Chapter XV: Conflicting Statements

How the night subsequently went on, few at the Hall could tell. For some time it was one scene of horror and confusion. One of the grooms, unbidden, saddled a horse and went galloping for Mr. Pym; and in an almost incredibly short space of time, the surgeon was there. But what could he do? That one precious little spirit had gone, never to be recalled by leech of this world. Another, however, wanted the attentions of Mr. Pym,--and that was little George. The child, aroused by the cries of Honour from a sleep he had fallen into in the dining-room, had escaped upstairs into the nursery. A rush of terror overtook him, baby though he was, at what he saw there, and at being told it was Benja, and he fell into a succession of fits of sickness and shivering.

It must be assumed--it was so assumed in the house--that this burning was the result of accident; the result, it may also be said, of Honour Tritton's carelessness. She had gone down secure in the belief that the boy would obey her mandate and not touch the church. Oh, how could she have been so foolish! To look at a new toy and not touch it, to gaze at its attractions from a distance and not examine them, is philosophy beyond a child. Perhaps the little boy--for he was an obedient boy naturally--tried for some minutes to exercise his patience; but no doubt could be entertained that he at length took the church in his hands again. In how short a time the accident occurred, and how it occurred, was as yet unknown--it may be said, it was hidden in mystery.

The position of those in the house during this time appeared to be as follows. The servants were all downstairs, with the exception of Prance; and Honour, as you have heard, was with them. Mrs. St. John and George were shut up in the dining-room, the latter asleep, the former, as she said, nearly if not quite asleep also. Where Prance was at the time did not as yet appear, neither had any question been raised in regard to it.

But in the midst of the dreadful horror which had taken possession of the unhappy Honour, two points thrust themselves prominently forward in her brain. The one was, How did the child get fastened in the room? the other was, that she had seen Prance hiding in a recess of the passage as she ran along it. This was not so much a remembrance as a conviction; and it seemed to Honour as if she had not noticed, or had very superficially noticed, Prance's being there at the time, but the fact had flashed into her mind afterwards. On the opposite side of the passage, about midway between the nursery-door and the dressing-room door, the recess was situated--a small arched recess. Poor Mr. Carleton St. John in his lifetime had wondered laughingly whether the architect had put it there for ornament or for use.

The first person Mr. Pym sought on his arrival, after he had taken a hopeless look at that sight in the nursery, where the floor was now half-inundated by the water employed to put the fire out, was Mrs. St. John. She was in the dining-room, and he found her almost unnaturally calm and collected; some people are so in these moments of calamity. The only sign of emotion was her death-like pallor. She gave him the account of what had occurred, so far, she observed, as she knew it; candidly confessing to the fracas that had taken place in the room after dinner. Benja had set upon George unmercifully, and in return she had corrected Benja: boxed his ears, and, she really believed, had shaken him. It was very rare indeed that she was so hasty with either of the children; and she would give the whole world not to have touched him, now that he was gone. After Honour took him away to the nursery, she had remained in the dining-room, not quitting it until disturbed by the shrieks of Honour. Prance came in once or twice to ask if she should take George, but she did not let him go. The boy went to sleep in his papa's large chair, and she sat down by him and took his legs upon her lap. She was nearly asleep herself when the cries began, and she had felt startled almost to death. The whole fault, she feared, lay with Honour. The woman had confessed the facts in the first moment of terror: she had left Benja alone with some dangerous paper toy lighted up with a candle, while she went downstairs and stayed gossiping with the servants. The poor little fellow must have set himself on fire.

"But did no one hear his cries?" asked Mr. Pym, who had not previously interrupted the narrative.

Mrs. St. John supposed not. All she knew was, that they had not penetrated to the dining-room. The surgeon listened. He knew the walls on that side the house were massive, and if the child was shut up in the nursery--as it appeared he had been--it was hardly likely that he would be heard, unless any one had happened to be upstairs. The dining-room was in the other wing of the house, its doors were double; and the kitchens were beyond the dining-room.

