Chapter XIV: St. Martin's Eve

It was the 10th of November, St. Martin's Eve, the birthday of the young chief of Alnwick, and of his little brother George; the first birthday, as you will remember, since the death of Mr. Carleton St. John, and of the boy's inheritance. Benja was five, George three, that day.

The day was one of ovation for Benja. With early morning a serenade of music had been heard underneath the windows, proceeding from some of the tenantry; the servants came in with their respectful congratulations; and sundry visitors drove up after breakfast to pay the same. A present had arrived for Benja in the morning from General Carleton--a handsome gold watch, which must have cost twenty or thirty guineas. The General had never married, and knew far less about children than he did about Hottentots, so no doubt thought a gold watch was a suitable present for a young gentleman of five. Benja was highly pleased with the costly toy, and of course wished to appropriate it forthwith; so Honour attached some black watered-ribbon to it, which she put round his neck, and let him display the watch and key from his belt. It was a key and seal in one; Master Benja's crest and initials were engraved on it, and it was attached to the watch by a short gold chain.

Matters were not progressing favourably between Prance and Honour. And if you think, my readers, that the squabbles of two maid-servants are, or ought to be, too insignificant to be thus frequently alluded to, I can only say that the fact bears so much upon the tragic event soon to be related, that the allusion could not be avoided. About a fortnight before this, Honour had had a day's holiday to go and see some relatives; she had wished to take Benja with her, but Mrs. St. John would not allow it, and he was left under the charge of Prance. In the course of the afternoon, Mrs. St. John drove over to Alnwick Cottage, taking George. They remained there to dinner, and during this absence of hers Prance and Benja came to an issue. When Honour returned to the Hall--and she reached it before Mrs. St. John did--she found that Benja had not only been whipped with more severity than was seemly, but that he had been locked up alone in an isolated room, where his cries could not be heard. She found him exhausted with weeping, marks raised on his back--altogether in a sad state. Whether, as Prance affirmed, Master Benja had been unbearably insolent to her; whether, as Honour said and believed, she must maliciously have taken the opportunity to pay off old scores of dislike to him, was not satisfactorily settled. Probably the real fact might lie between the two. But you may judge what sort of an explosion came from Honour. Prance shut herself up in her chamber, and would vouchsafe no answer to it; the servants took part with Honour, for Prance had never yet found favour with them. Mrs. St. John returned home in the midst of the commotion. Honour carried Benja and the complaint to her; but she seemed to treat it with indifference, and did not reprove Prance, as far as the household could learn. Honour had been in a state of indignation from that day to this, and her animosity to Prance was bitter. "She'd kill the boy if she could," was a remark of hers that went openly through the house.

Mrs. St. John sat in her drawing-room, waiting for the boys. She had promised to dine with them that day at two, and cut the birthday-pudding, foregoing her usual late dinner. Being a rather strict disciplinarian as to the children taking their meals regularly, she preferred to change her own hour for once, not theirs. The boys were being attired, and she sat waiting for them, her outward demeanour calm as usual, her mind a very chaos of rebellious tumult.

The marks of honour shown to Benja that day had not been extended to George. They were paid to the boy as _the heir_, not simply as Benja St. John. People had kissed Georgy, and wished him many happy returns, but there it ended. There had been no court paid to him, no music, no set congratulations; _they_ had been rendered to the chief of Alnwick. And Mrs. St. John was resenting this; ah, how bitterly! It was the first time the wide contrast between the position of the boys had been brought palpably before her, and but for the very greatest control, she had burst into a frenzy.

"I can't bear it; I can't bear it," she exclaimed to herself, clasping her hands in pain. "Why should my boy be displaced for that other--despised--passed over as nothing! My darling! my life! my all! If he had only been born first; if he had only been born first!"

She unclasped her hands, and bent her head down on them, striving to subdue her emotion; striving, indeed, to put away the unhealthy train of thought. None knew better than herself how utterly futile it was to indulge it, how much happier it would be for her if she could drive it away to some far-off Lethe, whence it would never rise again. There is not the least doubt that this poor young woman, who had been born into the world with unwholesome passions, and had not had them checked in childhood, was really trying to do a good part by her stepson; and she believed she was doing it. She relied entirely on her own strength: she had not learnt yet where to look for any other. The daily struggle was getting rather formidable. It was directed to two points: on the one hand, she strove partially to hide her most passionate love for her own child; on the other, she tried to overcome her jealous dislike of Benja. But there were times, as today, when this jealousy raged within her, seeming to scorch her breast to madness.

