St. Martin's Eve. A novel

Front matter

a wobti. BY MRS. HENRY WOOD,- author of " EAST LYNNE," " THE CHANNINGS," " JOHNNY LUDLOW," etc. Œjwusana. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, -Publisfins in ©rtitnarg to gtr fttajerts tf)e ©urtit. 1895- (All rights reserved., CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. The Little Heir ... ... ... ... i II. Faithful to the Dead ... ... ... n III. The Unexplained Reason ... ... ... iS IV. A New Mistress at Alnwick ... ... 28 V. On St. Martin's Eve ... ... ... ... 36 VI. The Alnwick Superstition ... ... 46 VII. A Shadow of the Future ... ... ... 55 VIII. Wasting away ... ... ... ... 65 IX. Changes at Alnwick ... ... ... ... 74 X. Miss Rose Darling ... ... ... 82 XI. Georgina Beauclerc's Love ... ... ... 104 XII. The Fair at Alnwick ... ... ... 123 XIII. Only as Brother and Sister ... ... ... 132 XIV. St. Martin's Eve ... ... ... ... 142 XV.

Conflicting Statements ... ... ... 152 XVI. Investigation ... ... ... ... 163 XVII. Honour's Ravings ... ... ... ... 174 XVIII. Adeline de Castella ... ... ... 190 XIX. Taking a Portrait ... ... ... ... 210 XX. Love's First Dream ... ... ... CONTENTS. IV CHAPTER PAGE XXI. A Fading Child ... ... ... •■• 233 XXII. All about a Stupid French Marigold ... 243 XXIII. Jealousy 255 XXIV. Foiled! ... ... ... ... ■ ■■ 273 XXV. A Crisis in a Life ... ... ... ... 288 XXVI. The Sick Chamber ... ... ... 3°5 XXVII. The Little Child Gone ... ... ... 319 XXVIII. Mrs. Brayford's Belief ... ... ... 332 XXIX. Louise's Whispered Words ... ... ... 343 XXX. The Reception of the Dead ... ... 356 XXXI. Unavailing Repentance ... .., ... 365 XXXII. Some Months Onwards ... ... ... 376 XXXIII. A Telegram ... ... ... ... ... 395 XXXIV.

Walking out to Dinner ... ... ... 414 XXXV. On the Terrace ... .... ... ... 432 XXXVI. Locked in ... ... ... ... ... 44' XXXVII. A Meeting in Paris ... ... ... ...

Chapter I

the little heir. The dull sombre light of a November afternoon was rapidly giving place to twilight. The day had been wet and cold; and the sodden leaves that strewed the park of one of England's fair domains did not contribute to the cheerfulness of the scene. The mansion belonging to it stood on a gentle eminence, well open to view, and looking boldly down on its lands : a long but not high house of red brick, with many windows ; a cheerful house, rising behind a wide and gently sloping lawn, which on this ungenial day gave out as wretched an apppearance as did all else of outward nature. But if the weather was rendering the demesne desolate, it seemed not to affect the house itself. Lights were gleaming from many of its numerous windows, were passing from room to room, from passage to passage ; and fires added their red glow to the general brightness.

A spectator might have said that some unusual excitement or gaiety was going on there. Excitement in that house .there indeed was, but of gaiety none ; for grim Death was about to pay it a visit : not to call any waiting for him in weary old age, but to snatch away the young and lovely. Had you entered the hall, so bright with light, what would have struck you most was the hushed, unusual silence. Nearly all the servants of the establishment were gathered there; but so still were they, so motionless in their repose, that it had something unnatural about it. They stood in small groups, for the most part only half showing themselves, and gazing towards a closed dining-room, sorrow and consternation im- St. Martin's Eve. printed on their faces. Two physicians, almost as hushed in manner just now as the servants'" themselves, were partaking of refreshment within it.

The butler himself waited on them ; and as he came out and crossed the hall with noiseless tread, he repeated an ominous opinion he had heard hinted at. One of the women-servants, her tears streaming, started up the broad, carpeted staircase with impulsive but soft footfalls, and a younger girl, looking frightened to death, followed her. They stole along the corridor to the right, and halted at a door there. Why, or for what purpose, they could not have told, since they might not presume to enter the chamber; for their lady was lying there at the point of doom. A handsome, spacious bed-chamber, opening into a dressing room, but the door was almost closed between them now. Over the dressing-room fire was a tall, upright, middle-aged woman, more intelligent and respectable-looking than are some of her class.