"The odd thing to me is, that he did not run out of the room," cried Mr. Pym. "A strong lad of five years old would hardly stop in a room to be burnt, for the want of escaping out of it. The first thing most of us attempt in a similar calamity is to run from the room: often a fatal step. But he does not seem to have attempted it."

Mrs. St. John shook her head. She did not know any of the details: they must of course be left to supposition. Honour deserved hanging for having left the child alone with a lighted toy.

It was at this juncture that Mr. Pym's attention was called to George. The child was very sick; had been sick at intervals since the fright. After attending to him; Mr. Pym went in search of Honour. He found her alone, in a lamentable state of distress, in the bedroom that had been hers and the unhappy child's.

And now it must be mentioned that Honour had been arriving at a sudden and very dreadful doubt. As the mists cleared away from her brain and she was able to reflect more calmly upon the probabilities of the accident, she began to think whether it had not been wilfully caused. And the doubt was assuming the aspect of certainty in her mind, when Mr. Pym came in.

For some minutes she could not speak; she could only cry and sob, and cover her face with her apron in very shame and remorse. Mr. Pym did not reproach her in her distress: he rather set himself, when she had gathered calmness, to learn what he could of the particulars. Honour freely confessed all. She told of the affair in the dining-room, giving a different colouring to it from that her mistress had done, and causing Mr. Pym's grey eyebrows to scowl themselves into ugliness. She told how she had afterwards finished the church for him, describing what it was, and where the idea had been taken from. She said she had left it with him lighted, had gone down for wood, and stayed talking the best part of half-an-hour. Not a thing did she conceal; not a point that could tell against herself did she gloss over.

"He was always an obedient boy," she wailed, "and I did not think he would touch it when I bade him not. And I never thought I had been down so long, till I heard the clock strike!"

"It is strange you did not hear his cries!"

"The kitchens are too far off."

"And it is very strange that the boy did not run out of the room: unless smoke overpowered him from the first. I cannot make out why he did not. It is a bad plan in general, but in this instance it might have saved his life by bringing help to him."

Honour made no immediate remark. She had been sitting in a low chair, swaying her body backwards and forwards in her distress. Suddenly she looked up at the surgeon and spoke in a low tone.

"I want to know who fastened the doors."

"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Pym, after a pause of surprise.

"I don't think he was burnt by accident, sir," she continued, glancing at the walls as if afraid of being overheard, and speaking in the faintest possible whisper. "I think it was done on purpose."

"Good Heavens, woman!" exclaimed the astonished surgeon, really wondering whether the trouble was turning her brain.

"There are things connected with it that I can't understand," she continued. "They did not strike me particularly at the moment, but they do now that I can think of them. He _couldn't_ get out of the room; he was fastened in."

That she was not suffering from mental aberration at present, was apparent enough to the surgeon; the girl was as sane as he was. Honour thought he was never going to leave off staring at her.

"When I left him upstairs, I left both doors open; that is, unfastened," she went on. "When I got back again, both were fastened; the one on the inside, the other on the out. _I want to know who did it_."

It might have been a fancy of Honour's, but she thought the doctor changed countenance. "Are you sure of this?" he asked.

"As sure as I am that I am living and my darling child is dead."

Mr. Pym's eyebrows contracted themselves yet more. "Just describe to me consecutively what occurred, will you?" he said. "How did you know that the doors were fastened?"

"Because I couldn't get in," said Honour, thinking it rather a simple question. "When I got back with my little bundle of faggots, I found the door was buttoned inside. I thought the child had got upon the chair and done it; but, short as the moment was that I had for thought, it struck me as being strange, for I had never known him to do such a thing before. As I called to him to unfasten it, I fancied there was a smell of burning, and I ran round through my mistress's dressing-room and turned the handle of the door to open it, and found that door was also fastened, bolted on the outside. The smell was very strong then, and in my frenzy I forgot the strangeness of the circumstance, for the door is in general kept bolted----"

"Then why should you be surprised at finding it bolted then?" interrupted Mr. Pym.

