Chapter XXXV: On the Terrace

Mr. Pym went to the house alone. Frederick St. John met him in the hall as if by accident, and took him at once into the dining-room. Any suspicion that they had met before at the Rectory and come away from it together, was as far from the minds of the assembled company, as that they had both dropped from the clouds.

Mrs. St. John, who was better and had come down since dinner, Mrs. Beauclerc, Mrs. Carleton, and Sir Isaac, had sat down to whist. Mrs. Darling and Miss Denison were talking to each other at the centre table; Miss Denison abusing Georgina as the wildest girl in Christendom, Mrs. Darling protesting that she could not be half so wild as her own daughter Rose. Mrs. Darling was all wonder and astonishment when Mr. Pym came in. What _could_ have brought him to Lexington?--how very kind of him to call and see her. And it was she who took him up to introduce him to Sir Isaac.

One moment's recoil, one startled look at the face, and Mrs. Carleton held out her hand to the little surgeon, and was her own calm and gracious self. Seated at whist there, opposite to Sir Isaac, her voice low and sweet, her manner so gentle and collected, it would never have entered into any one's mind to imagine that _she_ had been gliding about stealthily in the moonlight like a ghost, or a female poacher on forbidden ground: and perhaps the surgeon might have been excused his momentary doubt whether it was really Mrs. Carleton that they had seen.

"How well you are looking!" he exclaimed, as he shook hands with her.

And it was no hollow compliment. The woman he saw before him now, radiant in beauty, was no more like the distressing shadow he had visited at Ypres, than he himself was like a lamp-post. Mrs. Carleton laughed. Yes, she said, she was quite well now.

Mr. Pym begged he might not interrupt the game, and drew away. Close upon that, the dean and his daughter came in, and then came tea. Ere the surgeon had well swallowed his, he was pacing the terrace outside with Mrs. Darling, no one paying attention to them.

"You see I have obeyed your summons, Mrs. Darling," he began; "have called at Castle Wafer by accident, as you desired. What is the business that you wish to consult me upon?"

Mrs. Darling had caught up her daughter's black lace shawl as she left the room, and put it over her head; just as Charlotte had so recently worn it upon hers. She pulled it tightly round her silk gown as she answered--

"I wish to speak to you about my daughter: I fear she is ill."

"In body, or in mind?"

A moment's struggle with herself ere she should answer. But no; even now, although she had summoned the surgeon, at a great cost and trouble, to her aid, she _could_ not bring her lips to admit a hint of the fatal malady.

"In mind!" she echoed, rather indignantly. "I don't know what you mean, Mr. Pym. What should be wrong with Mrs. Carleton's mind?"

"As you please," he said, with indifference. "I can go back tonight if I am not wanted."

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----."

"A moment, Mrs. Darling. If I am to help you with advice, you must speak without disguise. Do not say 'for some reason or other;' tell the reason, if you know it."

Another struggle with herself: _must_ she confess? Mrs. Darling clasped her hands in pain.

"Oh, how cruel it is to have to say these things! And of Charlotte, who has always been so reticent, so honourable, whatever her other failings. There! let me speak out and have done with it. I believe she is jealous of Miss Beauclerc: of Miss Beauclerc and of Sir Isaac St. John."

"Your daughter would like to remain here for ever--mistress of Castle Wafer, and Sir Isaac's wife?"

"Yes, I do believe it is so. And I could have believed such planning of any one in the world rather than of Charlotte. I have striven to persuade her to leave with me, and it is of no use. I would not for the world that she should marry again."

"She ought not to have married at all," remarked the surgeon.

"I could not help it. I did my best. You don't know what a care Charlotte has always been to me!"

"To return to Miss Beauclerc. Do you fear Mrs. Carleton might injure her?"

"Not if she retains her reason. But--should that leave her, even momentarily,--Mr. Pym," she broke off, "it was because I found myself incompetent to deal with these troubles that I wrote for you."

"You must take her away from Castle Wafer without delay."

