SIR WILFORD HAS HIS OWN WAY.
When her husband is gone, and the full significance of that meeting
and parting comes home to her, Sibyl feels as if all the hope and
glory of her life were departed with him. She does not repent her
decision. Were Alexis to offer her the same choice again she would
decide in exactly the same manner. In her limited way of looking
at the question there is no possibility of arriving at any other
determination. It would seem to her utterly unreasonable, an act
of absolute lunacy to throw away a fortune which is ready to drop
into her lap, for which she has waited patiently, living her false
life, suppressing the truer instincts of her heart and mind for
nearly three years. She wonders that a man of the world can demand
such a sacrifice, can cling to so foolish a prejudice as hereditary
hatred, and even carry that passion so far as to hate his enemy’s
money. To her mind the inheritance of Stephen Trenchard’s fortune by
Alexis Secretan’s wife appears a wise and beneficent settlement of
an old debt. No doubt her uncle Stephen was right, and that Philip
Secretan was a spendthrift who deserved to be disinherited. His
father’s fortune held over, quadrupled, increased tenfold perhaps, in
Stephen’s prudent hands, would pass to Alexis, and justice would be
done to the dead father through the living son.
Sibyl cannot believe that Alexis will be obdurate when the hour of
her freedom comes with Stephen Trenchard’s death.
‘No, I will not despair,’ she says to herself, drying her tearful
eyes, and looking at her white face in the glass over the low marble
chimney-piece. ‘Cruel as he was to-night, he loves me too well to
repudiate me by-and-bye when I am free to return to him. Poor fellow!
How could he reject fortune if it were mine to give him; he, who has
suffered the sharp stings of poverty, and who has to work for his
daily bread? How could he turn his back upon the bright new life that
would lie before us if my uncle’s money were mine--not life within
the four walls of a handsome dungeon, like this house, but life
wherever earth is loveliest--in Paris, in Italy, sailing in our yacht
on the Mediterranean, free as birds, without a care or a thought
except how to get the most pleasure out of our youth and wealth and
freedom?’
Comforted by reflections like these, Sibyl calms herself, and
prepares to continue her part of ministering angel to Stephen
Trenchard. Illness makes the old man irritable, and the character is
not the easiest in the world to perform.
She trembles at the thought of what would happen if her uncle and her
husband were to meet--of what might have happened this very evening
but for Mr. Trenchard’s most fortunate indisposition. What limit
would there be to the old man’s fury if he were to discover that he
had been cheated of his affection--that the niece he had loved and
favoured was the wife of his enemy’s son? That revelation would have
destroyed her hopes, beggared her of that golden chance which seems
to her scarcely less than the actual possession of his fortune.
She has no easy part to play this evening when she goes up to
her uncle’s room, and finds him sitting by his fire awake and
watchful--the _Times_ lying uncut on the little table beside his
capacious arm-chair.
‘What have you been doing all the evening, child?’ he asks testily.
‘I’ve been waiting for you to read me the City article--waiting
upwards of an hour by that clock,’ he adds, with a glance at the
gilded timepiece on the mantel shelf.
‘I’m so sorry, dear uncle. I thought you were asleep.’
‘You might have taken the trouble to come and ascertain the fact. I
have not closed my eyes since Podmore brought me my beef tea. Who is
this gentleman, pray, who has detained you so long?’
Sibyl is unprepared for this question. She had hoped her uncle would
have known nothing about that untimely visitor.
‘A gentleman uncle?’
‘Yes. Podmore told me you had a gentleman with you. Some one who
wanted to see me on particular business, and, being told that I was
ill, asked to see you instead. What did the fellow want?’
‘He wanted you to subscribe to a fund for building a new church at
Krampston, uncle,’ replies Sibyl, with a desperate plunge. Some lie
she must needs invent, no matter what shape it took. ‘Some new sect,
if I understood him rightly. I told him I did not think you would
care to subscribe, but that he might call again, if he liked, when
you are well.’
