Chapter IV: A New Mistress at Alnwick

The mourning habiliments hitherto prevailing at Alnwick Hall were put aside during the wedding-tour of its master, and the servants appeared in gayer colours. Master Benja's grey merino frock was exchanged for a scarlet, and the black sash and sleeve-knots were replaced by white ones. Benja was a sturdy little fellow of fourteen months now, sufficiently forward in walking to get about the room and bring himself into all manner of mischief.

A second marriage, a new mistress suddenly brought to an established home, rarely gives pleasure to its inmates. This applies in an especial degree to its women-servants. Whatever the cause may be, or whence the feeling in the jealous human heart takes its rise, it is an indisputable fact, that the second marriage of a master is rarely liked, and the new bride is regarded with anything but love. The case was such at the Hall. Tritton, the housekeeper, had lived in the family of Miss Carleton before she was Mrs. St. John; had come with her to the Hall when she married; and it was only natural, perhaps that she should look upon her successor somewhat in the light of a usurper. Honour shared the feeling. Ardently attached to her young charge, having been _trusted_ with him, possessing almost full control over him, the prospect of a new mother for the boy and a mistress for herself could not be palatable. But both Tritton and Honour were conscientious, good women; and there is no doubt this feeling would have soon worn itself out, but for circumstances that occurred to increase it.

Mrs. Darling was not wise. Her intentions no doubt were good, but her judgment was not so. From the day following that of the ceremony, when Mr. and Mrs. St. John were fairly away, Mrs. Darling haunted the Hall. Anxious for the comfort of Charlotte as she had never been for anything in her life, she fell into the mistake of interfering with Charlotte's future home before she entered upon it. She went about the house, peering here, peeping there; she had changes wrought in the rooms, in the furniture; she found fault with the arrangements made by the servants, who had done their best, and superseded them at will. She changed the position of beds, she examined linen, she turned Benja and Honour from their day-nursery into another; she ordered this to be done, she countermanded that. This might have been tolerated in Mrs. Darling; indeed it must have been; but what the servants could not and would not tolerate, was a second edition of it in Prance. Prance generally accompanied her mistress to the Hall; one or two nights was left to sleep there; Mrs. Darling's worrying orders were often transmitted through Prance; and Prance, as unwise as her mistress, assumed a supercilious superiority (which indeed was partly her natural manner) excessively distasteful to Mr. St. John's rather indulged but most respectable household.

It was a sad mistake. It was perhaps the first link in a heavy chain, whose fetters would have to be worn for ever. Mrs. Darling ought to have waited until her daughter came home, she could then have suggested these alterations privately to her if she deemed them so essential, and suffered Charlotte's own authority to carry them out. How Mrs. Darling, a shrewd, sensible, easy woman in general, fell into the error, must remain a marvel. It caused the servants to look upon her as a meddling, underbred woman, who was interfering most unjustifiably in what did not concern her. She was really nothing of the sort; it all arose from her surpassing anxiety for Charlotte's comfort.

This, I say, must have been borne from Mrs. Darling; but when that unfortunate Prance came in, all the resentment was turned upon her. Prance ordered after her mistress. Worse still, she did not order as from her mistress, but as from herself; and her cold, you-must-obey-me tones, exasperated, the maids at the Hall almost to rebellion. Putting present ill-feeling apart, the result was unfortunate: for it created a prejudice against their new mistress, which Mrs. St. John would have to live down. Altogether, what with the advent of the new wife, the perpetual visitation of Mrs. Darling, and the hatred to Prance, Alnwick Hall was kept in a state of internal commotion.

In the midst of this, the day came round for the return of Mr. St. John and his bride. In the afternoon, Master Benja, in apple-pie order, the short scarlet frock and the white ribbons--for they were expected to arrive every hour--was toddling about the nursery, drawing a horse. Honour, in a new cap with white satin trimming, sat watching him, and talking to one of the housemaids, Edy, who had looked in for a gossip.

