Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/Verner's Pride - Part 29
VERNER’S PRIDE.
BY THE AUTHORESS OF “EAST LYNNE.”
CHAPTER LVII. WELL NIGH WEARIED OUT.
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 Emsleys, the Bitterworths, and other of its 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 in it 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 Miss Wests 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 overlooked. 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, farther 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 asked 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 daresay it is only a mistake; but I don’t like such mistakes.”
“I daresay 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 looked 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 like 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 effect, 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.
“What are you doing?” asked Lionel.
“Trying on wreaths,” she replied.
“So I perceive. But why?”
“To see which suits me best. This looks too white for me, does it not?” she added, turning her countenance towards him.
If to be the same hue as the complexion was “too white,” it certainly did look so. The dead white of the roses was not more utterly colourless than Sibylla’s face. She was like a ghost: she often looked so now.
“Sibylla,” he said, without answering her question, “you are surely not thinking of going to Sir Edmund’s to-morrow night?”
“Yes I am.”
“You said you would write a refusal?”
“I know I said it. I saw how crossgrained you were going to be over it, and that’s why I said it to you. I accepted the invitation.”
“But, my dear, you must not go!”
Sibylla was flinging off the white wreath, and taking up a pink one, which she began to fix in her hair. She did not answer.
“After all,” deliberated she, “I have a great mind to wear pearls. Not a wreath at all.”
“Sibylla! I say you must not go.”
“Now, Lionel, it is of no use your talking. I have made up my mind to go; I did at first; and go I shall. Don’t you remember,” she continued, turning her face from the glass towards him, her careless tone changing for one of sharpness, “that papa said I must not be crossed?”
“But you are not in a state to go out,” remonstrated Lionel. “Jan forbids it utterly.”
“Jan? Jan’s in your pay. He says what you tell him to say.”
“Child, how can you give utterance to such things?” he asked, in a tone of emotion. “When Jan interdicts your going out he has only your welfare at heart. And you know that I have it. Evening air and scenes of excitement are equally pernicious for you.”
“I shall go,” returned Sibylla. “You are going, you know,” she resentfully said. “I wonder you don’t propose that I should be locked up at home in a dark closet, while you are there, dancing.”
A moment’s deliberation in his mind, and a rapid resolution.
“I shall not go, Sibylla,” he rejoined. “I shall stay at home with you.”
“Who says you are going to stay at home?”
“I say it myself. I intend to do so. I shall do so.”
“Oh. Since when, pray, have you come to that decision?”
Had she not the penetration to see that he had come to it then; then, as he talked to her; that he had come to it for her sake? That she should not have it to say he went out while she was at home. Perhaps she did see it: but it was nearly impossible to Sibylla not to indulge in bitter, aggravating retorts.
“I understand!” she continued, throwing up her head with an air of supreme scorn. “Thank you, don’t trouble. I am not too ill to stoop, ill as you wish to make me out to be.”
In displacing the wreath on her head to a different position, she had let it fall. Lionel’s stooping to pick it up had called for the last remark. As he handed it to her, he took her hand.
“Sibylla, promise me to think no more of this. Do give it up.”
“I won’t give it up,” she vehemently answered. “I shall go. And, what’s more, I shall dance.”
Lionel quitted her and sought his mother. Lady Verner was not very well that afternoon, and was keeping her room. He found her in an invalid chair.
“Mother, I have come to tell you that I cannot accompany you to-morrow evening,” he said. “You must please excuse me.”
“Why so?” asked Lady Verner.
“I would so very much rather not go,” he answered. “Besides, I do not care to leave Sibylla.”
Lady Verner made no observation for a few moments. A curious smile, almost a pitying smile, was hovering on her lips.
“Lionel, you are a model husband. Your father was not a bad one, as husbands go; but—he would not have bent his neck to such treatment from me, as you take from Mrs. Verner.”
“No?” returned Lionel, with good-humour.
“It is not right of you, Lionel, to leave me to go alone, with only Decima.”
“Let Jan accompany you, mother.”
