ST. MARTIN'S EVE.
It was the 10th of November, St. Martin's Eve, the birthday of the
young chief of Alnwick, and of his little brother George; the first
birthday, as you will remember, since the death of Mr. Carleton St.
John, and of the boy's inheritance. Benja was five, George three, that
day.
The day was one of ovation for Benja. With early morning a serenade of
music had been heard underneath the windows, proceeding from some of
the tenantry; the servants came in with their respectful
congratulations; and sundry visitors drove up after breakfast to pay
the same. A present had arrived for Benja in the morning from General
Carleton--a handsome gold watch, which must have cost twenty or thirty
guineas. The General had never married, and knew far less about
children than he did about Hottentots, so no doubt thought a gold
watch was a suitable present for a young gentleman of five. Benja was
highly pleased with the costly toy, and of course wished to
appropriate it forthwith; so Honour attached some black watered-ribbon
to it, which she put round his neck, and let him display the watch and
key from his belt. It was a key and seal in one; Master Benja's crest
and initials were engraved on it, and it was attached to the watch by
a short gold chain.
Matters were not progressing favourably between Prance and Honour. And
if you think, my readers, that the squabbles of two maid-servants are,
or ought to be, too insignificant to be thus frequently alluded to, I
can only say that the fact bears so much upon the tragic event soon to
be related, that the allusion could not be avoided. About a fortnight
before this, Honour had had a day's holiday to go and see some
relatives; she had wished to take Benja with her, but Mrs. St. John
would not allow it, and he was left under the charge of Prance. In the
course of the afternoon, Mrs. St. John drove over to Alnwick Cottage,
taking George. They remained there to dinner, and during this absence
of hers Prance and Benja came to an issue. When Honour returned to the
Hall--and she reached it before Mrs. St. John did--she found that
Benja had not only been whipped with more severity than was seemly,
but that he had been locked up alone in an isolated room, where his
cries could not be heard. She found him exhausted with weeping, marks
raised on his back--altogether in a sad state. Whether, as Prance
affirmed, Master Benja had been unbearably insolent to her; whether,
as Honour said and believed, she must maliciously have taken the
opportunity to pay off old scores of dislike to him, was not
satisfactorily settled. Probably the real fact might lie between the
two. But you may judge what sort of an explosion came from Honour.
Prance shut herself up in her chamber, and would vouchsafe no answer
to it; the servants took part with Honour, for Prance had never yet
found favour with them. Mrs. St. John returned home in the midst of
the commotion. Honour carried Benja and the complaint to her; but she
seemed to treat it with indifference, and did not reprove Prance, as
far as the household could learn. Honour had been in a state of
indignation from that day to this, and her animosity to Prance was
bitter. "She'd kill the boy if she could," was a remark of hers that
went openly through the house.
Mrs. St. John sat in her drawing-room, waiting for the boys.
She had promised to dine with them that day at two, and cut the
birthday-pudding, foregoing her usual late dinner. Being a rather
strict disciplinarian as to the children taking their meals regularly,
she preferred to change her own hour for once, not theirs. The boys
were being attired, and she sat waiting for them, her outward
demeanour calm as usual, her mind a very chaos of rebellious tumult.
The marks of honour shown to Benja that day had not been extended to
George. They were paid to the boy as _the heir_, not simply as Benja
St. John. People had kissed Georgy, and wished him many happy returns,
but there it ended. There had been no court paid to him, no music, no
set congratulations; _they_ had been rendered to the chief of Alnwick.
And Mrs. St. John was resenting this; ah, how bitterly! It was the
first time the wide contrast between the position of the boys had been
brought palpably before her, and but for the very greatest control,
she had burst into a frenzy.
"I can't bear it; I can't bear it," she exclaimed to herself,
clasping her hands in pain. "Why should my boy be displaced for that
other--despised--passed over as nothing! My darling! my life! my all!
If he had only been born first; if he had only been born first!"
She unclasped her hands, and bent her head down on them, striving to
subdue her emotion; striving, indeed, to put away the unhealthy train
of thought. None knew better than herself how utterly futile it was to
indulge it, how much happier it would be for her if she could drive it
away to some far-off Lethe, whence it would never rise again. There is
not the least doubt that this poor young woman, who had been born into
the world with unwholesome passions, and had not had them checked in
childhood, was really trying to do a good part by her stepson; and
she believed she was doing it. She relied entirely on her own
strength: she had not learnt yet where to look for any other. The
daily struggle was getting rather formidable. It was directed to two
points: on the one hand, she strove partially to hide her most
passionate love for her own child; on the other, she tried to overcome
her jealous dislike of Benja. But there were times, as today, when
this jealousy raged within her, seeming to scorch her breast to
madness.
