St. Martin's Eve: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

It was a sad mistake. It was perhaps the first link in a heavy chain, whose fetters would have to be worn for ever. Mrs. Darling ought to have waited until her daughter came home, she could then have suggested these alterations privately to her if she deemed them so essential, and suffered Charlotte's own authority to carry them out. How Mrs. Darling, a shrewd, sensible, easy woman in general, fell into the error, must remain a marvel. It caused the servants to look upon her as a meddling, underbred woman, who was interfering most unjustifiably in what did not concern her. She was really nothing of the sort; it all arose from her surpassing anxiety for Charlotte's comfort.

This, I say, must have been borne from Mrs. Darling; but when that unfortunate Prance came in, all the resentment was turned upon her. Prance ordered after her mistress. Worse still, she did not order as from her mistress, but as from herself; and her cold, you-must-obey-me tones, exasperated, the maids at the Hall almost to rebellion. Putting present ill-feeling apart, the result was unfortunate: for it created a prejudice against their new mistress, which Mrs. St. John would have to live down. Altogether, what with the advent of the new wife, the perpetual visitation of Mrs. Darling, and the hatred to Prance, Alnwick Hall was kept in a state of internal commotion.

In the midst of this, the day came round for the return of Mr. St. John and his bride. In the afternoon, Master Benja, in apple-pie order, the short scarlet frock and the white ribbons--for they were expected to arrive every hour--was toddling about the nursery, drawing a horse. Honour, in a new cap with white satin trimming, sat watching him, and talking to one of the housemaids, Edy, who had looked in for a gossip.

It may be as well that you should notice how these nurseries were situated. They were at the side of the house facing the east. Mr. St. John's bedroom was at the end, looking on to the park, and forming as it were an angle on that side the house. You saw the room once; some one was dying in it. His room opened to two others, one on either side of it. The one looking to the front was his own dressing-room; the other looking to the side, had been called the dressing-room of the late Mrs. St. John; and all three rooms opened to the gallery. It was this last room that had been Benja's nursery, and out of which Mrs. Darling had turned him. The next room to this, which opened to no other room, was the new day-nursery. Honour and Benja are in it now. And beyond it, the last room on this side the house, was the one in which Honour and Benja slept. The next to this, the first one looking to the north at the back of the house, was Mrs. Tritton's--but it is unnecessary to mention that. The passage in which the doors of these nurseries were situated was narrow, not like the wide front corridor or gallery. Immediately opposite the door of Benja's bed-chamber was the back staircase used by the servants. Honour, with her charge, was the only one who assumed the privilege of passing up and down the front stairs. It was as well to mention this: you will see why, later. Honour bitterly resented being turned from the nursery. It was unreasonable that she should do so (though perhaps not unnatural), as the room would be required for the new Mrs. St. John.

She was gossiping with the housemaid in the manner that servants like to gossip, when a voice in the next room startled them both. It was the voice of Prance; and the servants had not known she was in the house.

"There's that woman here again!" exclaimed Edy, in a whisper.

Honour had her finger to her lip in an attitude of listening. She wondered to whom Prance was talking. Tones that could not be mistaken for any but Mrs. Darling's, answered her. In point of fact, Mrs. Darling had come over to receive her daughter, bringing Prance to carry a few last trifling belongings of Charlotte's.

"Of course!" ejaculated Honour. "I knew they'd be here."

Honour was good in the main; sincere, thoroughly trustworthy; but she was not exempt from the prejudice to which her class is especially prone. You cannot help these things. It was her custom, whenever she found Mrs. Darling and her maid appeared upstairs, to catch up Benja and dart down to the housekeeper's room, with a vague feeling, arising from resentment, of carrying Benja out of their reach. She took him up now, horse and all, and was making her way to the backstairs when Mrs. Darling suddenly looked out of a chamber and called to her.

There could be no pretending not to hear. She had been seen, and therefore was obliged to arrest her steps. It had not come to open rebellion against Mrs. Darling.