by Ellen Wood
They came in, Lucy untying her bonnet-strings, and addressing Sibylla in a pleasant tone —
“What a sharp storm!” she said. “And I think it means to last, for there seems no sign of its clearing up. I don’t know how I should have come, but for Mr. Verner’s umbrella.”
No reply from Mrs. Verner.
“Decima is with old Matthew Frost,” continued Lucy, passing into the drawing-room; “she desired that we would not wait dinner for her.”
Then began Sibylla. She turned upon Lionel in a state of perfect fury, her temper, like a torrent, bearing down all before it — all decency, all consideration.
“Where have you been? You and she?”
“Do you allude to Lucy?” he asked, pausing before he replied, and looking at her with surprise. “We have been nowhere. I saw her at old Frost’s as I came by, and brought her home.”
“It is a falsehood!” raved Sibylla. “You are carrying on a secret intimacy with each other. I have been blind long enough, but—”
Lionel caught her arm, pointing in stern silence to the drawing-room door, which was not closed, his white face betraying his inward agitation.
“She is there!” he whispered. “She can hear you.”
But Sibylla’s passion was terrible — not to be controlled. All the courtesies of life were lost sight of — its social usages were as nothing. She flung Lionel’s hand away from her.
“I hope she can hear me!” broke like a torrent from her trembling lips. “It is time she heard, and others also! I have been blind, I say, long enough. But for papa, I might have gone on in my blindness to the end.”
How was he to stop it? That Lucy must hear every word as plainly as he did, he knew; words that fell upon his ear, and blistered them. There was no egress for her — no other door — she was there in a cage, as may be said. He did what was the best to be done under the circumstances; he walked into the presence of Lucy, leaving Sibylla to herself.
At least it might have been the best in some cases. It was not in this. Sibylla, lost in that moment to all sense of the respect due to herself, to her husband, to Lucy, allowed her wild fancies, her passion, to over-master everything; and she followed him in. Her eyes blazing, her cheeks aflame, she planted herself in front of Lucy.
“Are you not ashamed of yourself, Lucy Tempest, to wile my husband from me?”
Lucy looked perfectly aghast. That she thought Mrs. Verner had suddenly gone mad, may be excused to her. A movement of fear escaped her, and she drew involuntary nearer to Lionel, as if for protection.
“No! you shan’t go to him! There has been enough of it. You shall not side with him against me! He is my husband! How dare you forget it! You are killing me amongst you.”
“I — don’t — know — what — you — mean, Mrs. Verner,” gasped Lucy, the words coming in jerks from her bloodless lips.
“Can you deny that he cares for you more than he does for me? That you care for him in return? Can not you—”!
“Be silent, Sibylla!” burst forth Lionel. “Do you know that you are speaking to Miss Tempest?”
“I won’t be silent!” she reiterated, her voice rising to a scream. “Who is Lucy Tempest that you should care for her? You know you do! and you know that you meant to marry her once! Is it—”
Pushing his wife on a chair, though gently, with one arm, Lionel caught the hand of Lucy, and placed it within the other, his chest heaving with emotion. He led her out of the room and through the ante-room, in silence to the door, halting there. She was shaking all over, and the tears were coursing down her cheeks. He took both her hands in his, his action one of deprecating entreaty, his words falling in the tenderest accents from between his bloodless lips.
“Will you bear for my sake, Lucy? She is my wife. Heaven knows, upon any other I would retort the insult.”
How Lucy’s heart was wrung! — wrung for him. The insult to herself she could afford to ignore; being innocent, it fell with very slender force; but she felt keenly for his broken peace. Had it been to save her life, she could not help returning the pressure of his hand as she looked up to him her affirmative answer; and she saw no wrong or harm in the pressure. Lionel closed the door upon her, and returned to his wife.
A change had come over Sibylla. She had thrown herself at full length on a sofa, and was beginning to sob. He went up to her, and spoke gravely, not unkindly, his arms folded before him.