"Because it was not bolted when I went down," returned Honour. "It was open while I was finishing the church, and I told the child to shut it, as the draught caused the flame inside the paper walls to whiffle about. He pushed the door to with his dear little hands, and I watched him. That's how I know it was unfastened then, sir."

"In your flurry afterwards, when you attempted to enter, you perhaps only fancied it was fastened," suggested Mr. Pym.

"No, sir. When I tried to open it and could not, I found the bolt was pushed into the grove to its full extent. The end came beyond the grove, and I pushed it back with my fingers."

Mr. Pym rose impulsively, as if he would look at the door for himself; but halted suddenly and sat down again.

"That could not have been done without hands," proceeded Honour. "And why was it done?"

The surgeon made no attempt to answer the question. He seemed very greatly put out, as if the revelation had alarmed or unnerved him, scarcely noticing Honour.

"Mrs. St. John says she heard nothing," he presently observed to himself, as one in abstraction. "Honour," he continued in straightforward tones to the girl, "I think you must be mistaken. There appears to have been no one upstairs who would have bolted it. Mrs. St. John tells me she did not quit the dining-room: the servants say they never came up at all during the afternoon."

"One of them was up," rejoined Honour in the same low voice, and the same roving gaze round the walls, "and that was Prance. I saw her myself; I can't be mistaken. Does _she_ say she was not upstairs, sir?"

"She has said nothing to me one way or the other," replied Mr. Pym. "I heard it said generally that the servants had not been upstairs."

"Prance was; and if she says she was not, she tells a lie. She was hidden in the recess outside, opposite the doors."

"Hidden in the recess. When?"

"After I dropped the things from my apron, and was running round to the dressing-room, I saw Prance standing inside the recess; she was squeezing herself against the wall, sir, as if afraid I should see her."

"Did you speak to her?"

"No, sir; and you may feel surprised at what I am going to say, but it's the truth. I was so flurried at the time, what with finding the first door fastened and with the smell of burning, that I did not seem then to be conscious of seeing her. I suppose my eyes took in the impression without conveying it to my mind. But afterwards it all came into my mind, and I remembered it, and how she was standing. It was just as if she had fastened the doors, and then put herself there to listen to the child's dying cries."

"Hush," authoritatively reproved Mr. Pym. "You are not yourself, girl, or you would not say it."

"I don't think I am," candidly acknowledged Honour, bursting into tears. "My brain feels as if it were on the turn to madness. Prance has been cross and hard and cruel to the child always, and I'm naturally excited against her."

"But she would not shut the doors upon him if he were burning," retorted the surgeon, some anger in his tone. "You should be careful what you say."

"I wish I could be put out of my misery!" sobbed Honour. "I wish they'd hang me for my carelessness in leaving him alone with a lighted toy! I did do that; and I hope I shall be punished for it. I shall never know another happy moment. Thus far the fault is mine. But I did not fasten the doors upon him, so that he could not escape for his life: and I am perfectly certain that in any fright, or calamity, or danger, the child's first impulse would have been to fly down the backstairs to me."

She threw her apron over her head, sobbing and crying, and swaying her body backwards and forwards on the chair as before, in the intensity of her emotion. The surgeon sat still a few moments, endeavouring to recall his scattered senses, and then rose and touched her shoulder to command attention. She let fall her apron.

"This thing that you affirm must be investigated, look you, Honour. For--for--for the sake of all, it must be sifted to the bottom. No one in their right minds," he emphatically added, "would shut the doors upon a burning child; and that appears to be the theory you have adopted, so far as I can gather it. Have you stated these facts to your mistress?"

"I have not seen her since," answered Honour. "Except at the first moment, when I ran down in my terror."

"And she came out of the dining-room then?"

"She did, sir. The little child--he is the heir now--ran out after her."

"Honour," said the surgeon, gravely and earnestly, "I do not fancy the bent of your thought just now is a wholesome one. You had better put it from you. I want you to come with me and tell your mistress about the doors being fastened."