“Jan!” uttered Lady Verner, in the very extreme of astonishment. “I should be surprised to see Jan attempt to enter such a scene. Jan! I don’t suppose he possesses a coat and waistcoat.”
Lionel smiled, quitted his mother, and bent his steps towards Jan Verner’s.
Not to solicit Jan’s attendance upon Lady Verner to the festival scene, or to make close inquiries as to the state of Jan’s wardrobe. No; Lionel had a more serious motive for his visit.
He found Jan and Master Cheese enjoying a sort of battle. The surgery looked as if it had been turned upside down, so much confusion reigned. White earthenware vessels of every shape and form, glass jars, huge cylinders, brass pots, metal pans, were scattered about in inextricable confusion. Master Cheese had recently got up a taste for chemical experiments, in which it appeared necessary to call into requisition an unlimited quantity of accessories in the apparatus line. He had been entering upon an experiment that afternoon, when Jan came unexpectedly in, and caught him.
Not for the litter and confusion was Jan displeased, but because he found that Master Cheese had so bungled chemical properties in his head, so confounded one dangerous substance with another, that, five minutes later, the result would probably have been the blowing off of the surgery roof, and Master Cheese and his vessels with it. Jan was giving him a sharp and decisive word, not to attempt anything of the sort again, until he could bring more correct knowledge to bear upon it, when Lionel interrupted them.
“I want to speak to you, Jan,” he said.
“Here, you be off, and wash the powder off your hands,” cried Jan to Master Chesse, who was looking ruefully cross. “I’ll put the things straight.”
The young gentleman departed. Lionel sat down on the only chair he could see—one probably kept for the accommodation of patients who might want a few teeth drawn. Jan was rapidly reducing the place to order.
“What is it, Lionel?” he asked, when it was pretty clear.
“Jan, you must see Sibylla. She wants to go to Deerham Hall to-morrow night.”
“She can’t go,” replied Jan. “Nonsense.”
“But she says she will go.”
Jan leaned his long body over the counter, and brought his face nearly on a level with Lionel’s, speaking slowly and impressively.
“If she goes, Lionel, it will kill her.”
Lionel rose to depart. He was on his way to Verner’s Pride.
“I called in to tell you this, Jan, and to ask you to step up and remonstrate with her.”
“I’ll go,” said Jan. “Mark me, Lionel, she must not go. And if there’s no other way of keeping her away, you, her husband, must forbid it. A little more excitement than usual, and there’ll be another vessel of the lungs ruptured. If that happens, nothing can save her life. Keep her at home, by force if necessary: any way keep her.”
“And what of the excitement that that will cause?” questioned Lionel. “It may be as fatal as the other.”
“I don’t know,” returned Jan, speaking for once in his life testily, in the vexation the difficulty brought him. “My belief is, that Sibylla’s mad. She’d never be so stupid, were she sane.”
“Go to her, and see what you can do,” concluded Lionel, as he turned away.
Jan proceeded to Deerham Court, and had an interview with Mrs. Verner. It was not of a very agreeable nature, neither did much satisfaction ensue from it. After a few recriminating retorts to Jan’s arguments, which he received as equably as though they had been compliments, Sibylla subsided into sullen silence. And when Jan left, he could not tell whether she still persisted in her project, or whether she gave it up.
Lionel returned late in the evening: he had been detained at Verner’s Pride. Sibylla appeared sullen still. She was in her own sitting-room, upstairs, and Lucy was bearing her company. Decima was in Lady Verner’s chamber.
“Have you had any dinner?” inquired Lucy. She did not ask. She would not have asked had he been starving.
“I took a bit with John Massingbird,” he replied. “Is my mother better, do you know?”
“Not much, I think,” said Lucy. “Decima is sitting with her.”
Lionel stood in his old attitude, his elbow on the mantelpiece by his wife’s side, looking down at her. Her eyes were suspiciously bright, her cheeks now shone with their most crimson hectic. It was often the case at this, the twilight hour of the evening. She wore a low dress, and the gold chain on her neck rose and fell with every breath. Lucy’s neck was uncovered, too: a fair, pretty neck; one that did not give you the shudders when looked at, as poor Sibylla’s did. Sibylla leaned back on the cushions of her chair, toying with a fragile hand-screen of feathers: Lucy, sitting on the opposite side, had been reading; but she laid the book down when Lionel entered.
