Chapter XXXVI: Locked in

Mr. Pym appeared to make himself at home at Castle Wafer. One of the best chambers had been assigned him, its door opening exactly opposite to the room occupied by Mrs. Carleton and by Prance. And that gentleman retired to rest with his door propped back, and his gaze on the corridor. Perhaps he slept with his eyes open.

In the morning he was up betimes. Going downstairs, he sought Honour, and sat in the housekeeper's room while he talked to her. He had really no ulterior motive in this; but he was a sociable man, and he merely wished to be civil to the girl, whom he had once seen so much of as Benja's nurse.

Honour was excessively gratified. In the first place at seeing the surgeon again; in the next at indulging her gossiping propensities. She had heard little or nothing of Alnwick since she quitted it: Mrs. Tritton having left the Hall and the neighbourhood soon after herself. Question after question did she ask Mr. Pym of the changes, and would probably have gone on for an hour of her own good will, but that Mr. Pym, who was remarkably quick of sight and hearing, and why he wore glasses no one ever could make out--detected some faint sound or movement at the partially closed door, as if somebody were listening at it.

"Is any one wanting to come in, Honour?"

Honour pulled the door open, and saw nothing. But a faint rustling, as of some person turning from the door as soon as he spoke, had caught Mr. Pym's ears.

"Look out," said he, sharply.

Honour looked out, and was just in time to see the petticoats of a lady disappearing round the corner of the passage, and to recognize them as Mrs. Carleton's.

"Mrs. Carleton, was it?" observed the surgeon carelessly, as she made the remark. "Does she often pay you a visit here, Honour?"

"I never saw her here before, sir. Perhaps she was coming in search of you."

"Ah, perhaps so," replied Mr. Pym, carelessly. "What were you saying, Honour?--that you heard I went over to Germany to see the boy? Well, it's true. Whether it was Germany or France, or any other habitable part of the globe, though, I can't take upon myself to say. I could not do him any good. He was at death's-door then. How did you hear it?"

"From Mrs. Darling, sir. She often said a word to me when she was staying here the last time, and she mentioned that you had been had over to Master George, but it was of no use. What a sad thing it was that the child could not be cured!"

"Ay. There are many sad things in the world, Honour; sadder even than that. Well, I must go, or I shall keep breakfast waiting. You'll see me again before I leave."

He made his way to the breakfast-room, and sat down to breakfast with the rest. Mrs. Carleton's face was impassive as usual: but the surgeon saw that she watched him just as keenly as he did her. After breakfast, as if to defeat the purpose for which he was staying at Castle Wafer, she shut herself up in Mrs. St. John's room, and no one could get near her. It was during this time that the interview took place between the dean and Sir Isaac.

"I entrust it all to you, Mr. Pym," Sir Isaac had said. "Perhaps speaking to Mrs. Darling will be sufficient: but--you know the laws of hospitality--I would rather not appear at all in this matter if I can help it. Let the departure be your doing--you understand. Only in case of necessity bring in my name."

Mr. Pym's first step was to seek Mrs. Darling. _She_ was shut up in her room too; so, after waiting for some time, he sent a message to her, and she came to him. The observant surgeon saw that there was a blank, disappointed look in her face.

"I can do nothing with Charlotte," she exclaimed. "She refuses most positively to quit Castle Wafer: and when I urged it, she put an end to the colloquy by leaving me. What is to be done?"

The surgeon could not say what was to be done. Only that to get away Mrs. Carleton that day was indispensable.

Mrs. Darling, poor woman, began to temporize. Charlotte was perfectly well now, she was sure, and a day or two's delay could make no difference. Tomorrow, perhaps, or the next day, she might be induced to hear reason. At length Mr. Pym--for Mrs. Darling seemed inclined to become obstinate in her turn--was obliged to hint at the commands of Sir Isaac.

Mrs. Darling was bitterly incensed, believing that Mr. Pym had been the informant. "I did not think you would have been so treacherous," she exclaimed. "You promised me not to speak to Sir Isaac until all means had been tried to get Charlotte away."

"I did not speak to him. He spoke to me."

"He spoke to you! First?"

"Yes. He sent for me into his room, and entered upon it."

"Who could have told him?" cried Mrs. Darling, after a mortified pause. And Mr. Pym remained silent: it was not his business to speak of the dean.

"The less we discuss this matter the better, Mrs. Darling. It would bring no profit. All we have to do is to remove your daughter. And if I were you I would let this hint about Sir Isaac be as if it had not been spoken. It would be painful to you to show consciousness of it; doubly painful to him. He is a true gentleman: but tales have been carried to him of Mrs. Carleton's state of mind, and he deems it necessary that she should not remain."

