St. Martin's Eve: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

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 been previously bolted, 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 whether she did 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.