“John Massingbird desired me to ask you, Sibylla, if he should send you the first plate of grapes they cut.”
“I’d rather have the first bag of walnuts they shake,” answered Sibylla. “I never care for grapes.”
“He can send you both,” said Lionel: but an uncomfortable, dim recollection came over him, of Jan’s having told her she must not eat walnuts. For Jan to tell her not to do a thing, however—or, in fact, anybody else—was the sure signal for Sibylla to do it.
“Does John Massingbird intend to go to-morrow evening?” inquired Sibylla.
“To Deerham Hall, do you mean? John Massingbird has received no invitation.”
“What’s that for?” quickly asked Sibylla.
“Some whim of Miss Hautley’s, I suppose. They have been issued very partially. John says it is just as well he did not get one, for he should either not have responded to it, or else made his appearance there with his clay pipe.”
Lucy laughed.
“He is glad to be left out,” continued Lionel. “It saves him the trouble of a refusal. I don’t think any ball would get John Massingbird to it; unless he could be received in what he calls his diggings toggery.”
“I’d not have gone with him; I don’t like him well enough,” resentfully spoke Sibylla; “but as he is not going, he can let me have the loan of my own carriage—at least, the carriage that was my own. I dislike those old hired things.”
The words struck on Lionel like a knell. He foresaw trouble.
“Sibylla,” he gravely said, “I have been speaking to Jan. He—”
“Yes, you have!” she vehemently interrupted, her pent-up anger bursting forth. “You went to him, and sent him here, and told him what to say,—all on purpose to cross me. It is wicked of you to be so jealous of my having a little pleasure.”
“Jealous of—I don’t understand you, Sibylla.”
“You won’t understand me, you mean. Never mind! never mind!”
“Sibylla,” he said, bending his head slightly towards her, and speaking in low, persuasive accents, “I cannot let you go to-morrow night. If I cared for you less, I might let you risk it. I have given up going, and—”
“You never meant to go,” she interrupted.
“Yes I did: to please my mother. But that is of no consequence—”
“I tell you, you never meant to go, Lionel Verner!” she passionately burst forth, her cheeks flaming. “You are stopping at home on purpose to be with Lucy Tempest. It is a concocted plan between you and her. Her society is more to you than any you’d find at Deerham Hall.”
Lucy looked up with a start—a sort of shiver—her sweet brown eyes open with innocent wonder. Then the full sense of the words appeared to penetrate to her, and her face grew hot with a glowing scarlet flush. She said nothing. She rose quietly, not hurriedly, took up the book she had put on the table, and quietly left the room.
Lionel’s face was glowing, too,—glowing with the red blood of indignation. He bit his lips for calmness, leaving the mark there for hours. He strove manfully with his angry spirit: it was rising up to open rebellion. A minute, and the composure of self-control came to him. He stood before his wife, his arms folded.
“You are my wife,” he said. “I am bound to defend, to excuse you so far as I may; but these insults to Lucy Tempest I cannot excuse. She is the daughter of my dead father’s dearest friend; she is living here under the protection of my mother, and it is incumbent upon me to put a stop to these scenes, so far as she is concerned. If I cannot do it in one way, I must in another.”
“You know she and you would like to stay at home together—and get the rest of us out.”
“Be silent!” he said, in a sterner tone than he had ever used to her. “You cannot reflect upon what you are saying. Accuse me as you please; I will bear it patiently, if I can; but Miss Tempest must be spared. You know how utterly unfounded are such thoughts; you know that she is refined, gentle, single-hearted; that all her thoughts to you, as my wife, are those of friendship and kindness. What would my mother think were she to hear this?”
Sibylla made no reply.
“You have never seen a look or heard a word pass between me and Lucy Tempest that was not of the most open nature, entirely compatible with her position, that of a modest and refined gentlewoman, and of mine, as your husband. I think you must be mad, Sibylla.”