"I would give half I am worth to know who it is that has been meddling!" exclaimed Mrs. Darling. "What is to be done? Will you speak to Charlotte?"

"Of course I will. If you cannot persuade her, I must try my powers. It will be a very awkward thing if we have to get her away by force or stratagem."

"By stratagem we shall never accomplish it," said Mrs. Darling. "Charlotte is too keen to be imposed upon."

He waited until luncheon-time. He thought it better to lead to an interview with Mrs. Carleton, than to send and demand it. She came down with Mrs. St. John, and the luncheon passed off as usual, every one being at table except Sir Isaac. Mr. Brumm said his master was taking luncheon in his room, but offered no other apology for his absence, and Georgina went boldly in to him.

But Mr. Pym was destined to be defeated, at least in a degree. He whispered to Mrs. Carleton to come and walk with him on the terrace as they rose from table, and drew her hand within his arm and went out with her. It was a dull lowering day, threatening rain, and she looked up at the skies with rather a vacant look. Mr. Pym told her as gently as he could, that it was deemed necessary she should have change of air; that he and Mrs. Darling were both anxious on the score of her health, and thought immediate change of scene essential. She laughed in his face; she set him and her mother at defiance; she spoke of appealing to Sir Isaac: and then Mr. Pym hinted--as he had done to her mother--that Sir Isaac acquiesced in the measure.

No sooner had the words left his lips, than a change passed over her face. Medical man though he was, Mr. Pym shrank from it: never had its aspect been more livid, its expression so wildly terrible. He caught her arm, put it within his, and began to speak words of soothing kindness. But she broke from him; muttered something incoherently about the plot against her, which those in the house had been planning to carry out, and escaped indoors. Mr. Pym had little doubt that by "those in the house," she meant Miss Beauclerc and Honour. It is very likely she included himself and Mrs. Darling.

He followed her; he called Mrs. Darling to his aid. That she had secreted herself in her own room, they found at once, since the door was fastened inside, and no reply was given to their knocks. The surgeon grew alarmed. This state of things was more than likely to end in a paroxysm of insanity. By-and-by mutterings were heard inside; violent pacings of the room; short derisive laughs; and one shrill scream. Mrs. Darling was nearly beside herself; and Prance--Prance the impassive--for once betrayed terror.

"I shall break open the door," said Mr. Pym.

But he went first of all to apprise Sir Isaac of what he was going to do. Sir Isaac gave him _carte blanche_ to do what he pleased; but urged that poor Mrs. Carleton's comfort should be studied as much as was practicable. And under the circumstances he did not press for her departure; only stipulating that Mr. Pym should undertake the charge of her until she did leave.

When Mr. Pym got back to the corridor, he found the dismayed watchers and waiters outside it, Mrs. Darling and Prance, had been joined by another--Honour Tritton.

It is not possible for a commotion such as this to occur in a house without its sounds transpiring to the household. Quietly as these knockings and callings had been carried on, news of them penetrated to the servants below. "Mrs. Carleton had bolted herself in her chamber, and could not be got at." Honour, in her interest, it may be in her curiosity, went upstairs at once. Perhaps she deemed she had a sort of right to do so, from her former relations with Mrs. Carleton.

Mr. Pym scarcely noticed her. The noise inside the room had increased; that is, the pacings to and fro were louder and quicker. Mrs. Darling clasped her hands in helpless dismay: she lifted her imploring face to the surgeon; she put her lips to the key-hole for the twentieth time.

"Charlotte! my darling Charlotte! I want to come in. I must come in. I--I have left a key in your room. It will soon be time to dress for dinner."

There was no response. But the pacings increased to a run. The dull day had become darker, and Honour turned into Miss Beauclerc's room, and brought out a tall wax candle, lighted, in a silver candlestick.

"Mrs. Carleton, I must beg of you to unlock the door," cried out the surgeon. "If you do not, I shall be compelled to break it open. Pray undo it."

It was of no avail. A mocking laugh was again heard, but there was no other response.

"Take care of yourselves," said Mr. Pym.

The door flew open with a burst. The first object they saw was Mrs. Carleton, standing against the opposite wall and glaring at them. Glaring! the word has been used often in regard to her eyes at times, but there is no other so applicable. Mr. Pym went straight up to her. She eluded him with a spring, pounced upon the unsuspecting and terrified Honour, and in another moment was grappling with her, a fight for dear life.

Poor lady! What her thoughts had been during that self-imprisonment she alone knew. That they had tended rapidly to increase the mind's confusion, to speed her on to the great gulf of insanity, already so near at hand, perhaps to have been its very turning-point, there could be no doubt of. And it may be that the sight of Honour amidst her enemies, of Honour bearing a lighted candle, recalled her mind to that dreadful night not yet two years gone by.