It may be as well that you should notice how these nurseries were situated. They were at the _side_ of the house facing the east. Mr. St. John's bedroom was at the end, looking on to the park, and forming as it were an angle on that side the house. You saw the room once; some one was dying in it. His room opened to two others, one on either side of it. The one looking to the front was his own dressing-room; the other looking to the side, had been called the dressing-room of the late Mrs. St. John; and all three rooms opened to the gallery. It was this last room that had been Benja's nursery, and out of which Mrs. Darling had turned him. The next room to this, which opened to no other room, was the new day-nursery. Honour and Benja are in it now. And beyond it, the last room on this side the house, was the one in which Honour and Benja slept. The next to this, the first one looking to the north at the back of the house, was Mrs. Tritton's--but it is unnecessary to mention that. The passage in which the doors of these nurseries were situated was narrow, not like the wide front corridor or gallery. Immediately opposite the door of Benja's bed-chamber was the back staircase used by the servants. Honour, with her charge, was the only one who assumed the privilege of passing up and down the front stairs. It was as well to mention this: you will see why, later. Honour bitterly resented being turned from the nursery. It was unreasonable that she should do so (though perhaps not unnatural), as the room would be required for the new Mrs. St. John.

She was gossiping with the housemaid in the manner that servants like to gossip, when a voice in the next room startled them both. It was the voice of Prance; and the servants had not known she was in the house.

"There's that woman here again!" exclaimed Edy, in a whisper.

Honour had her finger to her lip in an attitude of listening. She wondered to whom Prance was talking. Tones that could not be mistaken for any but Mrs. Darling's, answered her. In point of fact, Mrs. Darling had come over to receive her daughter, bringing Prance to carry a few last trifling belongings of Charlotte's.

"Of course!" ejaculated Honour. "I knew _they'd_ be here."

Honour was good in the main; sincere, thoroughly trustworthy; but she was not exempt from the prejudice to which her class is especially prone. You cannot help these things. It was her custom, whenever she found Mrs. Darling and her maid appeared upstairs, to catch up Benja and dart down to the housekeeper's room, with a vague feeling, arising from resentment, of carrying Benja out of their reach. She took him up now, horse and all, and was making her way to the backstairs when Mrs. Darling suddenly looked out of a chamber and called to her.

There could be no pretending not to hear. She had been seen, and therefore was obliged to arrest her steps. It had not come to open rebellion against Mrs. Darling.

"I want you, Honour. Step here a minute."

"Carry the baby down, Edy," whispered Honour, giving her the child. "Tell Mrs. Tritton that they are up here, if she does not know it," she added, as a parting fling.

When Edy reached the housekeeper's room, she found it empty, except for the presence of a woman in black, who sat there with her things on, and who laid siege to the baby as if she had a right to him. It was the nurse, Mrs. Dade, who came occasionally to see the child, as she had opportunity. Edy, only a few months in the service, did not recognize her. Edy willingly resigned the charge, and made her way to the hall as fast as her feet could carry her: for a bustle in it warned her that their new mistress had arrived, and all her woman's curiosity was aroused.

She was crossing the hall on Mr. St. John's arm, a smile of greeting on her pale face as she glanced to the right and left. Mr. St. John laughed and talked, and mentioned two or three of the principal servants by name to his wife. Edy stood in a nook behind the rest, and peeped out; and just then Mrs. Darling, having become aware of the arrival, came down the stairs with loud words of welcome.

The bustle over, Mrs. Tritton went back to her own room, shutting the door upon Edy. Nurse Dade had the boy on her knee, talking to him; and Honour, a privileged visitor, came in. Honour's tongue could be rather a sharp one on occasion; but the unexpected sight of the nurse arrested it for the moment.

"I should not have come up today, had I known," Nurse Dade was saying to the housekeeper. "It must be a busy day with you."

"Middling for that: not very. You heard of the marriage, I suppose?"