The words Jan had used. If such temperaments do not deserve the name of madness, they are near akin to it. Lionel spoke with emotion; it all but overmastered him, and he went back to his place by the mantelpiece, his chest heaving.
“I shall leave this residence as speedily as may be,” he said, “giving some trivial excuse to my mother for the step. I see no other way to put an end to this.”
Sibylla, her mood changing, burst into tears. “I don’t want to leave it,” she said, quite in a humble tone.
He was not inclined for argument. He had rapidly made his mind up, believing it was the only course open to him. He must go away with his wife, and so leave the house in peace. Saying something to that effect, he quitted the room, leaving Sibylla sobbing fractiously on the pillow of the chair.
He went down to the drawing-room. He did not care where he went, or what became of him: it is an unhappy thing when affairs grow to that miserable pitch, that the mind has neither ease nor comfort anywhere. At the first moment of entering, he thought the room was empty, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the dusk, he discerned the form of some one standing at the distant window. It was Lucy Tempest. Lionel went straight up to her: he felt that some apology or notice from him was due. She was crying bitterly, and turned to him before he could speak.
“Mr. Verner, I feel my position keenly. I would not remain here to make things unpleasant to your wife, for the whole world. But I cannot help myself. I have nowhere to go to until papa shall return to Europe.”
“Lucy, let me say a word to you,” he whispered, his tones impeded, his breath coming thick and fast from his hot and crimsoned lips. “There are moments in a man’s lifetime when he must be true; when the artificial gloss thrown on social intercourse fades out of sight. This is one.”
Her tears fell more quietly.
“I am so very sorry!” she continued to murmur.
“Were you other than what you are, I might meet you with some of this artifice; I might pretend not to know aught of what has been said; I might attempt some elaborate apology. It would be worse than folly from me to you. Let me tell you, that could I have shielded you from this insult with my life, I would have done it.”
“Yes, yes,” she hurriedly answered.
“You will not mistake me. As the daughter of my father’s dearest friend, as my mother’s honoured guest, I speak to you. I speak to you as one whom I am bound to protect from harm and insult, only in a less degree than I would protect my wife. You will do me the justice to believe it.”
“I know it. Indeed I do not blame you.”
“Lucy, I would have prevented this, had it been in my power. But it was not. I could not help it. All I can do, is to take steps that it shall not occur again in the future. I scarcely know what I am saying to you. My life, what with one thing and another, is well-nigh wearied out.”
Lucy had long seen that. But she did not say so.
“It will not be long now before papa is at home,” she answered, “and then I shall leave Deerham Court free. Thank you for speaking to me,” she simply said, as she was turning to leave the room.
He took both her hands in his; he drew her nearer to him, his head was bent down to hers, his whole frame shook with emotion. Was he tempted to take a caress from her sweet face, as he had taken it years ago? Perhaps he was. But Lionel Verner was not one to lose his self-control where there was real necessity for his retaining it. His position was different now from what it had been then; and, if the temptation was strong, it was kept in check, and Lucy never knew it had been there.
“You will forget it for my sake, Lucy? You will not resent it upon her? She is very ill.”
“It is what I wish to do,” she gently said. “I do not know what foolish things I might not say, were I suffering like Mrs. Verner.”
“God bless you for ever, Lucy!” he murmured. “May your future life be more fortunate than mine is.”
Relinquishing her hands, he watched her disappear through the darkness of the room. She was dearer to him than his own life; he loved her better than all earthly things. That the knowledge was all too palpable then, he was bitterly feeling, and he could not suppress it. He could neither suppress the knowledge, nor the fact; it had been very present with him for long and long. He could not help it, as he said. He believed in his honest heart that he had not encouraged the passion; that it had taken root and spread unconsciously to himself. He would have driven it away had it been in his power; he would drive it away now, could he do it by any amount of energy or will. But it could not be. And Lionel Verner leaned in the dark there against the window-frame, resolving to do as he had done before—had done all along. To suppress it ever; to ignore it, so far as might be; and to do his duty as honestly and lovingly by his wife, as though the love were not there.