Whatever it may have been, whether any single cause, or many causes combined: the mortification of being turned from Castle Wafer, the visit of Mr. Pym, the seeing him that morning with Honour, or the opposition and confusion of this one afternoon: certain it was, that the moment her mother and Prance had been dreading in secret so long, had come. Mrs. Carleton was insane.

It took all three, the surgeon, Mrs. Darling, and Prance, to secure her in her violence: just as it had taken more than one to secure her father in the years gone by. Honour was released, terrified nearly to death, bruises on her arms, and a bite on her cheek, of which she would never lose the mark.

When she was secured from doing harm to herself or others, Mr. Pym touched Prance, and motioned her to a room apart. Had Prance been capable of astonishment at anything, she might have felt it then. He closed the door and pointed to a chair.

"The time for evasion has gone by," he began. "Tomorrow will see your mistress in an asylum, Prance, from which she can never more be released in safety. And--do you know for what cause I have brought you here?"

"No, sir," answered Prance; but in some hesitation, as if she half-divined what the cause might be.

"I am about to speak of that past night at Alnwick; the burning of Benja. I feel as sure"--and he raised his finger to her impressively--"that your mistress had something to do with that, and that you knew it, as I am that you are before me there. Few persons can deceive me; and your manner that night and subsequent to it, clever as you may have thought yourself, convinced me there was a tale to tell. I did not press for it then; I had my reasons; but I must hear it now."

"I had nothing to do with it, sir," replied Prance, not daring to equivocate; feeling perhaps, with him, that the time for suppression had gone by.

"I don't suppose you had," returned Mr. Pym. "But you were in that niche, where Honour saw you, for all that. Come! You must acquaint me with the particulars of that night: they may be a guide to my treatment of your mistress. I must know them, whether or not. Did she set the child on fire?"

"No, sir, I don't think she did. At least, not intentionally."

"At any rate, she was in the room at the time?"

"Yes, she was. But I think he caught fire accidentally. There was some scuffle, and I fancy his white pinafore set alight."

"But she bolted the door upon him?"

Prance actually for a moment looked distressed. "I'm afraid she did, sir: the one door. The other, I have always believed, and always shall believe, the child fastened himself."

"She bolted it on him when he was burning?"

"Ah, I don't know that, sir; I don't know it for certain."

"You have feared it."

"Yes; only that."

Mr. Pym sat down in a chair opposite Prance, the table being between them. "Begin at the beginning, Prance," he said. "This is a waste of time. How much of that night's occurrences did you see and hear?"

"You--you are not asking for the purpose of proving the crime against her, are you, sir?" demanded Prance.

"Of proving the crime against her, woman!" echoed Mr. Pym,served wrathfully. "Your mistress is past having anything of that sort proved against her: past its consequences, for that is, I presume, what you mean. Had I wished to bring it home to her, I should have stirred in it at the time. I have been as quiet and careful as you. Now then, begin. Let us hear what you had to do with it, and what brought you in the niche. You have not forgotten, I suppose?"

"No, indeed, sir! I have thought of it all a great deal too often to be pleasant," she said, leaning her head upon her hand. "The account I gave before had very much of truth in it: though not the whole of the truth," she added, after a pause.

"Then tell the whole now," said Mr. Pym, growing impatient at the delay.

The substance of Prance's communication was as follows. After she had been in the herb-room, she went upstairs to wash her hands, which had become soiled from picking the herbs. Whilst in her chamber, which was next to Mrs. Carleton's, she heard her mistress come up from the dining-room and go into her chamber, and she followed her in, to ask whether she wanted a light or anything, for it was getting quite dusk. Mrs. Carleton was not in her room, but had gone through the dressing-room, and was standing in the nursery, just inside the door, apparently gazing at something, as one transfixed: a dull sort of light came from the nursery, enabling Prance to see her distinctly. Being rather curious, she peeped in, and saw Master Benja slowly parading a lighted church about, which he carried before him: it was on this her mistress's eyes were fixed. It was really a pretty object, Prance said, lighted up in the dark room. The child was speaking; words calculated to irritate Mrs. Carleton----

"What were they!" interrupted Mr. Pym, when Prance had got thus far in her narrative. "Can you repeat them?"

