St. Martin's Eve: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"It had killed one or two of them. But how was George St. John to know that it would attack him? He might have inherited his mother's constitution: hers was a sound one."

"And why--and why--could not Georgy inherit mine?"

The pauses were evidently made to recall calmness, to subdue the rebellious breath, which was shortening. A very peculiar expression momentarily crossed the surgeon's face.

"All is for the best, Mrs. St. John. Rely upon it."

A little feeble voice was calling out for mamma, and Mr. Pym hastily quitted his seat at the sound. Any one might have said he was glad of the interruption. The child's sweet blue eyes were raised as the surgeon bent over him, and his wan lips parted with a smile.

"Best as it is; oh, thank God, best as it is!" he murmured to himself, as he gently drew the once pretty curls from the white and wasted brow, and suffered his hand to rest there. "A short time, and then--one of God's angels. Here, had he lived--better not think of it. All's for the best."

The surgeon remained twenty-four hours at Ypres, and then took his departure. Not once, during all that time, was Mrs. St. John off her guard, or did she lose her self-possession.

The hour came for the child to die, and he was laid in his little grave in Belgium. For a day or two, Mrs. St. John was almost unnaturally calm, but the second night, at midnight, her cries of despair aroused the house, and a violent scene came on. Prance shut herself up in the room with her, and silence at length supervened. So far as Mrs. Brayford could make out--but that was not very much, through Prance's jealous care--the unhappy lady laboured under some perpetual terror--fancying she saw a vision of Benja coming towards her with a lighted church. These paroxysms occurred almost nightly: and Mrs. St. John grew into a terribly nervous state from the very dread of them. She sometimes drank a quantity of brandy, to the dismay of Prance: not, poor thing, from love of it, but as an opiate.

What would be her career now? It would seem that the old restlessness, the hurrying about from place to place, would form a feature in it. No sooner were the child's remains removed from her sight, than the eagerness for change came on. It had been thought by all around her that George would have been taken to Alnwick, to be interred with his forefathers, but it had not pleased Mrs. St. John to give orders to that effect. Indeed, she gave no orders at all; and but for Prance, the tidings had not been conveyed even to Mrs. Darling. The blow fallen, all else in the world seemed a blank to the bereaved mother. Apart from the child's personal loss, his death took from her state and station; and she was not one to disregard those benefits. That the boy had been more precious to her than heaven, was unhappily too true; and all else had died with him. If she had indeed any sin upon her conscience connected with that fatal night, what terrible retribution must now have been hers. Were Benja living she would still be in the enjoyment of wealth, pride, power; would still be reigning at the once much-coveted Hall of Alnwick, its sole mistress. With the death of the children, all had gone from her. No human care or skill could have saved the life of her own son; but Benja?--Heaven did not call him.

It seemed that the ill-fated boy's image was rarely absent from her. Not the burning figure, flying about and screaming (as there could be no reasonable doubt he did fly about and scream), but the happy child, marching to and fro in the room, all pleased with his pretty toy, the lighted church. After George's death, when grief was telling upon her system and calling forth all of nervousness inherent in it, she hardly dared to be alone in the dark, lest the sight should appear to her; she dreaded the waking up at night, and Prance's bed was removed into her room. A little time to renew her strength of body, and these nervous fancies would subside; but meanwhile there was one great comprehensive dread upon her--the anniversary of the fatal day, the 10th of November,--St. Martin's Eve. It was close at hand,--the intervening hours were slipping past with giant strides; and she asked herself how she should support its remembrances. "Oh, that he had lived! that he were at my side now! that I could give to him the love I did not give him in life!" she murmured, alluding to poor Benja.