The children came in, radiant with good humour and happiness: Benja with his face of intelligence, Georgy with his shower of fair curls and pretty ways. Mrs. St. John lifted her pale face and kissed them both: she _was_ striving, in her own feeble way, against her evil spirit. They wore new black velvet birthday-dresses, with narrow crimped cambric frills round the neck, and on the left sleeve of each dress was a knot of crape, badge of their mourning. From Benja's belt was conspicuously displayed the new watch; and Benja did not tire of rattling the chain. Even that little trifle, the present of the watch, was made a subject of resentment by Mrs. St. John. Benja had two watches now. In the last days of his father's illness he had taken his watch off and given it to Benja. "When he shall be twelve years old, Charlotte, let him take it into use," he said to his wife. Yes; Benja had two watches; Georgy none.

Georgy began, in his noisy fashion, to climb on his mother's knee, and Mrs. St. John threw back the white crape lappets of her cap as she clasped the boy to her. Georgy, however, did not favour clasping as a rule, and he struggled out of it now.

"What's that?" cried he, snatching at a note that lay on the table at his mother's elbow.

"That's a note from grandmamma, Georgy; she cannot come to us today."

"Oh, I am so sorry," cried Benja, who was exceedingly fond of Mrs. Darling, always kind and good-humoured to the children. "Why can't she come, mamma?"

"She's not well," answered Mrs. St. John, languidly, but in a tone that seemed to indicate she did not care much about the matter, one way or the other. Mrs. Darling had been invited to spend the birthday with them; but in the note just received from her by Mrs. St. John, she intimated that she was very unwell indeed. A rare excuse for Mrs. Darling to put forward, who was always in the possession of rude health.

"Mamma, me want a watch."

"You shall have one, my son."

"When?" continued Georgy. "As soon as I can get out to buy you one."

"One that goes, like Benja's?" demanded Master Georgy.

"It shall be the best gold watch that I can buy for money," answered Mrs. St. John, allowing the passionate emotion that the subject called up to become momentarily apparent.

An opportune interruption intervened: the butler came in and announced dinner. Mrs. St. John, feeling a relief, she could not tell from what, went quickly to the dining-room, Georgy held in her hand, Benja following.

It was a sumptuous repast. The housekeeper had put forth her strength to do honour to the birthdays; but, had you asked her _why_ she had so exerted herself, she might have said it was the heir she had thought of, more than the little one. Inviting as the entertainment was, however, there was one of the three who did little justice to it, and that was Mrs. St. John. She could not eat: but, as if the fire of her restless spirit had imparted itself to her body, she drank frequently, as one parched with thirst. Sherry and champagne were the wines used with dinner. She was kind and attentive to the boys, helping both to whatever dishes they chose, and to as much as they chose. Prance, who was in attendance upon Master George, seeing that his birthday-dress did not come to grief, forgot her good manners by telling him that he "ate enough for a little pig:" of which Mrs. St. John took no manner of notice, but continued to heap his plate according to his fancy. Honour was not present, Master Benja being considered old enough now to be waited on by the men-servants.

Dinner came to an end, the servants and Prance withdrew, and the children were left to take dessert with their mamma. Mrs. St. John was drinking port wine then and cracking walnuts, of which fruit she was very fond. By-and-by, when the boys grew tired of sitting, they slid off their chairs, and began to look out for some amusement. Had Mrs. St. John been wise, she would have rung the nursery-bell then, and sent them to the nursery, where they might play at leisure; but she was absorbed with her walnuts and port wine, and did nothing of the sort. After capering about for a short time, George went up to Benja.

"Let me have the watch on now," he began.

"No," said Benja, "you'll break it."

"Me shan't break it," lisped Georgy.

"I'm afraid," returned Benja, rather undecidedly. "Honour said you would."

"Mamma, Benja won't let me have his watch!"

"Don't ask him, my darling," said Mrs. St. John, her mother's heart more resentful at the refusal than Georgy's was, for the conversation had penetrated to her senses. "I will buy you a better one than that."

"But me want that now," retorted resolutely Master George, who had a will of his own. "Me won't break it, Benja."

Benja possessed one of the kindest hearts beating. He looked at his watch, thinking he should not like it to be broken, and then he looked at Georgy, who stood turning up his pretty face, eagerly protesting he would take care of it. In another moment, Benja had hung the watch round the younger one's neck.

Gratification enough for the time. Georgy paraded up and down the room, the watch hanging before him on his velvet tunic, as if the walls were alive with eyes, and he was challenging their admiration. Presently he stood still, took off the watch, and began to open it.

"Don't do that," interposed Benja, who had been watching all the time. "You'll spoil it. Give it back to me."