‘Humph! You might have given him a decided negative at once. There
are churches enough in the world, and new sects enough, without my
squandering money on the fools who want more. The fellow was with you
a long time. Why couldn’t you get rid of him sooner?’
‘He insisted upon showing me plans, and a list of subscribers, and he
told me a good deal about the church.’
‘You ought to know how to keep such fellows at a distance. Some
swindler, no doubt. And he was with you nearly an hour, according to
Podmore.’
‘Shall I read you the City article, uncle Trenchard?’ asks Sibyl,
anxious to end this embarrassing discussion.
She seats herself a little way behind Mr. Trenchard’s chair, well in
the shadow.
‘Yes, you can read, but come nearer the lamp, child; it makes me
uncomfortable to know that you are straining your eyes in the dark
there.’
Sibyl obeys reluctantly, fearing that the traces of agitation may
still disfigure her countenance. Luckily, the lamp has a velvet shade
which casts the light on the paper in her hand, and not on the face
bending over it.
Mr. Trenchard scans her curiously, notwithstanding. His suspicions
have been aroused by that evening visitor--a handsome young man,
according to Podmore, a lover, perhaps, and that story of the
Krampston Church all a fable. Mr. Trenchard has employed too much
fiction in the course of his own career to be easily deluded by a
figment of the female brain.
He says nothing, however, content to suspect, and to keep his
suspicions to himself for the present.
He languishes for some days more under the burden of what Dr. Mitsand
calls a slight bronchial attack, and in about a week is able to come
downstairs again, and seems almost as active and alert as ever, Sibyl
thinks, wondering whether there is really any foundation for that
idea about his ‘breaking up.’
Dr. Mitsand is Mr. Trenchard’s medical attendant. It is not to be
supposed that the precious life of a millionaire could be trusted to
poor little Dr. Faunthorpe, who has the care of the parish, and goes
his rounds in a positively disreputable pony carriage. Dr. Mitsand’s
neat single brougham and fine pair of bay cobs are a standing
evidence of his respectability and his skill. If he were not a clever
doctor how could he afford those cobs?
‘Wonderful constitution, your uncle’s, Miss Faunthorpe,’ says Dr.
Mitsand, cheerily, on the occasion of his last professional visit.
‘Quite set up again, you see, complexion clearer, eye brighter,
liver in better order. I congratulate you upon having an uncle who
ought to live as long as Lyndhurst or Brougham.’
Sibyl tries to look glad, but her heart sinks at the thought that
this fine constitution of her uncle’s places the hope of reunion with
Alexis very far off.
‘What a miserable situation mine must be when such horrid thoughts
are forced upon me!’ she reflects. ‘I almost wish I were Marion,
dawdling away life in that old house at the bottom of the town,
without a care.’
* * * * *
Sibyl’s cares are rendered heavier just at this time by the marked
attentions of Sir Wilford Cardonnel, attentions which, however
delightful they might be to her vanity in the beginning of things,
have now become hateful to her, the more so as her uncle will
not allow her any way of escape from this entanglement. She sees
before her the inevitable end in a proposal from Sir Wilford, and
her rejection of it, which act of seeming idiocy will doubtless
provoke her uncle’s anger, perhaps forfeit his good graces for ever;
and then all her patience, all her pretty little flatteries and
gentle ministerings to an irritable old man will have been wasted.
She will have grieved and offended her husband, perhaps alienated
his affections--for nothing. She will be bankrupt both ways. These
possibilities occur to her mind sometimes. Difficulties crowd upon
her and hem her in on every side. The dread of Sir Wilford taking
that decisive step, which he evidently intends to take sooner or
later, is always before her; and she has another ever-present fear
in the thought that Alexis may reappear at any moment, and reveal
himself to Stephen Trenchard. There are hours of her life in which
she feels sorely tempted to run away from wealth as she ran away from
poverty; and it is possible that if she had known where to find her
husband she would have acted upon this impulse. But he has vanished
out of her existence. In the fear and confusion of that brief visit
of his she did not even ask his place of abode or mode of life.