He went out of the room, Honour following. In the passage outside, suspiciously near to the door, was Prance. She made a feint of being in a hurry, and was whisking down the backstairs.

"Here, Prance, I want you," said the surgeon. "I was about to ask you to come to me."

The woman turned at once, quite readily, as it appeared, and quite unruffled. She stood calm, cool, quiet, before Mr. Pym, in her neat black gown and silk apron, the black ribbon strings of her close cap tied underneath her chin. Not a shade of change was observable on her impassive face, not the faintest hue of emotion lighted her pale, sharp features.

"This is a very dreadful thing, Prance," he began.

"It is, indeed, sir," she answered in her measured tones, which, if they had not any demonstrative feeling in them, had certainly no irreverence.

"How did the doors get fastened on the unfortunate boy?"

Prance paused for about the hundredth part of a minute. "I was not aware they were fastened, sir." And the answer appeared to be really genuine.

"Honour says they were. Upon returning from the kitchen, and attempting to enter by this door"--pointing to the one still closed on the miserable scene--"she found she could not enter. The inside button had been turned during her absence below. Did you go into the nursery yourself and fasten it? No one else, I believe, is in the habit of frequenting the nursery but you and Honour."

"I did not go, sir. I did not go into the nursery at all during the afternoon. Master George was downstairs with his mamma, and I had nothing to take me into it. If the button was turned in the manner described, I should think Master Benja must have got upon a chair and done it himself."

Still the same impassive face; and still, it must be acknowledged, the same air of truth.

"That may be," remarked Mr. Pym. "The same thought had occurred to me. But there's another point not so easily got over. Honour says that the other door was also fastened, the one leading into the dressing-room--was bolted on the outside."

"I'm sure I don't know, sir," replied Prance; and this time there was a shade of uncertainty, of hesitation, in her voice; not, however, very perceptible to ordinary ears. "That door generally is kept bolted," she added more freely, raising her eyes to the doctor's. "My mistress took to keep it so, because Master George was always running in while she was dressing."

"But----"

"Be quiet, Honour," said Mr. Pym, cutting short the interruption. "You are in the habit of attending on your mistress, I believe, Prance, and therefore are sometimes in her dressing-room," he continued. "Do you remember whether that door was open today?"

"No, sir, I don't," said Prance, after a minute's consideration. "I dressed my mistress this morning for the early dinner, and put the room straight afterwards, but I do not remember whether the door was open or shut. I should think it was shut."

"It was wide open this afternoon," burst forth Honour, unable to keep quiet any longer, and believing Prance could remember if she chose. "The poor dear child shut it with his own hands while I was finishing his church."

"Is it possible?" responded Prance, her perfect coolness of demeanour, her propriety of tone, presenting a contrast to the excitement of the miserable Honour. "I cannot remember how it was when I was dressing my mistress, and I had nothing to do in the room after that."

"And did not go into it?" pursued the surgeon.

"And did not go into it?" repeated Prance.

"Then you know nothing at all as to how the doors could have got fastened?" proceeded Mr. Pym.

"No, sir, I do not. I could take an oath, if need be, that I did not know the doors were bolted until you spoke to me now," added the woman, the least possible sound of emotion, arising as it seemed from earnestness, at length perceptible in her tones. "I assure you, sir, I had no idea of it until this moment. I--I should scarcely think it could have been so."

There was an ominous glare in Honour's eye at the expressed doubt. Mr. Pym did not want a passage-at-arms between the two then, and raised his hand to command silence.

"Did you hear the child's cries, Prance?" he asked. "It is incredible to suppose that he did not cry; and yet no one seems to have heard him."

"You mean when he was on fire, sir?"

"Of course I mean when he was on fire."

"I never heard them, sir. A child could not burn to death without making cries, and desperate cries, but I did not hear them," she continued, more in soliloquy than to the surgeon. "It is an unfortunate thing that no one was within earshot."

Honour looked keenly at her from her swollen eyes. Mr. Pym spoke carelessly.