The children came in, radiant with good humour and happiness: Benja
with his face of intelligence, Georgy with his shower of fair curls
and pretty ways. Mrs. St. John lifted her pale face and kissed them
both: she _was_ striving, in her own feeble way, against her evil
spirit. They wore new black velvet birthday-dresses, with narrow
crimped cambric frills round the neck, and on the left sleeve of each
dress was a knot of crape, badge of their mourning. From Benja's belt
was conspicuously displayed the new watch; and Benja did not tire of
rattling the chain. Even that little trifle, the present of the watch,
was made a subject of resentment by Mrs. St. John. Benja had two
watches now. In the last days of his father's illness he had taken his
watch off and given it to Benja. "When he shall be twelve years old,
Charlotte, let him take it into use," he said to his wife. Yes; Benja
had two watches; Georgy none.
Georgy began, in his noisy fashion, to climb on his mother's knee, and
Mrs. St. John threw back the white crape lappets of her cap as she
clasped the boy to her. Georgy, however, did not favour clasping as a
rule, and he struggled out of it now.
"What's that?" cried he, snatching at a note that lay on the table at
his mother's elbow.
"That's a note from grandmamma, Georgy; she cannot come to us today."
"Oh, I am so sorry," cried Benja, who was exceedingly fond of Mrs.
Darling, always kind and good-humoured to the children. "Why can't she
come, mamma?"
"She's not well," answered Mrs. St. John, languidly, but in a tone
that seemed to indicate she did not care much about the matter, one
way or the other. Mrs. Darling had been invited to spend the birthday
with them; but in the note just received from her by Mrs. St. John,
she intimated that she was very unwell indeed. A rare excuse for Mrs.
Darling to put forward, who was always in the possession of rude
health.
"Mamma, me want a watch."
"You shall have one, my son."
"When?" continued Georgy. "As soon as I can get out to buy you one."
"One that goes, like Benja's?" demanded Master Georgy.
"It shall be the best gold watch that I can buy for money," answered
Mrs. St. John, allowing the passionate emotion that the subject called
up to become momentarily apparent.
An opportune interruption intervened: the butler came in and announced
dinner. Mrs. St. John, feeling a relief, she could not tell from what,
went quickly to the dining-room, Georgy held in her hand, Benja
following.
It was a sumptuous repast. The housekeeper had put forth her strength
to do honour to the birthdays; but, had you asked her _why_ she had so
exerted herself, she might have said it was the heir she had thought
of, more than the little one. Inviting as the entertainment was,
however, there was one of the three who did little justice to it, and
that was Mrs. St. John. She could not eat: but, as if the fire of her
restless spirit had imparted itself to her body, she drank frequently,
as one parched with thirst. Sherry and champagne were the wines used
with dinner. She was kind and attentive to the boys, helping both to
whatever dishes they chose, and to as much as they chose. Prance, who
was in attendance upon Master George, seeing that his birthday-dress
did not come to grief, forgot her good manners by telling him that he
"ate enough for a little pig:" of which Mrs. St. John took no manner
of notice, but continued to heap his plate according to his fancy.
Honour was not present, Master Benja being considered old enough now
to be waited on by the men-servants.
Dinner came to an end, the servants and Prance withdrew, and the
children were left to take dessert with their mamma. Mrs. St. John was
drinking port wine then and cracking walnuts, of which fruit she was
very fond. By-and-by, when the boys grew tired of sitting, they slid
off their chairs, and began to look out for some amusement. Had Mrs.
St. John been wise, she would have rung the nursery-bell then, and
sent them to the nursery, where they might play at leisure; but she
was absorbed with her walnuts and port wine, and did nothing of the
sort. After capering about for a short time, George went up to Benja.
"Let me have the watch on now," he began.
"No," said Benja, "you'll break it."
"Me shan't break it," lisped Georgy.
"I'm afraid," returned Benja, rather undecidedly. "Honour said you
would."
"Mamma, Benja won't let me have his watch!"
"Don't ask him, my darling," said Mrs. St. John, her mother's heart
more resentful at the refusal than Georgy's was, for the conversation
had penetrated to her senses. "I will buy you a better one than that."
"But me want that now," retorted resolutely Master George, who had a
will of his own. "Me won't break it, Benja."
Benja possessed one of the kindest hearts beating. He looked at his
watch, thinking he should not like it to be broken, and then he looked
at Georgy, who stood turning up his pretty face, eagerly protesting he
would take care of it. In another moment, Benja had hung the watch
round the younger one's neck.
Gratification enough for the time. Georgy paraded up and down the
room, the watch hanging before him on his velvet tunic, as if the
walls were alive with eyes, and he was challenging their admiration.
Presently he stood still, took off the watch, and began to open it.
"Don't do that," interposed Benja, who had been watching all the time.