He had been enabled to do this hitherto, and he would still: God helping him.
CHAPTER LVIII. GOING TO THE BALL.
It was the day of the fête at Deerham Hall. Sibylla awoke in an amiable mood, unusually so for her, and Lionel, as he dressed, talked to her gravely and kindly, urging upon her the necessity of relinquishing her determination to be present. It appeared that she was also reasonable that morning, as well as amiable, for she listened to him, and at length voluntarily said she would think no more about it.
“But you must afford me some treat in place of it,” she immediately added. “Will you promise to take me for a whole day next week to Heartburg?”
“Willingly,” replied Lionel. “There is to be a morning concert at Heartburg next Tuesday. If you feel well enough, we can attend that.”
He did not think morning concerts, and the fatigue they sometimes entail, particularly desirable things for his wife; but, compared with hot ball-rooms and the night air, they seemed innocuous. Sibylla liked morning concerts uncommonly, nearly as much as Master Cheese liked tarts: she liked anything that afforded an apology for dress and display.
“Mind, Lionel, you promise to take me,” she reiterated.
“Yes. Provided you feel equal to going.”
Sibylla took breakfast in her own room, according to custom. Formerly she had done so through idleness: now she was really not well enough to rise early. Lionel, when he joined the family breakfast table, announced the news: announced it in his own characteristic manner.
“Sibylla thinks, after all, that she will be better at home, this evening,” he said. “I am glad she has so decided it.”
“Her senses have come to her, have they!” remarked Lady Verner.
He made no reply. He never did make a reply to any shaft lanced by Lady Verner at his wife. My lady was sparing of her shafts in a general way since they had resided with her, but she did throw one out now and then.
“You will go with me, then, Lionel.”
He shook his head, telling his mother she must excuse him: it was not his intention to be present.
Sibylla continued in a remarkably quiet, not to say affable, temper all day. Lionel was out, but returned home to dinner. By-and-by Lady Verner and Decima retired to dress. Lucy went up with Decima, and Lionel remained with his wife.
When they came down, Sibylla was asleep on the sofa. Lady Verner wore some of the magnificent and yet quiet attire that had pertained to her gayer days; Decima was in white. Lionel put on his hat and went out to hand them into the carriage that waited. As he did so, the aspect of his sister’s face struck him.
“What is the matter, Decima?” he exclaimed. “You are looking perfectly white.”
She only smiled in answer: a forced, unnatural smile, as it appeared to Lionel. But he said no more: he thought the white hue might be only the shade cast by the moonlight. Lady Verner looked from the carriage to ask a question.
“Is Jan really going, do you know, Lionel? Lucy says she thinks he is. I do hope and trust that he will be attired like a Christian, if he is absurd enough to appear.”
“I think I’ll go and see,” answered Lionel, a smile crossing his face. “Take care, Catherine.”
Old Catherine, who had come out with shawls, was dangerously near the wheels—and the horses were on the point of starting. She stepped back, and the carriage drove on.
The bustle had aroused Sibylla. She rose to look from the window: saw the carriage depart, saw Catherine come in, saw Lionel walk away towards Deerham. It was all clear in the moonlight. Lucy Tempest was looking from the other window.
“What a lovely night it is!” she exclaimed. “I should not mind a drive of ten miles, such a night as this.”
“And yet they choose to say that going out would hurt me!” spoke Sibylla, in a resentful tone. “They only do it on purpose to vex me.”
Lucy chose to ignore the subject: it was not her business to enter into it one way or the other. She felt that Mrs. Verner had done perfectly right in remaining at home; that her strength would have been found unequal to support the heat and excitement of a ball-room, following on the night air of the transit to it. Lovely as the night was, it was cold: for some few evenings past the gardeners had complained of frost.
Lucy drew from the window with a half sigh: it seemed almost a pity to shut out that pleasant moonlight: turned, and stirred the fire into a blaze. Sibylla’s chilly nature caused them to enter upon evening fires before other people thought of them.
“Shall I ring for lights, Mrs. Verner?”