She wore a clean print gown, and a close white cap shaded a cheerful countenance. The fire shone full on her brown eyes, and on the tears that glistened in them. Strange sight ! for the continuous scenes of sickness, some times of death, in which these hired nurses' lives are passed,. tend to render them callous to outward emotion. Pacing the carpet slowly and sadly, his eyes cast down in thought, was a little man of ruddy complexion, sharp, thin features, and hair going grey with years. It was Mr. Pym, the family medical attendant. His hands were clasped behind him, as he walked, and his gaze, worn and anxious, was never lifted from the ground. "This will make the second case we have lost this year," suddenly observed the woman, whose name was Dade, in whispered tones. " What can make it so unlucky a year ?

" The surgeon gave no answer. Perhaps he did not like the "we" in her remark. But he knew that his duty was always performed to the very utmost of his skill and power ; that it had been so in the two cases to which she alluded ; and his con science, so far, was at peace before God. " There are no further means that can be tried ? " resumed the nurse, using the words as an assertion, more than a question, and she glanced towards the partially-open door connecting the two apartments. " None," was the conclusive reply. "She is sinking rapidly." A long pause. The nurse stood motionless, the surgeon pursued his slow and noiseless tread. Suddenly he stopped and turned his head, speaking in quick tones. " Where's the baby, Mrs. Dade ? " " He's in the cradle, sir, by her side. She looked as if she wanted him left there."

And then the doctor remembered, and paced on as before. He had spoken in momentary forgetfulness. The silence within the sick chamber was as great and more painful : the moments of bustle and anxiety had passed away. The fire in the grate had burnt down to embers ; a pale light was emitted from the shaded lamp ; the air was redolent, almost to faintness, of perfume. Essences had been sprinkled about in profusion, as if they would make pleasant the way to death ! The heavy blue velvet curtains were drawn back from the bed ; and, lying there, was a form young and fair, with a pale, exhausted face. Ever ything in the chamber spoke of wealth, comfort, luxury : but n ot all the' wealth and luxury of the whole world combined, had they been brought together, could have arrested the fastfleeting spirit already on its wing.

On the far side of the bed stood a pretty cradle, ornamented with blue silk and lace : the little child so quietly and unconsciously sleeping in it, had seen the light but yesterday. Leaning over the bed was a young man bowed down with grief, of attractive features and gentlemanly bearing. Not long had they been man and wife ; but a year at most ; and now it was hard to part ; doubly hard with this new tie which had been born to them. Yet they both knew it must be so, and he had thrown his arm lightly across her, and laid his cheek, wet with tears, against hers, vainly wishing, perhaps half hoping, that his heart's bitter prayers might avail to renew her life. The silence between them had been long and agonizing : each heart was aching with painful thoughts ; yet it seemed in that last hour as if they could not give them utterance.

May Heaven shed its balm on all such partings ! He raised his face and pushed his hair from his brow as he looked at her, for she had moved restlessly, as if in sudden pain. It was not pain of body : of that she was free in this, the passing : but pain of mind. An anxious care, one of the many she must leave on earth, was pressing upon that lady's brain. " When the months and the years go by," she murmured, breaking the silence, and clasping her hands in feeble supplica tion to him, "and you think of another wife, oh choose one that will be a mother to my child. Be not allured by beauty, be not tempted by wealth, be not ensnared by specious deceit ; but take one who will be to him the loving mother that I would have been. Some one whom you know well and can trust. Not a stranger, not a " " I shall never marry again," he interrupted in impassioned tones, when his first surprise allowed him to speak.

" Yoii, my first and only love, shall be the sole wife ever taken to my bosom. Never shall another woman usurp your place. And here I swear " " Hush ! hush ! " she panted, laying her hand upon his lips to stay the incautious words. " It were cruel of me to exact such a promise from you : and it would be useless for you to make it, for you would never keep it, save with self-upbraiding. The remembrance of this scene will pass away; the remem brance of me will pass ; and then you will ask yourself why should your life be condemned to solitude. No, no. To remain faithful to the dead is not in man's nature." He thought in his own heart, honestly thought it then, that her opinion was a mistaken one, and he marvelled that she should so speak. He felt as sure as he could feel of anything in this world, that he should prove a living refutation of it.

Dying though she was, partially oblivious already to earth and earth's interests, she yet saw clearer into human nature than he. " Yet oh, forget me not wholly ! " she whispered. " Let there be brief moments when the remembrance of me shall return to you ; when you will dwell upon me as having been the one you once best loved on earth ! " Another deep silence from words, for he could not answer : his sobs were choking him ; the pulses of his anguished heart were beating wildly. She spoke not from exhaustion ; and several minutes passed on. " What will you have him named ? " he asked abruptly, pointing towards the cradle. " Call him Benjamin," she replied, after a minute's thought, and she spoke now with difficulty. " He cost Rachel her life, as this child has cost mine. And oh, may he be to you the solace that Benjamin was to old Jacob ; and may you love and cherish this child as he did his !

