St. Martin's Eve: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

The first person Mr. Pym sought on his arrival, after he had taken a hopeless look at that sight in the nursery, where the floor was now half-inundated by the water employed to put the fire out, was Mrs. St. John. She was in the dining-room, and he found her almost unnaturally calm and collected; some people are so in these moments of calamity. The only sign of emotion was her death-like pallor. She gave him the account of what had occurred, so far, she observed, as she knew it; candidly confessing to the fracas that had taken place in the room after dinner. Benja had set upon George unmercifully, and in return she had corrected Benja: boxed his ears, and, she really believed, had shaken him. It was very rare indeed that she was so hasty with either of the children; and she would give the whole world not to have touched him, now that he was gone. After Honour took him away to the nursery, she had remained in the dining-room, not quitting it until disturbed by the shrieks of Honour. Prance came in once or twice to ask if she should take George, but she did not let him go. The boy went to sleep in his papa's large chair, and she sat down by him and took his legs upon her lap. She was nearly asleep herself when the cries began, and she had felt startled almost to death. The whole fault, she feared, lay with Honour. The woman had confessed the facts in the first moment of terror: she had left Benja alone with some dangerous paper toy lighted up with a candle, while she went downstairs and stayed gossiping with the servants. The poor little fellow must have set himself on fire.

"But did no one hear his cries?" asked Mr. Pym, who had not previously interrupted the narrative.

Mrs. St. John supposed not. All she knew was, that they had not penetrated to the dining-room. The surgeon listened. He knew the walls on that side the house were massive, and if the child was shut up in the nursery--as it appeared he had been--it was hardly likely that he would be heard, unless any one had happened to be upstairs. The dining-room was in the other wing of the house, its doors were double; and the kitchens were beyond the dining-room.

"The odd thing to me is, that he did not run out of the room," cried Mr. Pym. "A strong lad of five years old would hardly stop in a room to be burnt, for the want of escaping out of it. The first thing most of us attempt in a similar calamity is to run from the room: often a fatal step. But he does not seem to have attempted it."

Mrs. St. John shook her head. She did not know any of the details: they must of course be left to supposition. Honour deserved hanging for having left the child alone with a lighted toy.

It was at this juncture that Mr. Pym's attention was called to George. The child was very sick; had been sick at intervals since the fright. After attending to him; Mr. Pym went in search of Honour. He found her alone, in a lamentable state of distress, in the bedroom that had been hers and the unhappy child's.

And now it must be mentioned that Honour had been arriving at a sudden and very dreadful doubt. As the mists cleared away from her brain and she was able to reflect more calmly upon the probabilities of the accident, she began to think whether it had not been wilfully caused. And the doubt was assuming the aspect of certainty in her mind, when Mr. Pym came in.

For some minutes she could not speak; she could only cry and sob, and cover her face with her apron in very shame and remorse. Mr. Pym did not reproach her in her distress: he rather set himself, when she had gathered calmness, to learn what he could of the particulars. Honour freely confessed all. She told of the affair in the dining-room, giving a different colouring to it from that her mistress had done, and causing Mr. Pym's grey eyebrows to scowl themselves into ugliness. She told how she had afterwards finished the church for him, describing what it was, and where the idea had been taken from. She said she had left it with him lighted, had gone down for wood, and stayed talking the best part of half-an-hour. Not a thing did she conceal; not a point that could tell against herself did she gloss over.

"He was always an obedient boy," she wailed, "and I did not think he would touch it when I bade him not. And I never thought I had been down so long, till I heard the clock strike!"

"It is strange you did not hear his cries!"