“I suppose it’s time, and past time,” was Sibylla’s answer. “I must have been asleep ever so long.”
Catherine brought them in. The man-servant had gone in attendance on his mistress. The moderate household of Lady Verner consisted now but of four domestics: Thérèse, Catherine, the cook, and the man.
“Shall I bring tea in, Miss Lucy?” asked Catherine.
Lucy turned her eyes on Sibylla.
“Would you like tea now, Mrs. Verner?”
“No,” answered Sibylla. “Not yet.”
She left the room as she spoke. Old Catherine, who had been lowering the curtains, followed next. Lucy drew a chair to the fire, sat down, and fell into a reverie.
She was aroused by the door opening again. It proved to be Catherine with the tea-things.
“I thought I’d bring them in, and then they’ll be ready,” remarked she. “You can please to ring, miss, when you want the urn.”
Lucy simply nodded, and Catherine returned to the kitchen, to enjoy a social tête-à-tête supper with the cook. Mademoiselle Thérèse, taking advantage of her mistress’s absence, had gone out for the rest of the evening. The two servants sat on and chatted together: so long, that Catherine openly wondered at the urn’s not being called for.
“They must both have gone to sleep, I should think,” quoth she. “Miss Lucy over the fire in the sitting-room, and Mr. Lionel’s wife over hers, upstairs. I have not heard her come down—”
Catherine stopped. The cook had started up, her eyes fixed on the doorway. Catherine, whose back was towards it, hastily turned; and an involuntary exclamation broke from her lips.
Standing there was Mrs. Verner, looking like—like a bedecked skeleton. She was in fairy attire. A gossamer robe of white with shining ornaments, and a wreath that seemed to sparkle with glittering dewdrops on her head. But her arms were thin, wasted; and the bones of her poor neck seemed to rattle as they heaved painfully under the gems; and her face had not so much as the faintest tinge of hectic, but was utterly colourless: worse; it was wan, ghastly. A distressing sight to look upon, was she, as she stood there: she and the festal attire were so completely at variance. She came forward, before the servants could recover from their astonishment.
“Where’s Richard?” she asked, speaking in a low, subdued tone, as if fearing to be heard—though there was nobody in the house to hear her, save Lucy Tempest. And probably it was from her wish to avoid all attention to her proceeding, that caused her to come down stealthily to the servants, instead of ringing for them.
“Richard is not come back, ma'am,” answered Catherine. “We have just been saying that he’ll most likely stop up there with the Hall servants until my lady returns.”
“Not back!” echoed Sibylla. “Cook, you must go out for me,” she imperiously added, after a moment’s pause. “Go to Dean’s and order one of their flies here directly. Wait, and come back with it.”
The cook, a simple sort of young woman, save in her own special department, did not demur, or appear to question in the least the expediency of the order. Catherine questioned it very much indeed; but while she hesitated what to do, whether to stop the cook, or to venture on a remonstrance to Mrs. Verner, or to appeal to Miss Tempest to do it, the cook was gone. Servants are not particular in country places, and the girl went straight out as she was, staying to put nothing on.
Sibylla appeared to be shivering. She took up her place right in front of the fire, holding out her hands to the blaze. Her teeth chattered, her whole frame trembled.
“The fire in my dressing-room went out,” she remarked. “Take care that you make up a large one by the time I return.”
“You’ll never go, ma'am!” cried old Catherine, breaking through her reserve. “You are not strong enough.”
“Mind your own business,” sharply retorted Sibylla. “Do you think I don’t know my own feelings, whether I am strong, or whether I am not? I am as strong as you.”
Catherine dared no more. Sibylla cowered over the fire, her head turned sideways as she glanced on the table.
“What’s that?” she suddenly cried, pointing to the contents of a jug.
“It’s beer, ma'am,” answered Catherine. “That stupid girl drew just as much as if Richard and Thérèse had been at home. Maybe Thérèse will be in yet for supper.”
“Give me a glass of it. I am thirsty.”
Again old Catherine hesitated. Malt liquor had been expressly forbidden to Mrs. Verner. It made her cough frightfully.