"'I'll tell you what I shall do, Honour, when I am master of Alnwick,'" repeated Prance. "'You shall be mistress, and give all the orders, and we'll have a great wall built up, so that mamma can't come near us. But we'll have Georgy, and keep him to ourselves.'" Those were the words, Prance continued, and they seemed to irritate her mistress: she darted forward, and gave the child a sharp blow on the ear. She (Prance) went away, leaving a sound of noise and crying behind her. Declared, if it were the last word she had to speak, that she had no thought of real injury. She went through the dressing-room, through the bedroom, which door she shut, and went down into the dining-room. Georgy was asleep on the large chair, his legs hanging down. A very short while--immediately, indeed--her mistress followed her down; noticed, and thought it very singular, that she bolted the dining-room door after her. Seemed greatly excited; walked about in a strange manner; Prance thought she must have been quarrelling with Honour. Presently she sat down, and took Georgy's feet upon her lap. This gave Prance an opportunity of slipping back the bolt, and quitting the room. Had not liked to do so before; must have been there at least a quarter-of-an-hour. Went up to her room; heard no noise whatever; never supposed but that Honour was in the nursery with Master Benja. Stood a minute or two in the passage, listening; thought she might hear them speaking of the quarrel. Heard nothing--all was quite still, and then supposed Honour had taken Master Benja down to the servants' hall, which had been forbidden by Mrs. Carleton. Was stealing along the passage to find this out, intending to tell of her, when Honour came running up the backstairs, and Prance, not to be seen, slipped into the niche until Honour should have entered the nursery. Found then that Master Benja was in the nursery. Honour could not open the door, and called out to ask why he had turned the button. Was peeping out of the niche, and saw Honour drop a load of things from her apron, and come flying past her into the dressing-room. Did not think at the time she was seen; passage was pretty dark. Took the opportunity to escape into her own room, and was lighting a candle when Honour's cries startled her. Came out of her room, saw Honour running down the front staircase, her cries awful. It brought the servants from the kitchen, it brought Mrs. Carleton and Georgy out of the dining-room; and then she (Prance) found out what had happened. That was all.

"And you mean to tell me you did not suspect anything wrong until then?" asked Mr. Pym, as she concluded.

"As I am a living, breathing woman, sir, I never suspected it," answered Prance, showing for once some emotion. "I don't think Honour herself was more shocked than I was."

"And why did you not tell the truth about your being in the niche?"

"Ah, sir, I did not dare. Might it not, in the questioning that would have ensued, have directed suspicion to my mistress? The moment I discovered that Honour was not in the room when my mistress attacked Master Benja, I felt frightened to death, fearing she had done it. I----"

"Stay a minute. I don't understand," interrupted Mr. Pym. "You say you looked into the nursery. You must have seen that Honour was not there."

"Indeed, sir, I did not. I saw but a very small portion of the room; the door opens inwards to the wall, and obstructs the best part of the room to any one standing as I did. I never supposed but that Honour was present in her usual seat; otherwise I should not have left my mistress alone with the child. The boy himself, helped to mislead me: those few words he said appeared to be spoken _to Honour_. I concluded afterwards, that when he heard his mamma enter, he must have thought it was Honour who had gone in, and was too much occupied with his toy to turn his head to look."

"It's an awful thing!" ejaculated Mr. Pym.

"It has driven my mistress mad," returned Prance. "But, sir--she did not purposely set him on fire: she did not. I have gathered a great deal from words she has let drop in her paroxysms, and I know it was not done purposely. 'The church fell and set fire to his pinafore, in blazing up,' she said one night when she was moaning: and I am sure it did."

"But she bolted the door on him."

"Ah, yes, she did that; bolted it upon him, knowing he was on fire; there's no doubt of it. I have gathered that much. I think at the moment she was mad, unconscious of what she did. She is not naturally cruel, only in these uncontrollable attacks. And then--and then----"

"And then, what?" asked the surgeon.

"She had taken too much wine that afternoon," continued Prance, lowering her voice. "Not intentionally; not from the love of drinking: unthinkingly, as it were. You see, sir, she had dined at the hour when she usually took her luncheon, and she did not eat much, I noticed; made a luncheon more than a dinner. But she seemed to have a great thirst upon her, and drank a good deal of wine; champagne, and sherry, and port; altogether, I think her head was a little confused; indeed, I'm sure it was. She would not have beaten Benja in the dining-room, but for that. Oh, the remorse that has been hers!"

"I suppose so."

"It is remorse that has turned her brain. I thought in Flanders it would come on then; it did in a measure; but she got over it. Over and over again would she have given her own life to recall the boy's; I think she would even have given Georgy's. What she did, she did in a moment of passion; of aberration; and she has repented it ever since, and lived in dread of detection. Her horror of Honour has arisen from the feeling that had the girl not left Benja alone, it could not have happened, and she had not had the sin upon her. Indeed, sir, she is to be pitied; to be pitied more than condemned."

"Let us think so, at any rate, Prance," remarked Mr. Pym. "Does Mrs. Darling know this?"

"Well, sir, no; not exactly. I have dropped a word or two, and I know she guesses the rest; but I have not said it."

"Best not, perhaps," said the surgeon. "It is a secret that may remain between you and me."