"I saw it in the newspapers. I had not heard of it till then. I have been away for six months, you see, and news came to me slowly. How well this little fellow gets on, Honour! You have done your part by him, that's certain."

Honour gave a sort of ungracious assent to the remark.

"What do you think she wanted with me?" asked she, turning to the housekeeper, alluding to Mrs. Darling. "You know that pretty sketch that master drew of Benja in the straw hat, one day in the garden, and hung it up in his bedroom? Well, she called me in to say she thought it had better be taken down and put elsewhere. I told her I must decline to meddle with my master's things, and especially with that, though it was done only on the leaf of a copy-book; and I wouldn't touch it. She first looked at me and then at the sketch; but just then there was a bustle in the hall; she ran down and I came away."

"And it's left hanging?"

"It's left hanging. Ah!"--and Honour drew a long breath--"Nurse Dade, we have changes here."

"There's changes everywhere, I think," responded the nurse. "But I must say I was surprised when I read it in the papers. So soon! and to recollect what his grief was _then!_ But law! it's the way of the world."

Honour took Benja, carried him to the far end of the room, and began amusing him with his horse. They made a considerable amount of noise, almost drowning the voices of the two women by the fire.

"Do you happen to know her?" the housekeeper had asked, and the nurse knew by intuition that she spoke of the bride.

"I've known her ever since she was a baby. My mother was nursing at Norris Court, and I went there for a day and a night, and they let me hold the baby on my lap, to say I had had it. I was quite a young woman then; a growing girl, as one may say."

"I don't know anything of her, hardly," said the housekeeper. "I've not chosen to ask questions of the servants, and I and Honour, as you are aware, are strangers in the neighbourhood. Her father was a colonel, was he not?"

"A colonel! No; it was Mrs. Norris's second husband that was a colonel--Colonel Darling. Miss Norris's father was Mr. Norris of Norris Court. Very grand, rich people they were: but as there was no boy, it nearly all went from the widow when Mr. Norris died. She married Colonel Darling when the first year was out."

"She must have been very young," remarked the housekeeper. "She does not look old now."

"Very young. I remember the first time I saw her in her widow's cap. I began wondering how _I_ should look in a widow's cap, for she did not look much older than I was. She was very pretty. People said what a pity it was Mr. Norris should have died so soon and left her."

"What did Mr. Norris die of?"

"I can't tell you. I have never known. There was some mystery about it. My mother always said she did not know: and I don't think she did, she was so curious over it. He was ill about a week or ten days, but nobody was let go near him, except Mr. Pym and the valet, and a man-nurse they had. Some of the servants thought it was some infectious disorder: but nobody knew."

"And he died?"

"He died. The little baby, Miss Charlotte, as she was named afterwards, was born whilst he lay ill. My mother said Mr. Pym took her in to show her to her father; which was very wrong if it was fever; and when Mr. Pym came out his face was white, as if he had gone through some painful scene."

The housekeeper, who was by no means one to deal in mysteries, stared at the nurse. She had hushed her voice to that tone we are apt to use when speaking of things that must not be openly discussed. She sat gazing at the fire, as if recalling the past, the black strings of her bonnet hanging down.

"How do you mean, Mrs. Dade?"

"Mean?"

"You speak as if you were scared."

"Do I? I suppose I caught the tone from mother: she used to speak so when she talked of it. It was her way, when there was any sort of mystery in her places. Whether she came to the bottom of it herself, or whether she didn't, she always used a tone in speaking of it that partly scared you and partly sent you rampant to know more."

"But what mystery could there be in regard to Mr. Norris?"

"That's just what I am unable to tell you. There _was_ a mystery: everybody knew that; but I don't believe anybody fathomed it. Whether it lay in his illness, or in his death, or in neither, mother never knew. Sometimes she thought it was connected with his wife. They had been a loving couple until one night, when some dispute occurred between them, and there ensued an awful quarrel: one of those dreadful disturbances that terrify a household. Mrs. Norris, a gentle, loving, merry young girl, as she had seemed until then, dashed her hand through a cheval glass in her passion, and cut it terribly. It all took place in their own room. Mr. Pym was fetched; and altogether there was a fine hullabaloo."