"You'll spoil it. Give it back to me."
"No," said Master George, very positively.
"Give it back to me, I tell you, Georgy."
"Give him back his watch, Georgy, my dearest," interrupted Mrs. St.
John. "Let him keep it to himself if he is so selfish."
Benja, child though he was, felt a sense of injustice. But the
reproach told, and he made no further remonstrance. There was ever a
certain timidity in his heart when in the presence of Mrs. St. John.
So George thought he could go as far as he pleased with impunity, and
his next movement was to take firm hold of the short gold chain and
swing the watch round and round after the manner of a rattle.
"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried Benja, in an agony, running up to Mrs. St.
John and laying his hands upon her knee, to attract her attention, "do
not let him spoil my watch. See what he is doing with it!"
Mrs. St. John's usual self-control deserted her. That self-control, I
mean, which enabled her to treat Benja and George with equal justice.
Whether the morning's doings, the ovations to Benja, were really
exciting her more than she could bear, or whether--but let that pass
for the present. However it might be, she tacitly refused to
interfere, and pushed Benja from her with a gesture of dislike. The
boy, finding he could get no redress where it ought to have been
afforded, ran back to Georgy and seized him just as he was flying to
his mother for protection. The naughty, spoiled child, finding he
might no longer retain possession of the watch, dashed it into a far
corner, and they heard its glass crash on the floor, beyond the turkey
carpet.
Benja was by nature a sweet-tempered child: he had also been kept
under by Mrs. St. John; but this was more than he could bear. He burst
into a loud fit of weeping, and struck out at Georgy with all his
might and main. Georgy roared, screamed, kicked, and tried to bite.
As a tigress flies to protect its young, up rose Mrs. St. John, her
voice loud, her eyes wearing that strangely wild look at times
observable there. A passion, mad and fierce as that you once saw her
in, in the presence of her husband, overpowered her now. As she had
hurled Benja to the ground that ever-to-be-remembered day, so she
would have hurled him this; but the boy was older and stronger now,
and he struggled against it. Better that he had yielded! It might in a
degree have appeased the mad woman who was upon him: and his strength
was as nothing compared with hers. His little head was struck against
the table, his costly new birthday-dress was torn. He screamed with
pain, Georgy screamed with terror, and Honour, who happened to be near
the door at the time, came rushing in.
"Good Heavens!" she exclaimed, "what is it? What has he done?"
"Me took his watch," sobbed little Georgy, in a fit of remorseful
generosity. "Me not want mamma to hit him like that."
"How can you for shame treat him in such a manner, ma'am?" cried
Honour, indignantly, as her own passion rose; and she spoke to her
mistress as she had never dared to speak before. "Poor orphan child I
Nobody to protect him! How can you reconcile it to the memory of my
dead master?"
Mrs. Carleton St. John stood glaring at the girl, her hand pointed
imperiously, her voice low now with command. It was as if some
soothing oil had been thrown on the wounds of passion.
"Tomorrow morning you quit my service, Honour Tritton? I never
tolerate insolence, and I find that you have been here too long. Take
that boy out of my sight."
Somehow in the fray, they had all hemmed themselves into a corner, and
the broken glass was cracking under Mrs. St. John's feet. Honour
picked up the watch with a jerk which bespoke the temper she was in,
clasped the sobbing boy tenderly in her arms, and went upstairs with
him, meeting Prance at the dining-room door, as she was gliding in.
"It's a burning shame!" broke forth Honour, sitting down by the
nursery fire and dashing the coals about with the poker, while she
held Benja to her with the other hand--"it's a burning shame that he
should be so treated! If she does turn me away, I'll go every step of
the way to Castle Wafer and tell all I know to your guardian, Benja.
If I don't do it, may Heaven never prosper me!"
Poor little ill-treated child! He lay there in her lap, smarting with
the pain, his trembling heart beating.
"Let the worst come to the worst, my precious lamb, it can only be for
a few years," began Honour again. "I know it said in my master's will
that you were to be sent early to Eton."
"What's Eton?" sobbed Benja.
"Something very good," rejoined Honour, who had no definite ideas on
the subject herself. "And when you are of age, my darling, all Alnwick
will be yours, and she and Master Georgy must turn out of it."
"Where will they go?" asked Benja.
"I don't know where, and it don't matter where," continued the woman
in her injudicious partisanship. "You will be master at Alnwick, and
nobody can live here then unless you choose to let them."
"Who is master now?" questioned Benja.
"You are, my pretty boy, and have been ever since your papa died; only
she lives, in it and gives orders because you are not old enough.
Master's wits must have gone a wool-gathering," added the exasperated
Honour in soliloquy, "when he left her with any power over the child
at all."
Honour was right in the main.
