St. Martin's Eve: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

He went this time by rail. Brumm said so much of the additional length of the journey by road in his master's present weak state, that Mr. St. John yielded for once, and a compartment was engaged, where he would be alone, with Brumm to attend upon him. On arriving at Alnwick, they found Mrs. Carleton St. John was still at her mother's cottage; and to the cottage Isaac went.

Had he arrived only a day later, he would not have seen her whom he came to see. Mrs. Carleton St. John was on the wing. She was starting for Scarborough that very evening, as Mrs. Darling sharply expressed it, as if the travelling by night did not meet her approbation; but she had allowed Charlotte to have her own way as a child, she whispered to Mr. St. John, and Charlotte chose to have it still.

What struck Mr. St. John more than anything else in this visit, was the exceeding stillness that seemed to pervade Mrs. Carleton St. John. She sat in utter quietness, her hands clasped on her knee, her black dress falling around her slender form in soft folds, the white crape lappets of her cap thrown behind. The expression of her bent face was still, almost to apathy; her manner and voice were subdued. So young and pretty did she look in her grief, that Mr. St. John's heart went out to her in compassion. He saw a slight shiver pass through her frame when she first spoke of Benja: she grieved for him, she murmured; and she told the tale of how she had struck him that fatal afternoon--oh, if she could only recall that! it weighed so heavily upon her. Oh, if she could--if she could--and Mr. St. John saw the fervour with which the wish was aspirated, the drawn lines about the pretty but haggard mouth, the hands lifted for once and clasped to pain--if she could only recall him back to life!

She wanted change, she said; she was going to Scarborough. George did not seem to grow strong again, and she thought it might do him good; he was fractious and ailing, and perpetually crying for Benja. Mamma was angry at her travelling by night, but no one but herself knew how long and tedious her nights were; she seemed to be always seeing Benja. When she went to sleep she dreamt he was alive again, and to awake up from that to the reality was more cruel than all.

Isaac St. John, as he sat and listened to the plaintive voice, pitied her beyond everything. There had not been wanting people, even within his small sphere of daily life, to comment on the gratification it must be to Mrs. Carleton St. John (apart from the loss of the child and its peculiar horror) to see her own son the inheritor. Isaac St. John resentfully wished they could see her and hear her now. He acquiesced in the expediency of change, both for herself and the child, and warmly urged her to exchange Scarborough for Castle Wafer. His stepmother, Mrs. St. John, was there, and they would make her so much more comfortable than she could be at any watering-place. But he urged in vain. She thanked him for his kindness, saying she would prefer to go to Scarborough now, but would keep his invitation for a future opportunity.

To the business matters she declined to listen. If it was at all necessary that he should discuss them, let it be with her mamma; or perhaps with Mr. Drake the lawyer. Mr. Drake knew all about everything, she supposed; and he would attend on Mr. St. John if requested.

So, after a two hours' sojourn at the cottage, Isaac St. John quitted it, and the following day he returned to Castle Wafer. He had not mentioned that Honour was about to enter on service at Castle Wafer. Upon Honour's name occurring in conversation in connection with the accident on St. Martin's Eve, Mrs. Carleton St. John had shown symptoms of excitement: she wished Honour had died, she said, before she had wrought such ill: and Isaac, perhaps feeling rather ashamed to confess that his household was going to shelter her, let the subject drop.

Mrs. St. John and the child started for Scarborough, Prance and three or four other servants in attendance upon her. Not Mrs. Darling. The younger lady had civilly but firmly declined her mother's companionship. She would rather be alone, she said, and Mrs. Darling yielded--as she had done all through Charlotte's life.

But it appeared that Scarborough did not please her. She had been in it little more than a week, when Mrs. Darling heard that she had gone to some place in Westmoreland. From thence, after another short sojourn, she made her way to Dover. It was getting close to Christmas then, and Mrs. Darling, feeling an uneasiness she could not well define, hastened to her, under the pretext of accompanying her home. She found Charlotte anything but benefited by her travellings, if looks might be trusted, for she was more thin, more wan, more haggard than before; and George was ill still.

Whether George St. John had eaten too much at that memorable birthday dinner, or whether the shock and horror of seeing Benja, as he had seen him, was telling upon his system, certain it was the child had declined from that night. Mr. Pym had treated him for indigestion, and he seemed a little better for a few days, but the improvement did not continue. Never again was he the merry boy he had been: fractious, irritable, and mourning incessantly for Benja; his spirits failed, his appetite would not return. He had not derived benefit from the change of scene any more than his mother, and that, Mrs. Darling on her arrival saw.