" Her voice gradually failed her, a spasm smote her features, and she lay more heavily on the pillow. Her husband raised her : he clasped her fluttering heart to his ; he wildly kissed her pallid face. But that face was losing its look of conscious ness, and no tenderness could arrest the departing spirit. In a paroxysm of alarm : as if, now that the moment had come, it took him by surprise, a thing that had not been looked for : he cried out to the medical man in the adjoining chamber. Mr. Pym came in, followed by the nurse. He gave one glance at the bed, and then whispered the woman to summon the physicians. He knew their presence would be utterly useless, but at such times man deems it well to fulfil these outward forms. They hastened up the stairs. They remained but a few minutes in the room, and then left it ; soon left the house.

The better part of that lovely lady had quitted it before they did. And it was only the previous day that the joybells had rung but in the adjacent village on account of the birth ! Only this same morning that the local newspaper, wet from the press, had given forth the festal news to the world ! "On the ioth inst., at Alnwick Hall, the wife of George Carleton St. John, Esquire, of a son and heir." And the journal went its way, as journals do go their way, into many a neighbouring home, whose inmates made their comments on the one piece of news that was of more interest to them than all the rest, and congratulated each other on the birth of Alnwick's heir, little conscious of the tragedy that was supervening upon it. Amongst the houses to which the journal penetrated was one on the other side the village of Alnwick.

A small, unpretend ing dwelling, this house, standing a little away from the high road, but a pretty place withal, hidden amidst its surrounding shrubs and trees. It was called "The Cottage." Its mistress had named it so with a sort of affectation of humility, for it was superior to a cottage, even to an elegant one. Lying back in a lounging chair, in one of the pretty sitting rooms, where she had just thrown herself, not from illness but from fatigue, was the owner of the house, when the newspaper was taken in. A woman of nearly fifty years, but looking a great deal younger, with her still bright blue eyes and her auburn hair. She was a widow ; a widow for the second time. Barely twenty years of age when her first husband, Mr. Norris, died, she had soon espoused another, Colonel Darling. In ten years after that she was a widow again, and had remained so.

She chose to retain the name of Norris, without any right to it, and her cards were printed "Mrs. Norris Darling," so that people, especially strangers, hardly knew by which to address her, and sometimes called her Norris and sometimes Darling. The fact is, Mrs. Darling was a little given to pretension, as ladies will be, when conscious of a want of dignity in themselves or their surroundings. She had been packing things all the morning ; she, her maid, and two of her daughters ; for they were summoned from home unexpectedly ; and she was falling into a doze when the footman entered. " What is it ? " she asked in peevish accents ; and the man looked up in surprise at hearing it from his usually easy-tempered mistress. " It is only the newspaper, ma'am." " Put it down, Tomkins," she answered, too idle to take it.

" I think I was asleep. I am very tired." The man laid it on the table and quitted the room, meeting a staid-looking, rather old-fashioned young lady who was enter ing it, for whom he made way It was Miss Darling, and she looked thirty years of age if she looked a day. But she was only five-and-twenty. " Well, Mary Anne, is it all done? " "It is all done, mamma. Prance is waiting for Tomkins to cord the boxes." Mrs. Darling closed her eyes again, and her daughter took up the unopened newspaper, when another young lady, very much resembling the first, and looking quite as old, came in. She gave a slight shiver as she passed the window, and began to stir the fire. " What a miserable day it is ! I wish we could put off our journey." " Where's the use of wishing that, Margaret ? " said Miss Darling.

" But it is miserable. Has Charlotte found the cover of her desk?" " I don't know. I don't suppose Charlotte has looked for it. I heard her tell Prance that none of her things must be forgotten." " True. When did Charlotte ever trouble herself to look for anything ? " was Mary Anne Darling's response ; but she spoke it more in soliloquy than as a reply. Margaret Darling — she was one year younger than her sister — drew her chair in front of the fire, and put her feet upon the fender. " Is that the newspaper? Is there any news, Mary Anne?" " Yes, there's news," was the quiet answer : but Miss Darling's manner was always quiet. "A baby is born at the Hall." " What ? " exclaimed Mrs. Darling, starting up as she caught the words, and all her lethargy was gone. " Is the baby born, Mary Anne ? " For answer, Miss Darling read out the words : "On the ioth inst., at Alnwick Hall, the wife of George Carleton St. John, Esquire, of a son and heir."