“Sibylla, when is this line of conduct to cease? I am nearly wearied out — nearly,” he repeated, putting his hand to his brow, “wearied out. If I could bear the exposure for myself, I cannot bear it for my wife.”
She rose up and sat down on the sofa facing him. The hectic of her cheeks had turned to scarlet.
“You do love her! You care for her more than you care for me. Can you deny it?”
“What part of my conduct has ever told you so?”
“I don’t care for conduct,” she fractiously retorted, “I remember what papa said, and that’s enough. He said he saw how it was in the old days — that you loved her. What business had you to love her?”
“Stay, Sibylla! Carry your reflections back, and answer yourself. In those old days, when both of you were before me to choose — at any rate, to ask — I chose you, leaving her. Is it not a sufficient answer?”
Sibylla threw back her head on the sofa-frame, and began to cry.
“From the hour that I made you my wife, I have striven to do my duty by you, tenderly as husband can do it. Why do you force me to reiterate this declaration, which I have made before?” he added, his face working with emotion. “Neither by word nor action have I been false to you. I have never, for the briefest moment, been guilty behind your back of that which I would not be guilty of in your presence. No! my allegiance of duty has never swerved from you. So help me Heaven!”
“You can’t swear to me that you don’t love her?” was Sibylla’s retort.
It appeared that he did not intend to swear it. He went and stood against the mantel-piece, in his old favourite attitude, leaning his elbow on it and his face upon his hand — a face that betrayed his inward pain. Sibylla began again: to tantalise him seemed a necessity of her life.
“I might have expected trouble when I consented to marry you. Rachel Frost’s fate might have taught me the lesson.”
“Stay,” said Lionel, lifting his head. “It is not the first hint of the sort that you have given me. Tell me honestly what it is you mean.”
“You need not ask; you know already. Rachel owed her disgrace to you.”
Lionel paused a moment before he rejoined. When he did, it was in a quiet tone.
“Do you speak from your own opinion?”
“No, I don’t. The secret was intrusted to me.”
“By whom? You must tell me, Sibylla.”
“I don’t know why I should not,” she slowly said, as if in deliberation. “My husband trusted me with it.”
“Do you allude to Frederick Massingbird?” asked Lionel, in a tone whose coldness he could not help.
“Yes, I do. He was my husband,” she resentfully added. “One day, on the voyage to Australia, he dropped a word that made me think he knew something about that business of Rachel’s, and I teased him to tell me who it was who had played the rogue. He said it was Lionel Verner.”
A pause. But for Lionel’s admirable disposition, how terribly he might have retorted upon her, knowing what he had learned that day.
“Did he tell you I had completed the roguery by pushing her into the pond?” he inquired.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. Perhaps he did.”
“And — doubting it — you could marry me!” quietly remarked Lionel.
She made no answer.
“Let me set you right on that point once for all, then,” he continued. “I was innocent as you. I had nothing to do with it. Rachel and her father were held in too great respect by my uncle — nay, by me, I may add — for me to offer her anything but respect. You were misinf
ormed, Sibylla.”
She laughed scornfully. “It is easy to say so.”
“As it was for Frederick Massingbird to say to you what he did.”
“If it came to the choice,” she retorted, “I’d rather believe him than you.”
Bitter aggravation lay in her tone, bitter aggravation in her gesture. Was Lionel tempted to forget himself? — to set her right? If so, he beat the temptation down. All men would not have been so forbearing.
“Sibylla, I have told you truth,” he simply said.
“Which is as much as to say that Fred told—” she was vehemently beginning when the words were stopped by the entrance of John Massingbird. John, caught in the shower near Deerham Court, made no scruple of running to it for shelter, and was in time to witness Sibylla’s angry tones and inflamed face.