Benja remained on her lap, his sobs gradually subsiding. He lay
thinking of many things, such as occur to children, his ideas running
from one topic to another. Presently he spoke.
"Honour, when is my church to be finished?"
"Suppose I finish it this afternoon," cried Honour, starting up.
"There's scarcely anything left of it to do, and if I am turned away
it may never get done at all."
Opening a closet-door, she took from it what seemed to be the model of
a very pretty country church, with its spire, begun in pursuance of
her promise to Benja after the visit to the "Emporium of Foreign
Curiosities." Like many another thing entered upon in haste, this
coveted treasure had not yet been completed. The fact was, Honour
found more trouble over it than she had anticipated, and Benja, in the
protracted waiting, forgot his eagerness, All that was left to be done
now was the pasting on of the coloured windows. They were cut out of
thin rose paper; the walls of the structure being of thicker paper and
white, and the framework of thin wood.
Honour collected her materials, and soon accomplished her task, though
she had not been sparing of her windows. Benja forgot his troubles in
watching her. She had taken off his velvet dress, with many a
lamentation over the rent, and put on him a brown-holland tunic,
handsomely trimmed with black silk braid. Over that she tied a white
pinafore, lest he should make too free acquaintance with the paste.
At dusk all was completed, and this famous church lighted up by means
of the bit of candle inside. Benja clapped his hands with delight. It
was a novel, ingenious, picturesque sight, especially to a child. The
fire had burned low and there was no other light in the room, so that
the church was shown off to perfection, and was a really striking and
conspicuous object. Suddenly the flame inside began to whiffle.
"It's the draught from that door," observed Honour. "Shut it, Benja;
shut it gently."
She spoke of the door which opened into Mrs. St. John's dressing-room.
It is possible that you may remember there was formerly no door there;
but Mrs. St. John had caused one to be made at the birth of George,
that she might pass into the nursery at will, without going into the
corridor. Now that George was beyond babyhood, this door was generally
kept bolted, the bolt being on Mrs. St. John's side, not any on that
of the nursery; but it was sometimes, as now, left open.
Honour turned her head to the door as she spoke, and saw the little
boy place his hands upon the panel to push it to, after the manner of
children, and it closed gently. Benja came to the table again to feast
his eyes. The flame was steady now.
"There ought to be moss all round here," observed Honour, pointing to
the board on which the church rested. "But it's too late to put it on
tonight: and, for the matter of that, I have no moss. If I stop, we
will ask the gardener to get some."
Benja did not care for the moss. To his admiring eyes nothing could
improve its present aspect. He gazed at it on the drawers, he danced
before it on the table, he carried it to and fro in the room, obeying
Honour's injunctions to keep it upright and steady. In this manner
some time passed, and they allowed the fire to go out.
"Bother take the fire!" ejaculated Honour. "And I have neither wood
nor matches up here."
She had her hand upon the bell, when it suddenly occurred to her that
she would go down for the things herself. No one living liked a gossip
better than she, and the scene in the dining-room was burning her
tongue. Placing the church on the table, and strictly charging Benja
not to touch it while she was away, Honour went out by the ordinary
door, and descended the backstairs. To this door, and I would have
you note the difference, the fastening was inside. It was not a bolt,
but a common button, placed high up beyond reach of the children.
Never had Honour relished a gossip more than the one she now entered
on with the servants. Every little detail of the dining-room affray,
so far as she had been a witness to it, was related by her to the
servants, who did not spare their comments or their sympathy. Honour
was quite unable to tear herself away, until by the striking of the
clock she found she must have been there nearly half-an-hour. Hardly
believing her ears, she caught up a bundle of faggots and a box of
matches, popped them into her apron, together with a pair of snuffers
and an extinguisher, and ran up the stairs. Turning the handle of the
door to enter hastily, she was surprised to find that she could not
open it.
"Master Benja, why have you fastened the door?" she called out. "Come
and undo it."
There was no reply.
"He must have got upon a chair and turned the button," soliloquized
Honour. But at that moment she became conscious of a smell of burning,
as of wool. Letting the things she carried fall with a crash, she flew
along the passage and turned into her mistress's dressing-room, that
she might obtain entrance that way. That door was also fastened, but
on the outer side. It was no unusual occurrence--in fact, it was
usually kept bolted, as was just now observed, and Honour at the
moment thought nothing of it. Slipping back the bolt, she went in.
Oh! what did Honour see! Where was the young heir of Alnwick? A dark
mass smouldering on the floor at the far end of the room, the carpet
smouldering, no trace whatever remaining of the pretty and dangerous
toy she had made, no trace of _him_, save that shapeless heap from
which the spirit had flown!
With awful cries, with wild shrieks of terrified alarm, Honour flew
through the dressing-room, and down the grand staircase, her cries
arousing the household, arousing Mrs. St. John.