" I am glad it's a boy ! " exclaimed Mrs. Darling. " How proud they will be of it! On the ioth — that was yesterday. Then rely upon it those bells Charlotte said she heard ringing, were for this. And now, how can I manage it ? I must contrive to see Mrs. St. John before we go away." " But why, mamma? " " Why ? " repeated Mrs. Darling, turning rather sharply on her daughter Mary Anne, who had asked the question. " Because I should like to do so ; because it's neighbourly to go to her, poor young mother ; because it may be months before we are back here, and I have the opportunity of seeing her again ; and because I'm curious to hear all the interesting particulars. That's why, Mary Anne : and I shall go." Mrs. Darling allowed no interference with her will — at least from these daughters, and Mary Anne was dutifully silent.

" I was only thinking, mamma, what an unpleasant day it would be for you to walk over," she presently said. " And I don't see how you will have time for it." "Plenty of time; and for the unpleasantness I don't care; you never yet knew me to stop indoors for weather. Pretty Mrs. St. John ! Let me read the announcement for myself." She took the paper in her hand, and was gazing at the words with a pleased smile, when the door again opened, and some one else entered the room. A tall, elegant girl of apparently only three or four-and-twenty, an imperious, regal, haughty girl, whose raven-black hair was braided over pale, regular features, and whose rich silk attire glistened and rustled as she walked. Who would have believed that she was older by some three or four years than the Miss Darlings ? — who would have believed that they were even half-sisters ? — she, with her stately beauty, her costly attire, and they with their homely faces, old-fashioned look, and plain green merino gowns.

Mrs. Darling had two daughters who absorbed all the money that she could spare for dress ; the eldest, Charlotte Norris, and the youngest, whom you will meet by and by ; no wonder that these two middle ones, Mary Anne and Margaret, with their meek spirits and quiet tastes, were obliged to dress in plain merinos. "Charlotte, here's news in the paper," Mary Anne was beginning, but Mrs. Darling drowned the words : and Mary Anne saw with some momentary surprise, that her mother had crushed the paper in her hand, as if not caring that it should be seen. " Charlotte, my darling, would you mind telling Prance that I shall want my black silk cloak taken out of the hair-trunk again ? Go to her now, dear, before she has it corded." Miss Norris, who had still the door-handle in her hand, quitted the room again.

Mrs. Darling turned to her daughters. " Say nothing to Charlotte of this announcement. I will tell her of it myself. It is my pleasure to do so." " I beg your pardon, mamma," said Mary Anne. " Of course you know best." Mrs. Darling did know best. At any rate, the two daughters before her were taught to think so. Mary Anne and Margaret Darling had been reared to implicit obedience in one respect — never to question the line of conduct pursued by Mrs. Darling to their half-sister; never to comment on it in the slightest degree. Mrs. Darling folded the newspaper as small as she could, crammed it into her pocket, and followed Charlotte upstairs. Later in the day she set out to walk to Alnwick Hall. It was growing dark, and she had not intended to be so late as this, but one thing or another had detained her.

The Hall was nearly three miles distant from her own home, through the village of Alnwick ; but the road was by no means lonely in any part of it. She walked quickly, not stopping to speak to any one she met, and had left the village behind her some time, and was nearing the Hall, when the death-bell of Alnwick church rang out suddenly, but not very distinctly, on the heavy air. It was quite dark then. " Poor old Mother Tipperton must be gone ! " Mrs. Darling exclaimed to herself, standing for a moment to listen. " Pym told me she could not last long. Well, it was time : I suppose she was eighty." Not another thought, except of old Mother Tipperton, entered her mind ; not the faintest suspicion that the bell was tolling for one younger and fairer. She went on, over the broad winding way through the beautiful park, and gained the door of Alnwick Hall.

It might have struck her — but it did not — that besides the man who opened the door to her, other servants came peeping into the hall, as if in curiosity as to the visitor. She stepped over the threshold out of the gloomy night. " How is your mistress, Haines ? Going on all right ? " she asked, rubbing her shoes on the mat. " Oh, ma'am, she's dead ! " Mrs. Darling certainly heard the words, but they appeared not to penetrate her senses. She stared at the speaker. " She is just dead, ma'am ; not an hour ago. Two physicians were had to her, besides Mr. Pym, but nothing could be done." Down sat Mrs. Darling on the hall bench. Perhaps only once before, in her whole life, had she been so seized with consternation. "Dead! Good Heavens ! I came to sit half-an-hour with her before leaving Alnwick, for I may not be back for months.

