St. Martin's Eve: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"See, Charlotte!" said Mrs. Darling, in reassuring tones. "Poor dumb creature!"

Deeming it well that her daughter should see, as the most effectual antidote to any such fears as those alluded to above, she gently took her arm to pull her forward. Charlotte drew back in sudden fear.

"I can't look!" she gasped. "You dare not force me! Is he walking about with the lighted church?"

"Oh, Charlotte, do, do just glance in! You are not yourself, I see"--and poor Mrs. Darling looked as terrified as her, as she was looking at the door. "It is only poor Brave; he must have been shut in here."

She threw the door open, went in, and drove out the dog. Mrs. St. John stood against the wall as it passed her, carefully avoiding all sight of the chamber. Her mood changed to anger when she saw Brave.

"I gave orders that he should not be allowed to enter the house--that he should be kept chained up in the stables--sent away--sold--anything. How dare they disobey me!"

Mrs. Darling put her daughter's arm within her own and led her to her own chamber. "I will see that the dog does not annoy you again, Charlotte. Lie on the sofa and keep yourself quiet: we shall be ready to go in half-an-hour."

Closing the door on Charlotte, she proceeded to Honour's chamber at the end of the passage. The girl was in bed, lying in all the restlessness of delirium. Her head was turning from side to side, her face was flushed, her speech rambled. Mrs. Darling involuntarily asked herself whether the whinings of the dog through the night in the adjoining chamber, which must have penetrated to Honour's ears, had contributed to this increase of the malady.

No less than three maid-servants were posted round the bed, staring, listening, whispering. The sound of Mrs. Darling's entrance seemed to attract the attention of the patient, who looked momentarily towards her; but the ominously-bright eyes evidently saw nothing: they turned to the opposite wall, gazing, as it were, beyond it. The words that escaped from her lips--not consecutively as they are about to be written, but by fits and snatches--startled Mrs. Darling as few things had ever startled her in all her life before. They were equivalent to accusing her mistress of the murder of her stepson.

"He was the heir, you see, sir," she said, addressing some imaginary personage; "he was keeping her own flesh and blood out of the inheritance. I saw all along that it was more than she could bear. Don't you remember the scene that day when you came home from London, and we took the two children to meet you in the park? You took up Benja and carried him in, but the little one cried and we left him. Don't you remember it, sir?--she struck Benja to the ground and bruised him. You said it was an accident, but I knew better. Oh, sir, why did you leave him under her charge? Wasn't it as well to make your will one way as the other?"