“You know, ma'am, the doctors have said—”
“Will you hold your tongue? And give me what I require? You are as bad as Mr. Verner.”
Catherine reached a tumbler, poured it half full, and handed it, Mrs. Verner did not take it.
“Fill it,” she said.
So old Catherine, much against her will, had to fill it, and Sibylla drained the glass to the very bottom. In truth, she was continually thirsty: she seemed to have a perpetual inward fever upon her. Her shoulders were shivering as she set down the glass.
“Go and find my opera cloak, Catherine. It must have dropped on the stairs. I know I put it on as I left my room.”
Catherine quitted the kitchen on the errand. She would have liked to close the door after her; but it happened to be pushed quite back with a chair against it; and the pointedly shutting it might have been noticed by Sibylla. She found the opera cloak lying on the landing, near Sibylla’s bedroom door. Catching it up, she slipped off her shoes at the same moment, stole down noiselessly and went into the presence of Miss Tempest.
Lucy looked astonished. She sat at the table reading, waiting with all patience the entrance of Sibylla, ere she made the tea. To see Catherine steal in covertly with her finger to her lips, excited her wonder.
“Miss Lucy, she’s going to the ball,” was the old servant’s salutation, as she approached close to Lucy, and spoke in the faintest whisper. “She is shivering over the kitchen fire, with hardly a bit of gown to her back, so far as warmth goes. Here’s her opera cloak: she dropped it coming down. Cook’s gone out for a fly.’
Lucy felt startled. “Do you mean Mrs. Verner?”
“Why, of course I do,” answered Catherine. “She has been up-stairs all this while, and has dressed herself alone. She must not go. Miss Lucy. She’s looking like a ghost. What will Mr. Verner say to us, if we let her! It may just be her death.”
Lucy clasped her hands in her consternation.
“Catherine, what can we do? We have no influence over her. She would not listen to us for a moment. If we could but find Mr. Verner!”
“He was going round to Mr. Jan’s when my lady drove off. I heard him say it. Miss Lucy, I can’t go after him: she’d find me out: I can’t leave her, or leave the house. But he ought to be got here.”
Did the woman’s words point to the suggestion that Lucy should go? Lucy may have thought it: or, perhaps, she entered on the suggestion of her own accord.
“I will go, Catherine,” she whispered. “I don’t mind it. It is nearly as light as day outside, and I shall soon be at Mr. Jan’s. You go back to Mrs. Verner.”
Feeling that there was not a moment to be lost; feeling that Mrs. Verner ought to be stopped at all hazards for her own sake, Lucy caught up a shawl and a green sun-bonnet of Lady Verner’s that happened to be in the hall, and thus hastily attired, went out. Speeding swiftly along the moonlit road she soon gained Deerham, and turned to the house of Dr. West. A light in the surgery guided her there at once.
But the light was there alone. Nobody was present to reap its benefit or to answer intruders. Lucy knocked pretty loudly on the counter without bringing forth any result. Apparently she was not heard: perhaps from the fact that the sound was drowned in the noise of some fizzing and popping which seemed to be going on in the next room—Jan’s bed-room. Her consideration for Mrs. Verner put ceremony out of the question: in fact, Lucy was not given at the best of times to stand much upon that: and she stepped round the counter, and knocked briskly at the door. Possibly Lionel might be in there with Jan.
Lionel was not there, nor Jan, either. The door was gingerly opened about two inches by Master Cheese, who was enveloped in a great white apron and white oversleeves. His face looked red and confused as it peeped out, like that of one who is caught at some forbidden mischief; and Lucy obtained sight of a perfect mass of vessels, brass, earthenware, glass and other things, with which the room was strewed. In point of fact. Master Cheese, believing he was safe from Jan’s superintendence for some hours, had seized upon the occasion to plunge into his forbidden chemical researches again, and had taken French leave to use Jan’s bed-room for the purpose, the surgery being limited for space.
“What do you want?” cried he roughly, staring at Lucy.
“Is Mr. Verner here?” she asked.
