred upon his entrance, George St. John could not
afterwards remember; he was too much scared, too terrified, it may be
said, to receive or retain any correct impression. A strange, wild
look on his wife's face, telling, as it seemed to him, of madness; a
wail of reproaches, such as had never been addressed to him from
woman's lips; Benja struck to the ground with a violent blow, and his
cheek bleeding from it, passed before his eyes as in a troubled
vision. It appeared to last but a moment; but a moment: the next, she
had sunk on a sofa; pale, trembling, hysterical.
George St. John collected his scattered senses, and picked up the
child. He wiped his poor little outraged face with a handkerchief,
laid it on his bosom for an instant to soothe him to composure, and
carried him into the hall to Honour. The girl cried out when she saw
the cheek, and looked up at her master with inquiring eyes. But his
were averted.
"An accident," he quietly said. "Wash it with a little warm water."
He returned to the room, closing the door on himself and his wife. He
did not reproach her by so much as a word: he did not speak to her: he
went to the window and stood there in silence, looking out, his back
turned to her, and his forehead pressed against one of the panes.
She began to utter reproaches now, sobbing violently; fond reproaches,
that all his affection was lavished upon Benja, leaving none for her
child. He replied coldly, without turning round, that his affection
was as lively for one child as for the other; he was not conscious of
any difference, and hoped he never should be: but an infant of five
months old who cried at his approach, could not yet be made the
companion to him that Benja was.
"Oh, George, forgive me!" she sobbed, coming close to him, and laying
her hand on him caressingly. "I love--I love you; and I could not bear
it. He _is_ our child, you know; yours and mine; and it seemed as if
he was nothing to you beside Benja. Won't you forgive me?"
He could not resist the pleading words; he could not throw back the
soft hand that was stealing itself into his. "I forgive it; if you
think forgiveness lies with me, Charlotte," he answered, turning round
at last, but speaking sadly and quietly.
"You have not kissed me," she whispered, the tears chasing each other
down her cheeks.
He bent to kiss her at once: just in the same cold, quiet manner in
which he had spoken; as if his mind were withdrawn from the present.
She felt it bitterly; she blamed her "quick feelings" aloud; and when
her tears were dried, she ran up to the nursery in a sudden impulse,
seized Benja, and sat down with him upon Honour's rocking-chair.
There she fondled him to her; she pushed his hair from his brow; she
laid his hot cheek, clear again under the influence of the warm water,
against her own.
"Benja love mamma still?" she murmured softly in his ear. "Mamma did
not mean to hurt him."
And the noble little fellow broke into a loving smile in her face, by
way of answer, and kissed her many times with his rosy lips.
"Be very gentle with his poor cheek, Honour," she said, as she put him
down and left the room. "It is only a little bruised, I see."
"Then it _was_ an accident, as master said," decided the wondering
Honour. "I declare if I did not think at the time she had done it
herself!"
Mr. Carleton St. John had not stirred from his place at the window. He
stood there still, looking out, but seeing nothing. The entrance of
his wife into the room did not arouse him.
"I have been to make my peace with him, George," she said, almost as
inaudibly as she had spoken above. "Dear little Benja!--We are better
friends than ever, and he has been giving me a hundred kisses of
forgiveness. Oh, George, my husband, I am so sorry! Indeed, indeed, I
will strive to subdue my fits of passion. I will not strike him
again."
But George Carleton St. John stood as one who understands not. He did
not hear: his thoughts were in the past. The injunction--nay, the
prayer--of his dying wife was present to him; the very look on her
sweet face as she spoke it; the faint tones of her loving voice, soon
to be silent for ever.
"When the months and the years go by, 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."
Bitterly, bitterly, the prayer came back to him. How had he fulfilled
it? He glanced round at the wife he had chosen, and could have groaned
aloud in the anguish of his remorseful heart.