"No," said Master George, very positively.

"Give it back to me, I tell you, Georgy."

"Give him back his watch, Georgy, my dearest," interrupted Mrs. St. John. "Let him keep it to himself if he is so selfish."

Benja, child though he was, felt a sense of injustice. But the reproach told, and he made no further remonstrance. There was ever a certain timidity in his heart when in the presence of Mrs. St. John. So George thought he could go as far as he pleased with impunity, and his next movement was to take firm hold of the short gold chain and swing the watch round and round after the manner of a rattle.

"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried Benja, in an agony, running up to Mrs. St. John and laying his hands upon her knee, to attract her attention, "do not let him spoil my watch. See what he is doing with it!"

Mrs. St. John's usual self-control deserted her. That self-control, I mean, which enabled her to treat Benja and George with equal justice. Whether the morning's doings, the ovations to Benja, were really exciting her more than she could bear, or whether--but let that pass for the present. However it might be, she tacitly refused to interfere, and pushed Benja from her with a gesture of dislike. The boy, finding he could get no redress where it ought to have been afforded, ran back to Georgy and seized him just as he was flying to his mother for protection. The naughty, spoiled child, finding he might no longer retain possession of the watch, dashed it into a far corner, and they heard its glass crash on the floor, beyond the turkey carpet.

Benja was by nature a sweet-tempered child: he had also been kept under by Mrs. St. John; but this was more than he could bear. He burst into a loud fit of weeping, and struck out at Georgy with all his might and main. Georgy roared, screamed, kicked, and tried to bite.

As a tigress flies to protect its young, up rose Mrs. St. John, her voice loud, her eyes wearing that strangely wild look at times observable there. A passion, mad and fierce as that you once saw her in, in the presence of her husband, overpowered her now. As she had hurled Benja to the ground that ever-to-be-remembered day, so she would have hurled him this; but the boy was older and stronger now, and he struggled against it. Better that he had yielded! It might in a degree have appeased the mad woman who was upon him: and his strength was as nothing compared with hers. His little head was struck against the table, his costly new birthday-dress was torn. He screamed with pain, Georgy screamed with terror, and Honour, who happened to be near the door at the time, came rushing in.

"Good Heavens!" she exclaimed, "what is it? What has he done?"

"Me took his watch," sobbed little Georgy, in a fit of remorseful generosity. "Me not want mamma to hit him like that."

"How can you for shame treat him in such a manner, ma'am?" cried Honour, indignantly, as her own passion rose; and she spoke to her mistress as she had never dared to speak before. "Poor orphan child I Nobody to protect him! How can you reconcile it to the memory of my dead master?"

Mrs. Carleton St. John stood glaring at the girl, her hand pointed imperiously, her voice low now with command. It was as if some soothing oil had been thrown on the wounds of passion.

"Tomorrow morning you quit my service, Honour Tritton? I never tolerate insolence, and I find that you have been here too long. Take that boy out of my sight."

Somehow in the fray, they had all hemmed themselves into a corner, and the broken glass was cracking under Mrs. St. John's feet. Honour picked up the watch with a jerk which bespoke the temper she was in, clasped the sobbing boy tenderly in her arms, and went upstairs with him, meeting Prance at the dining-room door, as she was gliding in.

"It's a burning shame!" broke forth Honour, sitting down by the nursery fire and dashing the coals about with the poker, while she held Benja to her with the other hand--"it's a burning shame that he should be so treated! If she does turn me away, I'll go every step of the way to Castle Wafer and tell all I know to your guardian, Benja. If I don't do it, may Heaven never prosper me!"

Poor little ill-treated child! He lay there in her lap, smarting with the pain, his trembling heart beating.

"Let the worst come to the worst, my precious lamb, it can only be for a few years," began Honour again. "I know it said in my master's will that you were to be sent early to Eton."

"What's Eton?" sobbed Benja.

"Something very good," rejoined Honour, who had no definite ideas on the subject herself. "And when you are of age, my darling, all Alnwick will be yours, and she and Master Georgy must turn out of it."

"Where will they go?" asked Benja.

"I don't know where, and it don't matter where," continued the woman in her injudicious partisanship. "You will be master at Alnwick, and nobody can live here then unless you choose to let them."

"Who is master now?" questioned Benja.

"You are, my pretty boy, and have been ever since your papa died; only she lives, in it and gives orders because you are not old enough. Master's wits must have gone a wool-gathering," added the exasperated Honour in soliloquy, "when he left her with any power over the child at all."

Honour was right in the main.