"But she will not be taken away. In all ordinary matters she is as sane as I am; as capable of judging, of arguing, and of sensibly acting. It is only now and then that a sort of paroxysm comes over her. It may be only violent passion, to which you know she has ever been subject; but, it may be something worse. She is then, as I believe, incapable of controlling her actions; and should she find an opportunity of doing an injury at these times he might do it. There are two people in this house against whom I can see she is desperately incensed: Miss Beauclerc and Honour Tritton. Should she find herself alone with either of them in one of these paroxysms----"

Mrs. Darling stopped. The subject was too painful to continue. But the surgeon took up the thread in a quiet tone.

"We might have a second edition of the Alnwick tragedy."

Mrs. Darling--he could see it in the bright night--seemed to recoil a step. But she strove to answer with more than customary calmness.

"The Alnwick tragedy! I do not understand."

"When Alnwick's heir was--killed."

"Oh, Mr. Pym, Mr. Pym! you _cannot_ think that was anything but a miserable accident?" cried the unfortunate mother. "It was nothing else. Honour alone was in fault."

"It may be that we shall never know," he answered. "My impression--nay, my belief--you and I had better be outspoken now, Mrs. Darling--always was, that Mrs. Carleton _had_ something to do with that. I think at the time you entertained the same opinion."

Mrs. Darling made no answer. She walked on, her scared face raised in that tell-tale moonlight; her very lips white.

"I thought the probabilities, knowing what you and I know, were greatly against her at the time," repeated the surgeon; "I think them greater now. You are aware, I presume, that the imaginary image of Benja and the lighted church haunted her for months? And in that show of lanterns in France, on St. Martin's Eve----"

"How did you hear of that?" interrupted Mrs. Darling. "Oh, I get to hear of many things," was the reply. "It does not matter how. I fear this terror, in one so cold and impassive as your daughter has always been, is rather suggestive of a guilty conscience."

"Why recall this?" asked Mrs. Darling, with a sob. "I think you are wrong in your suspicions."

"I do not recall it to give you pain. Only to impress upon you how essential it is, with these doubts upon our minds, that Mrs. Carleton should be removed from Castle Wafer."

"Indeed, I see it as strongly as you do. But you know what her _will_ has always been. And if our suspicion of her state of mind is wrong, and she is really sane, we are not justified in forcing her actions. Can you remain a few days and watch her, so as to form an opinion of her state? There's a plain, comfortable inn at hand, the Barley Mow, and you could be here very much in the daytime."

"For the matter of that, I could contrive to get invited to stay here," observed the surgeon, with a cough. "That good-natured brother of Sir Isaac's is sure to ask me. And, to tell you the truth, Mrs. Darling, if I undertake to watch her at all, it must be a close and uninterrupted watch."

"Close and uninterrupted!" repeated Mrs. Darling, whom the words did not altogether please. "I am so very fearful of any suspicion being excited abroad as to Charlotte's state."

"That suspicion already exists," remarked the doctor. "Your daughter's manners--these paroxysms that you speak of--have been observed and commented on. It was only a post or two before I got your summons, that I received a letter from this neighbourhood, implying doubts of Mrs. Carleton's state of mind, and inquiring if I could inform the writer whether insanity had been in her family."

Mrs. Darling's breath was nearly taken away with astonishment. "Who could have sent the letter? Surely, not Sir Isaac!"

"The letter was a confidential letter, and I cannot name the writer."

"If it was not Sir Isaac, it must have been Frederick St. John. Why need _he_ meddle?"

"It was neither Frederick St. John nor Sir Isaac: I may tell you that much. I only mention this to prove to you that even were we willing to allow matters to go on as they have been going, it is now impossible. A weighty responsibility lies upon me, Mrs. Darling: and something must be done in one shape or another. Had I received no summons from you, I think I should still have come to Lexington."

Mrs. Darling walked to the end of the terrace before replying. Matters seemed to be growing complicated. Was the time of exposure really come? It had always lain upon her with an awful dread.