What an awful thing ! Poor Caroline Carleton ! " Drawing her cloak around her, Mrs. Darling crossed the hall towards the housekeeper's room, unconsciously calling the de ceased by her maiden name, the one she had longest known her by. " I should like to see the nurse," she said, " if she can spare a moment to come to me." The housekeeper, a stout, very respectable woman, who had come to the hall a year ago with its now dead mistress, was at the table writing a note as well as she could for her tears, when Mrs. Darling entered. Laying down her pen, she told all she knew of the calamity, in reply to the low and eager questions. But Mrs. Darling grew impatient. "A fine beautiful baby, you say — never mind the baby, Mrs. Tritton. What can have caused the death ? " The stout old lady shook her head.

" She died from ex haustion, they say, ma'am. But she had a fall a few days ago, and I believe that had something to do with it. I can't bear to think of it just yet. Alive and well and merry but a day or two since ; and now dead ! It seems like a dream." Her sobs deepened. The ready tears filled Mrs. Darling's eyes. She wiped them away, and inquired what would be done about bringing up the child. Mrs. Darling was a practical woman, and had never allowed feeling to interfere with business. " That's the first great care," was the reply of the house keeper. " Mr. Pym does not know of any one just now that could come in. I suppose it will have to be brought up by hand : and the master, I believe, wishes that it should be. As Mr. Pym says, the boy's so big and strong, that he'd bring him self up almost, if you put him outside the street-door.

And it's true." " Does Mr. St. John take it much to heart ? " " Ay, that he does," was the emphatic reply. " He is shut up in his own room where he keeps his business papers and things. But, ma'am " — and the tone was suddenly subdued — " a body going by, and pausing a moment, may hear his sobs. If any young husband ever loved a wife, Mr. Carleton St. John loved his. Poor child ! she's gone early to join her parents ! " Mrs. Darling, who had her full share of curiosity — and what woman has not, in a case like this ? — stole upstairs to see the baby ; to see the baby's poor young mother ; to talk for a minute or two with the nurse, Mrs. Dade, who could not come to her. And then she stole down again ; for time was getting on. The housekeeper asked her to take some refreshment, but she declined, explaining that a summons to her sick mother, who was very old, was taking her and her daughters away from home.

They were starting that evening by the seven-o'clock night train. "And they are at the station already, I am sure," she said ; "and I must run all the way to it. Sad news this is, to cheer me on my journey ! " Sad indeed. And the public thought so as well as Mrs. Darling. The same week the newspapers put forth another announcement. "On the nth inst., at Alnwick Hall, in her twenty-third year, Caroline, the beloved wife of George Carleton St. John."

Chapter II

faithful to the dead. "To remain faithful to the dead is not in man's nature." Such were the words spoken by Mrs. Carleton St. John in dying ; and a greater truth was never recorded by Solomon. The seasons had gone on ; spring had succeeded to winter ; summer to spring ; autumn was succeeding to summer. Nothing like a twelvemonth had passed since the death, and yet rumour was whispering that George Carleton St. John had begun to think of a second wife. The baby had thrived from its birth. Mr. St. John appeared to have an invincible repugnance to any woman's supplying the place of its mother ; and so they fed the child upon the next best food that was proper for it, and it had done well. The housekeeper strongly recommended Mr. St. John a niece of her own to take care of it, and the young woman arrived from a distance; a comely, fair-complexioned, nice-looking young woman, named Honoria Tritton ; and she entered upon her charge.

All things went smoothly; and Mr. St. John's first grief yielded to time and change : as all griefs must so yield, under God's mercy. Friends had come to visit Mr. St. John during the summer. Relatives, they were, indeed, but distant ones. Gay people they proved to be ; and they stayed on, and gradually the Hall held its festal gatherings again, and its master began to go out amongst the county families. Whether it might be to escape the sorrow left on him by his great loss, or to make things pleasanter for these visitors, certain it was that George St. John no longer eschewed gaiety, whether in his own house or abroad. Mrs. Tritton's opinion was, that he had invited his relatives to stay with him, because he found his life now at the Hall so monotonously dull. If so, their advent had had the desired effect, and had taken him out of himself and his trouble.

It is surprising, when once an effort of this sort is made, and we awaken from a prolonged grief, how easily that grief is laid aside. Unconsciously it seems to slip away from us, and is forgotten. From that eleventh day of November down to June, Mr. St. John had done nothing but indulge his sorrow. It had grown calmer, of course, by degrees ; but he had not in the least striven to lift from himself its bitterness. No very long term, some may say, this seven months ; but let me tell you that it is long when given wholly to tears and solitude. A re action must succeed to all violent emotion, even to that caused by the death of one dearly beloved ; and it came to George St. John; came with the sojourn of his visitors. A fortnight's association with them, and he was not the same man. As host, he had to exert himself, and with the exertion came the pleasure in it.