What precisely happened Lionel could never afterwards recall. He remembered John’s free and easy salutation, “What’s the row?” — he remembered Sibylla’s torrent of words in answer. As little given to reticence or delicacy in the presence of her cousin, as she had been in that of Lucy Tempest, she renewed her accusation of her husband with regard to Rachel: she called on him — John — to bear testimony that Fred was truthful. And Lionel remembered little more until he saw Sibylla lying back gasping, the blood pouring from her mouth.
John Massingbird — perhaps in his eagerness to contradict her as much as in his regard to make known the truth — had answered her all too effectually before Lionel could stop him. Words that burned into the brain of Sibylla Verner, and turned the current of her life’s pulses.
It was her husband of that voyage, Frederick Massingbird, who had brought the evil upon Rachel, who had been with her by the pond that night.
As the words left John Massingbird’s lips, she rose up, and stood staring at him. Presently she essayed to speak, but not a sound issued from her drawn lips. Whether passion impeded her utterance, or startled dismay, or whether it may have been any physical impediment, it was evident that she could not get the words out.
Fighting her hands on the empty air, fighting for breath or for speech, so she remained for a passing space; and then the blood began to trickle from her mouth. The excitement had caused her to burst a blood-vessel.
Lionel crossed over to her: her best support. He held her in his arms, tenderly and considerately, as though she had never given him an unwifely word. Stretching out his other hand to the bell, he rang it loudly. And then he looked at Mr. Massingbird.
“Run for your life,” he whispered. “Get Jan here.”
CHAPTER LXXXII.
TRYING ON WREATHS.
The months went on, and Deerham was in a commotion: not the Clay Lane part of it, of whom I think you have mostly heard, but that more refined if less useful portion, represented by Lady Verner, the Elmsleys, the Bitterworths, and other of the aristocracy congregating in its environs.
Summer had long come in, and was now on the wane; and Sir Edmund Hautley, the only son and heir of Sir Rufus, was expected home. He had quitted the service, had made the overland route, and was now halting in Paris; but the day of his arrival at Deerham Hall was fixed. And this caused the commotion: for it had pleased Miss Hautley to determine to welcome him with a fête and ball, the like of which for splendour had never been heard of in the county.
Miss Hautley was a little given to have an opinion of her own, and to hold to it. Sir Rufus had been the same. Their friends called it firmness; their enemies obstinacy. The only sister of Sir Rufus, not cordial with him during his life, she had invaded the Hall as soon as the life had left him, quitting her own comfortable and substantial residence to do it, and persisted in taking up her abode there until Sir Edmund should return; as she was persisting now in giving this fête in honour of it. In vain those who deemed themselves privileged to speak, pointed out to Miss Hautley that a fête might be considered out of place, given before Sir Rufus had been dead a twelvemonth, and that Sir Edmund might deem it so; furthermore, that Sir Edmund might prefer to find quietness on his arrival instead of a crowd.
They might as well have talked to the wind, for all the impression it made upon Miss Hautley. The preparations for the gathering went on quickly, the invitations had gone out, and Deerham’s head was turned. Those who did not get invitations were ready to swallow up those who did. Miss Hautley was as exclusive as ever proud old Sir Rufus had been, and many were left out who thought they might have been invited. Amongst others, the Misses West thought so, especially as one card had gone to their house — for Mr. Jan Verner.
Two cards had been left at Deerham Court. For Lady and Miss Verner: for Mr. and Mrs. Verner. By some strange oversight, Miss Tempest was omitted. That it was a simple oversight there was no doubt; and so it turned out to be; for, after the fête was over, reserved old Miss Hautley condescended to explain that it was, and to apologise; but this is dating forward. It was not known to be an oversight when the cards arrived, and Lady Verner felt inclined to resent it. She hesitated whether to treat it resentfully and stay away herself; or to take no notice of it, further than by conveying Lucy to the Hall in place of Decima.
Lucy laughed. She did not seem to care at all for the omission; but as to going without the invitation, or in anybody’s place, she would not hear of it.
“Decima will not mind staying at home,” said Lady Verner. “She never cares to go out. You will not care to go, will you, Decima?”