"Were you there?"

"I was not there; nor mother either. It was not for some days afterwards that she was sent for to Mrs. Norris: but the servants told her of it. Mr. Norris had been ill ever since; and three days later he was dead. The butler said--and he no doubt had it from the valet, for they were great friends--that it was that night's quarrel that killed his master."

"How could the quarrel kill him?" cried the wondering housekeeper.

Nurse Dade shook her head. "I don't know. All sorts of things were said--as things in such cases often are, and perhaps not a word of truth in any of 'em. At any rate, Mr. Norris died, and nobody knew for certain how he died or what was the matter with him, or what could have given rise to the dreadful quarrel that led to it. There were but two persons who could have told the truth--Mrs. Norris and Mr. Pym."

"Mr. Pym must have been a young man then," observed the housekeeper, after a pause.

"About thirty, I suppose. He must be sixty now."

"Mr. Pym's not sixty!"

"He is hard upon it. Nobody would take him for it, though, he is so active. Mrs. Norris had to leave the Court when she got well, for the new people to come to it; she went straight to the house she's in now, which of right belongs to Miss Charlotte--I should say Mrs. St. John."

"I hope she's amiable?" observed the housekeeper.

"She is when she likes, I believe. I don't know much of her myself. She has a temper, they say--but then she has been so much indulged."

"She is very handsome. But she's not in the least like Mrs. Darling."

"She is very much like her father. Mrs. Darling's fair, Mr. Norris was----"

A clear, sonorous voice, calling "Benja," interrupted the words. Honour heard it, for it penetrated even above the shouts of the boy and the creaking of the steed. It was a call she was accustomed to. Often and often, in passing through the hall, going out or coming in, had Mr. St. John thus summoned his child.

"Not the horse," said Honour to the boy, as she picked him up. "Papa's calling. Benja shall come back to the horse by-and-by."

Mr. St. John was in the hall, waiting. He took the child from Honour, kissed him lovingly many times, and then carried him into the drawing-room. Honour followed. She had not been told to go down, and there was an irrepressible curiosity in her mind to see Mrs. St. John.

She was seated alone, near the window, with a work-box before her and some embroidery in her hand, looking as much at home as though she had always lived there. Her raven hair was partially turned from her forehead, showing off the finely-cut but very thin features. Turning her head quickly at the opening of the door, she saw her husband enter.

"I have brought you Benja, Charlotte. He must make acquaintance with his mamma."

She rose with a smile, her dark-blue silk dress gleaming brightly from its ample folds, met them midway in the room, and took Benja. The boy, rather astonished perhaps at the summary proceeding, stared at her from his wide-open great grey eyes.

"You will love mamma, Benja?" she said, kissing him tenderly; and she placed him on her knee and held up to him her shining gold chain, as she had done some two or three months before. "Mamma means to love Benja."

But Benja was impervious to bribes today, and would have nothing to say to the gold chain. Suddenly, in the midst of his prolonged stare, he burst into tears, with a great deal of unnecessary noise.

"I am strange to him," said Mrs. St. John. "He will know me better in a day or two. See! what have I here for Benja!"

She took up a sweet biscuit from a plate that happened to be on the table. What with the biscuit, and her persuasive words, her kisses, Benja suffered himself to be coaxed, hushed his sobs, and kissed his new mamma.

"Friends from this minute," she said triumphantly, glancing up at her husband, who had stood by, smiling. "I will try and be a good mother to him, George."

"I shall like her better than I thought," decided Honour from the door, who could find no fault, even in her prejudice, with her new mistress. "I shall like her much if she will only love the child."

And thus the future lady of Alnwick had entered on her home.