Then Master Cheese knew the voice, and condescended a sort of apology for his abruptness.
“I didn’t know you, Miss Tempest, in that fright of a bonnet,” said he, walking forth and closing the bed-room door behind him. “Mr. Verner’s not here.”
“Do you happen to known where he is?” asked Lucy. “He said he was coming here, an hour ago.”
“So he did come here; and saw Jan, Jan’s gone to the ball. And Miss Deb and Miss Amilly are gone to a party at Heartburg.”
“Is he,” returned Lucy, referring to Jan, and surprised to hear the news, balls not being in Jan’s line.
“I can’t make it out,” remarked Master Cheese. “He and Sir Edmund used to be cronies, I think; so I suppose that has taken him. But I am glad they are all off: it gives me a whole evening to myself. He and Mr. Verner went away together.”
“I wish very much to find Mr. Verner,” said Lucy. “It is of great consequence that I should see him. I suppose—you—could not—go and look for him, Master Cheese?” she added, pleadingly.
“Couldn’t do it,” responded Master Cheese, thinking of his forbidden chemicals. “When Jan’s away I am chief, you know, Miss Tempest. A case of broken leg may be brought in, for anything I can tell.”
Lucy wished him good-night and turned away. She hesitated at the corner of the street, gazing up and down. To start on a search for Lionel, appeared to be about as hopeful a project as that search, renowned in proverb, the looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. The custom in Deerham was, not to light the lamps on a moonlight night, so the street, as Lucy glanced on either side, lay white and quiet; no glare to disturb its peace, save from some shop, not yet closed. Mrs. Duff’s opposite, was among the latter catalogue: and her son, Mr, Dan, appeared to be taking a little tumbling recreation on the flags before the bay window. Lucy crossed over to him.
“Dan,” said she, “do you happen to have seen Mr. Verner pass lately?”
Dan, just then on his head, turned himself upside down, and alighted on his feet, humble and subdued. “Please, miss, I see’d him awhile agone along of Mr, Jan,” was the answer, pulling his hair by way of salutation, “They went that way. Mr. Jan was all in black, he was.”
The boy pointed towards Deerham Court, towards Deerham Hall. There was little doubt that Jan was then on his way to the latter. But the question for Lucy was—where had Lionel gone?
She could not tell: the very speculation upon it was unprofitable, since it could lead to no certainty. Lucy turned homewards, walking quickly.
She had got past the houses, when she discerned before her in the distance, a form which instinct—perhaps some dearer feeling—told her was that of him of whom she was in search. He was walking with a slow, leisurely step towards his home, Lucy’s heart gave a bound—that it did so still at his sight, like it had done in the earlier days, was no fault of hers: heaven knew that she had striven and prayed against it. When she caught him up she was out of breath, so swiftly had she sped.
“Lucy!” he uttered. “Lucy! What do you do here!”
“I came out to look for you,” she simply said: “there was nobody else at home to come. I went to Jan’s, thinking you might be there. Mrs. Verner has dressed herself to go to Sir Edmund’s. You may be in time to stop her if you make haste.”
With a half-uttered exclamation, Lionel was speeding off, when he appeared to remember Lucy. He turned to take her with him.
“No,” said Lucy, stopping. “I could not go as quickly as you: and a minute, more or less, may make all the difference. There is nothing to hurt me. You make the best of your way. It is for your wife’s sake.”
There was good sense in all she said, and Lionel started off with a fleet foot. Before Lucy had quite gained the Court, she saw him coming back to meet her. He drew her hand within his arm in silence, and kept his own upon it for an instant’s grateful pressure.
“Thank you, Lucy, for what you have done. Thank you now and ever. I was too late.”
“Is Mrs. Verner gone?”
“She is gone these ten minutes past, Catherine says. A fly was found immediately.”
They turned into the house; into the sitting-room. Lucy threw off the large shawl and the shapeless green bonnet: at any other moment she would have laughed at the figure she must have looked in them. The tea-things still waited on the table.
“Shall I make you some tea?” she asked.
Lionel shook his head. “I must go up and dress. I shall go after Sibylla.”