St. Martin's Eve: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

They had come to the end of the gravel walk, and Mrs. Darling stood still, apparently contemplating the lovely prospect to be seen from Castle Wafer. How anxious looked her face in the moonlight; but for those betraying beams the surgeon might not have read the struggle that was going on within her breast.

"Why should you think anything was wrong with her mind?" she again asked, but this time the tones were of pain, not of resentment.

"Mrs. Darling, it may be as well that we should understand each other," said he. "I did not come here to be trifled with. Either let there be confidence between us, or let me go back whence I came. It may facilitate matters if I tell you I have cause to suspect your daughter's mind to be at present not altogether in a healthy state. If I do go back, I fear it will be my duty to intimate as much beforehand to Sir Isaac St. John."

She looked perfectly aghast. "What do you mean, Mr. Pym?"

"I mean just what I say, and no more. Oh, Mrs. Darling, what nonsense this is--you and I to play at bo-peep with each other! We have been doing it all the years of your daughter's life. You cannot forget how much I know of the past: do you think I have drowned my memory in a draught of Lethe's waters? Surely if there is one man on earth whom you might consult confidentially, it is myself. I know as much as you know."

Mrs. Darling burst into tears, and sobbed for some minutes. "I shall be better now," she said; "it will do me good. Heaven alone knows what the tension has been."

"And now just tell me the whole, from beginning to end," said Mr. Pym, in a more kindly tone, "you ought to have done it years ago. You may be sure I will do what I can for the best: and there may be safety in counsel."

Now that the ice was broken, she entered pretty freely into details, and soon experienced that relief, and it may also be said that satisfaction in talking, which this confidential disclosure of some long-secret trouble is sure to bring. She told Mr. Pym how, ever since Benja's death, she had had her doubts of Charlotte's perfect sanity: and she freely confessed that her hasty return to Castle Wafer was caused by a telegraphic message from Prance, who was growing alarmed at her mistress's symptoms.

"What symptoms were they?" inquired the doctor.

"I don't know that I can enumerate them to you; they were little odds and ends of things that Prance has noticed. Not much, taken separately, but curious in the aggregate. Of course the message did not contain them: I have learnt them since I arrived. One thing I disliked more than all the rest--Prance awoke one night and found her mistress was out of the room. She was hastening away in search of her, and saw her coming out of Miss Beauclerc's chamber. Now, for some reason or other, Charlotte has taken a prejudice against Miss Beauclerc----."