"But what can you do?" she asked. "Suppose, after watching Charlotte, you come to the conclusion that there's nothing really the matter with her----"

"But I should not come to that conclusion," he interrupted. "Were I to remain in the house a month, and see no proof whatever of insanity, I could not be sure that it did not exist. We know how cunning these people are, and----"

"Oh, Mr. Pym, how cruelly you speak!"

"I am sorry to do so. What I was about to say, in answer to your question, is this. Allowing that I perceive no present grounds for alarm, I must still assume that such grounds do exist; in short, both you and I know they do: and there will be one of two courses to pursue. Either you must remove your daughter from Castle Wafer before I quit it: or I must get rid of my responsibility by disclosing my fears to Sir Isaac St. John."

"No, no; not to him--not to any one if it can be prevented," implored Mrs. Darling. "I will get Charlotte away. Anything rather than make the dread public. Think how long I have succeeded in concealing it."

"To speak to Sir Isaac would not be to make it public. And I have already told you, Mrs. Darling, it is not so entirely a secret as you have supposed. However, if you remove Charlotte, undertaking that she does not return, there will be no cause for my speaking to any one."

"I'll do it all; I'll try and do it," said Mrs. Darling. "And now about your own stay at Castle Wafer. How shall you manage it?"

"Leave it to me," replied Mr. Pym. "We medical men often possess a pass-key in an emergency. I think Mrs. Carleton will not like my staying. She did not seem pleased to see me."

"No?"

"It struck me that she did not. I observed a strange sort of shiver, a look of terror, pass over her face when she saw me."

"How observant you are!" was Mrs. Darling's comment, "_I_ saw nothing of it."

"It is our business to be observant."

"Of course. And very useful I dare say you find the habit."

"You spoke of Honour Tritton," resumed the surgeon, passing by the other remark. "Why do you suppose----"

"Hush!" breathed Mrs. Darling in a warning voice, and she laid her hand upon his arm to enforce the caution more emphatically. "Is that Charlotte?"

Some one had cautiously raised the window of an upper room, and was peeping out. Mr. Pym's quick eyes saw at once that it was not Charlotte, but Prance. Mrs. Prance had her share of curiosity as well as more demonstrative people.

"We had better go in, Mrs. Darling," remarked the surgeon. "Should Mrs. Carleton come out and see us talking together, she might fancy my visit here had reference to her, and be forthwith on her guard accordingly. As she was--I know she was--on her guard when I went to Ypres."

The evening was not quite over, when the anxious pacers on the terrace re-entered the drawing-room; the whist players were just rising. Mrs. Carleton came over at once to Mr. Pym. Handsome and stately did she look, her rich dress sweeping the ground; her face calm, her manner gracious, she seemed just as sane as Mr. Pym himself. He happened to be looking with some interest at Miss Beauclerc; a fair, lovely, attractive girl, in her pretty white dress, and with her grey-blue honest eyes.

"When did you come to Lexington, Mr. Pym?"

The question proceeded from Mrs. Carleton, who had slipped into a seat beside him. He answered that he had arrived only that evening; had been sent for to see a patient.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"A young man suffering from heart disease," promptly responded Mr. Pym, deeming this positive evasion justifiable under the circumstances.

"And so you took the opportunity to call at Castle Wafer!" she said. And there might have been the slightest possible resentment perceptible in the tone, though not to an ear less quick than the surgeon's.

"Just so," he answered. "When we have nothing particular to do with ourselves, we are apt to make use of any past civilities that may be available. I remembered that Mr. Frederick St. John, when I met him at Alnwick, proffered me an invitation to call at Castle Wafer, should I ever travel to its vicinity."

"Oh!" she said. "Fred St. John's rather fond of those impromptu invitations. Do you go back tomorrow?"

"Not unless my patient shall have done with me."