Benja remained on her lap, his sobs gradually subsiding. He lay thinking of many things, such as occur to children, his ideas running from one topic to another. Presently he spoke.

"Honour, when is my church to be finished?"

"Suppose I finish it this afternoon," cried Honour, starting up. "There's scarcely anything left of it to do, and if I am turned away it may never get done at all."

Opening a closet-door, she took from it what seemed to be the model of a very pretty country church, with its spire, begun in pursuance of her promise to Benja after the visit to the "Emporium of Foreign Curiosities." Like many another thing entered upon in haste, this coveted treasure had not yet been completed. The fact was, Honour found more trouble over it than she had anticipated, and Benja, in the protracted waiting, forgot his eagerness, All that was left to be done now was the pasting on of the coloured windows. They were cut out of thin rose paper; the walls of the structure being of thicker paper and white, and the framework of thin wood.

Honour collected her materials, and soon accomplished her task, though she had not been sparing of her windows. Benja forgot his troubles in watching her. She had taken off his velvet dress, with many a lamentation over the rent, and put on him a brown-holland tunic, handsomely trimmed with black silk braid. Over that she tied a white pinafore, lest he should make too free acquaintance with the paste.

At dusk all was completed, and this famous church lighted up by means of the bit of candle inside. Benja clapped his hands with delight. It was a novel, ingenious, picturesque sight, especially to a child. The fire had burned low and there was no other light in the room, so that the church was shown off to perfection, and was a really striking and conspicuous object. Suddenly the flame inside began to whiffle.

"It's the draught from that door," observed Honour. "Shut it, Benja; shut it gently."

She spoke of the door which opened into Mrs. St. John's dressing-room. It is possible that you may remember there was formerly no door there; but Mrs. St. John had caused one to be made at the birth of George, that she might pass into the nursery at will, without going into the corridor. Now that George was beyond babyhood, this door was generally kept bolted, the bolt being on Mrs. St. John's side, not any on that of the nursery; but it was sometimes, as now, left open.

Honour turned her head to the door as she spoke, and saw the little boy place his hands upon the panel to push it to, after the manner of children, and it closed gently. Benja came to the table again to feast his eyes. The flame was steady now.

"There ought to be moss all round here," observed Honour, pointing to the board on which the church rested. "But it's too late to put it on tonight: and, for the matter of that, I have no moss. If I stop, we will ask the gardener to get some."

Benja did not care for the moss. To his admiring eyes nothing could improve its present aspect. He gazed at it on the drawers, he danced before it on the table, he carried it to and fro in the room, obeying Honour's injunctions to keep it upright and steady. In this manner some time passed, and they allowed the fire to go out.

"Bother take the fire!" ejaculated Honour. "And I have neither wood nor matches up here."

She had her hand upon the bell, when it suddenly occurred to her that she would go down for the things herself. No one living liked a gossip better than she, and the scene in the dining-room was burning her tongue. Placing the church on the table, and strictly charging Benja not to touch it while she was away, Honour went out by the ordinary door, and descended the backstairs. To this door, and I would have you note the difference, the fastening was inside. It was not a bolt, but a common button, placed high up beyond reach of the children.

Never had Honour relished a gossip more than the one she now entered on with the servants. Every little detail of the dining-room affray, so far as she had been a witness to it, was related by her to the servants, who did not spare their comments or their sympathy. Honour was quite unable to tear herself away, until by the striking of the clock she found she must have been there nearly half-an-hour. Hardly believing her ears, she caught up a bundle of faggots and a box of matches, popped them into her apron, together with a pair of snuffers and an extinguisher, and ran up the stairs. Turning the handle of the door to enter hastily, she was surprised to find that she could not open it.

"Master Benja, why have you fastened the door?" she called out. "Come and undo it."

There was no reply.

"He must have got upon a chair and turned the button," soliloquized Honour. But at that moment she became conscious of a smell of burning, as of wool. Letting the things she carried fall with a crash, she flew along the passage and turned into her mistress's dressing-room, that she might obtain entrance that way. That door was also fastened, but on the outer side. It was no unusual occurrence--in fact, it was usually kept bolted, as was just now observed, and Honour at the moment thought nothing of it. Slipping back the bolt, she went in.

Oh! what did Honour see! Where was the young heir of Alnwick? A dark mass smouldering on the floor at the far end of the room, the carpet smouldering, no trace whatever remaining of the pretty and dangerous toy she had made, no trace of _him_, save that shapeless heap from which the spirit had flown!

With awful cries, with wild shrieks of terrified alarm, Honour flew through the dressing-room, and down the grand staircase, her cries arousing the household, arousing Mrs. St. John.