An unwonted flush of crimson rose to Decima’s usually calm face. “I should like to go to this, mamma, as Miss Hautley has invited me.”
“Like to go to it!” repeated Lady Verner. “Are you growing capricious, Decima? You generally profess to ‘like’ to stay at home.”
“I would rather go this time, if you have no objection,” was the quiet answer of Decima.
“Dear Lady Verner, if Decima remained at home ever so, I should not go,” interposed Lucy. “Only fancy my intruding there without an invitation! Miss Hautley might order me out again.”
“It is well to make a joke of it, Lucy, when I am vexed,” said Lady Verner. “I dare say it is only a mistake; but I don’t like such mistakes.”
“I dare say it is nothing else,” replied Lucy, laughing. “But as to making my appearance there under the circumstances, I could not really do it to oblige even you, Lady Verner. And I would just as soon be at home.”
Lady Verner resigned herself to the decision, but she did not look pleased.
“It is to be I and Decima, then. Lionel,” glancing across the table at him— “you will accompany me. I cannot go without you.”
It was at the luncheon table they were discussing this; a meal of which Lionel rarely partook; in fact, he was rarely at home to partake of it; but he happened to be there to-day. Sibylla was present. Recovered from the accident — if it may be so called — of the breaking of the blood-vessel; she had appeared to grow stronger and better with the summer weather. Jan knew the improvement was all deceit, and told them so; told her so; that the very greatest caution was necessary, if she would avert a second similar attack; in fact, half the time of Jan’s visits at Deerham Court was spent in enjoining perfect tranquillity on Sibylla.
But she was so obstinate! She would not keep herself quiet; she would go out; she would wear those thin summer dresses, low, in the evening. She is wearing a delicate muslin now, as she sits by Lady Verner, and her blue eyes are suspiciously bright, and her cheeks are suspiciously hectic, and the old laboured breath can be seen through the muslin moving her chest up and down, as it used to be seen — a lovely vision still, with her golden hair clustering about her; but her hands are hot and trembling, and her frame is painfully thin. Certainly she does not look fit to enter upon evening gaiety, and Lady Verner in addressing her son, “You will go with me, Lionel,” proved that she never so much as cast a thought to the improbability that Sibylla would venture thither.
“If — you — particularly wish it, mother,” was Lionel’s reply, spoken with hesitation.
“Do you not wish to go?” rejoined Lady Verner.
“I would very much prefer not,” he replied.
“Nonsense, Lionel! I don’t think you have gone out once since you left Verner’s Pride. Staying at home won’t mend matters. I wish you to go with me; I shall make a point of it.”
Lady Verner spoke with some irritation, and Lionel said no more. He supposed he must acquiesce.
It was no long-timed invitation of weeks. The cards arrived on the Monday, and the fête was for the following Thursday. Lionel thought no more about it; he was not as the ladies, whose toilettes would take all of that time to prepare. On the Wednesday, Decima took him aside.
“Lionel, do you know that Mrs. Verner intends to go to-morrow evening?”
Lionel paused; paused from surprise.
“You must be mistaken, Decima. She sent a refusal.”
“I fancy that she did not send a refusal. And I feel sure she is thinking of going. You will not judge that I am unwarrantably interfering,” Decima added in a tone of deprecation. “I would not do such a thing. But I thought it was right to apprise you of this. She is not well enough to go out.”
With a pressure of the hand on his sister’s shoulder, and a few muttered words of dismay, which she did not catch, Lionel sought his wife. No need of questioning, to confirm the truth of what Decima had said. Sibylla was figuring off before the glass, after the manner of her girlish days, with a wreath of white flowers on her head. It was her own sitting-room, the pretty room of the blue and white panels; and the tables and chairs were laden with other wreaths, with various head ornaments. She was trying their different effects, when, on turning round her head as the door opened, she saw it was her husband. His presence did not appear to discompose her, and she continued to place the wreath to her satisfaction, pulling it here and there with her thin and trembling hands.