"By the way, you were in the recess, Prance, just about the time. Did you neither see nor hear anything then?"

"In the recess, sir?" rejoined Prance, turning her impassive face full on Mr. Pym in apparently the utmost astonishment. But not her eyes. "I was in no recess, sir."

"Yes you were. In that recess; there," pointing to it. "Honour passed you when you were in it."

"It is quite a mistake, sir. What should I do in the recess? If Honour says she saw me there, her sight must have deceived her."

"How do you account for your time at the period of the occurrence?" inquired Mr. Pym. "What part of the house were you in?"

"I suppose I must have been in the dining-room, sir," she answered readily. "I was in there until just before the alarm was given, and then I had come up to my bedroom."

"Let's see. That is the room on the other side Mrs. St. John's bedroom?"

"Yes, sir; formerly my master's dressing-room. After his death, Mrs. St. John placed me and Master George in it. She felt lonely with no one sleeping near her."

"And that's where you were when you heard the alarm?"

"I was in there with the door shut when I heard Honour come screaming along the passage, running towards the grand staircase. I had not been in my room above a couple of minutes at the most. I had come straight up from the dining-room."

"And you did not go into the recess?"

"Certainly not, sir. What object could I have in doing so? I'd rather keep out of the place."

Mr. Pym looked at Honour. His expression said plainly that he thought she must have been mistaken.

"What had you done with yourself all the afternoon?" he demanded of Prance.

"I was about in one place or another," she answered. "Part of the time I was in the onion-room. I went there for a handful of a particular herb I wanted, and stayed to pick the leaves from the stalks. And I was twice in the dining-parlour with my mistress, and stayed there pretty long each time."

"Talking to her?"

"No, sir, scarcely a word passed. My mistress rarely does talk much, to me or to any of us, and she seemed a good deal put out with the scene there was after dinner with Master Benja. Master George was put out, too, in his little way, and I stayed in the room soothing him. My mistress gave me a glass of wine then, and bade me drink the children's health. I went in later a second time, and stayed longer than the first, but I was waiting for Master George to awake that I might bring him up to the nursery, for it was getting the children's tea-time."

"But you did not bring him?"

"No, sir, he did not awake, and I got tired of waiting. I came straight upstairs, and went into my room, and I had not been there two minutes when Honour's cries broke out. I had not had time to strike a match and light any candle, and when I ran out of the room to see what was the matter, I had the match-box in my hand."

This seemed to be as comprehensive an account as Prance could give; and Mr. Pym himself saw no reason to doubt her. Honour did She had done nothing but doubt the woman ever since she came to the house. Honour believed her to be two-faced, thoroughly sly and artful; "a very cat in deceit." But in a calmer moment even Honour might not have brought herself to think that she would deliberately set fire to an innocent child, or close the doors on him that he might burn to death.

Again Mr. Pym went into the presence of Mrs. St. John, the two servants with him. She looked more ghastly than before, and she was sitting with Georgy on her lap, the child sick and trembling still. Mr. Pym mentioned to her what Honour said about the doors being fastened, asking if she could remember whether the one leading from her dressing-room was open in the morning She answered at once--and she spoke with the calmest and coldest self-possession, which seemed as a very contrast to her ghastly face--that she could not say with any certainty whether the dressing-room door was open that day or not. She remembered quite well that she had unbolted it that same morning while she was getting up, upon hearing the children's voices in the nursery. She had gone in to kiss them and wish them happiness on their birthday. Whether she had rebolted the door afterwards or not, she could not say. She generally rebolted it when she had been that way into the nursery, but it was possible she had not done so this morning. "I wish you would not ask these questions," she concluded, momentarily raising her eyes to Mr. Pym, for she had spoken with her face bent down, almost hidden.

"But I must ask them," said the surgeon.

"It frightens George so," she added. "See how he is shivering."

And in truth the child was shivering; shivering and trembling as one in an ague. Almost as his mother spoke, he raised himself with a cry, and was violently sick: and all Mr. Pym's attention had to be given to him.