Mr. Pym remained at Castle Wafer, a temporary guest. In the most natural manner conceivable, Frederick St. John, without being suspected of any ulterior motive, pressed the invitation on the little surgeon. Castle Wafer would be a more comfortable roof for him than the Barley Mow, and his sojourn there would afford him, Frederick, an opportunity of improving the acquaintance begun at Alnwick, he graciously observed, when they had met at the funeral of Mr. Carleton St. John. Mr. Pym suffered himself to be persuaded. And thus the surgeon took up his task of watching Mrs. Carleton, a very private-detective; installed thereunto by two anxious parties, neither of whom suspected the connivance of the other. What wheels within wheels there are in this world!

In one sense of the word, the step might have been dispensed with, for it did not serve to prevent the disclosure to Sir Isaac St. John. Mrs. Darling's great hope from the respite of the two or three days' watching, was, that she should in the meanwhile succeed in inducing Charlotte to bid adieu to Castle Wafer, and thus obviate the necessity for any appeal to Sir Isaac. It might have proved so, so far as Mr. Pym was concerned; but the initiative was taken by the dean.

Very disagreeably impressed by the fresh doubts of Mrs. Carleton's sanity, acquired during the evening visit of Mr. Pym to the Rectory, the dean considered that there was now sufficient matter to justify a communication to Sir Isaac. He resolved to make it himself; and on the following morning, the one succeeding Mr. Pym's arrival, he went up for that purpose to Castle Wafer, and procured a private interview with Sir Isaac in his sitting-room.

A very different story, this, from the one sought to be told the other evening by Frederick. As the dean, calm, sensible, reliable, went through the whole, point by point, concluding with the fact that Mr. Pym was at Castle Wafer for no other purpose than to watch Charlotte Carleton, Sir Isaac listened with increasing wonder.

"And you say Frederick knew of this!" he exclaimed. "Why did he not tell me?"

"He did attempt to tell you; but failed. I suppose his ultra self-consciousness and the fear that even you might misconstrue his motives, withheld him from saying more."

"How could I be likely to misconstrue them?"

The dean said how. Which certainly did not tend to decrease the wonder of Sir Isaac.

"He has been assuming that Mrs. Carleton was looking after me! That she had designs upon me! _Me!_ You must be mistaking me for Frederick."

"Certainly not for Frederick. Frederick's private opinion is, that the young woman hates him. I fancy there's not much doubt that she would have no objection to your making her Lady St. John."

When Sir Isaac fully comprehended this hypothesis as to himself, which he had little difficulty in doing, he burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. The dean saw how it was: Isaac St. John had been so firmly fixed in his resolution never to marry, had _lived_ so in it, that the very notion of his breaking it, or of any woman's thinking she could induce him to break it, seemed to him nothing less than an impossibility.

"Then you never had an idea of Mrs. Carleton?" observed the dean.

"I never had an idea of Mrs. Carleton in that sense of the word, or of any one else," answered Sir Isaac. "I should as soon think of getting hanged as of getting married. And I do believe you must be wrong in supposing she has entertained such a notion. A young and pretty woman want to tie herself to me! Why, look at me; at what I am. No, no: it is not likely. And it was only the other day she lost her husband and her child; her heart must be buried with them for some time yet to come."

"Well, there lay the cause of Frederick's hesitation," said the dean. "With this idea upon him, no wonder he was tenacious of speaking. I confess I did not agree with him. I thought you were no more likely to take a wife than I am--who possess one already.

"It will be a joke against Frederick for the rest of my days," said Sir Isaac. "_I_ marry? I wish, by the way, _he_ would marry! But about poor Mrs. Carleton? I should like to see Mr. Pym."

The surgeon was summoned to the conference. And after the dean's departure, he disclosed to Sir Isaac the fear of her attempting some injury to Miss Beauclerc or to Honour: of which the dean remained in ignorance.

"There is only one thing to do," was the conclusion, come to by Sir Isaac. "Inhospitable though any such measure may seem, Mrs. Carleton must this day quit Castle Wafer."