Prudence and that deep-rooted worship of wealth which is sometimes
engendered by a long apprenticeship to poverty keeps Sibyl constant
to the rack of her daily difficulties, despite these occasional
longings for escape. She contrives by a certain distance of manner,
which is in no wise ungracious, to defer Sir Wilford’s declaration of
his passion. The bluff and genial baronet is as shy as a girl in the
presence of the woman he loves, and so long as he can enjoy Sibyl’s
society, is in no hurry to precipitate matters. Small as are the
tokens of favour which she has bestowed upon him, Sir Wilford has no
apprehension of being refused by her when it shall please him to ask
the fateful question. He is too good a match for the possibility of a
refusal. It does not enter into his notion of possibilities that he,
Sir Wilford Cardonnel, of The How, could be rejected by any woman out
of the peerage. He is kept at a distance by Sibyl’s coldness, but in
no wise disheartened.
‘I’m in no hurry, you know,’ he says to himself. ‘I like to know
something about a woman before I ask her to be my wife. I should like
to make sure she cared a little about me, in a quiet way. So many
women have thrown themselves at my head, that I like this one all
the better for not going so fast. More likely to be a good stayer,
I should think. I don’t want to win with a rush. I’d rather take my
time and come in quietly.’ Thus muses Sir Wilford in the solitude
of his study--a room chiefly devoted to treatises on the turf and
farriery, whips, single sticks, gloves, favourite bits and bridles,
a small menagerie of stuffed dogs, from Sebastian, the favourite old
hound, defunct at a ripe old age, blind of one eye, and short of one
ear, to Mite, the smallest terrier ever seen in the West Riding, a
minute white animal, with pointed pink paws and a strong likeness to
a rat.
‘I ought to see more of her,’ thinks Sir Wilford. ‘It’s no use asking
her and the old party to dinner, or dining with them. I shall never
make the running that way. I feel as strange with her when I haven’t
seen her for a week or two as if I’d only just been introduced to
her. It’s like beginning our acquaintance over again. I must make
Phœbe ask them here to stay. That’ll be the best plan. A week in the
same house with her will show me what kind of girl she is, better
than a twelvemonth’s morning calling and dining.’
And having made up his mind, Sir Wilford is not slow to act upon his
decision.
‘Hi, Jess, old lady,’ he calls to his favourite, a splendid red
setter, graceful and ladylike enough in her habits to be admitted as
a house dog, though not without protest from Phœbe. Jess vanquishes
Miss Cardonnel’s objections by pretending to adore her, is as artful
as a court favourite, and has as many perquisites.
Sir Wilford goes straight to the morning-room, where his two sisters
employ themselves industriously between breakfast and luncheon,
writing innumerable letters, examining the housekeeper’s weekly
accounts, the head gardener’s book, and other household volumes,
working point lace, practising classical sonatas which reduce them
to the verge of lunacy, and making winter clothing for their various
pensioners.
Christmas is just over, and the Christmas gaieties and benevolences
done with. It is the beginning of the New Year--fine healthy
weather--the ground not too hard for horses or hounds, and Sir
Wilford in good humour with the arrangement of things.
‘Well, Phœbe, what people are you going to ask for Tilberry
steeplechase?’ he inquires, as Miss Cardonnel looks up from her desk,
where she is just declaring herself to remain her dearest Cecilia’s
ever affectionate friend--Cecilia being the fifth dearest friend she
has addressed this morning.
Tilberry steeplechase is an important fixture in this part of the
world. It is a race at which gentlemen jockeys disport themselves.
It comes in the winter, when outdoor amusements are rare. Altogether
Tilberry steeplechase is a benefaction.
‘I’ve written the last of my invitations this morning,’ replies
Phœbe, who is somewhat inclined to forget that she is the prime
minister and not the king, and to commit herself to important
measures without the preliminary formula of consultation with her
sovereign. ‘I have asked General and Mrs. MacTower and Belinda--the
eldest, you know;--and I thought we ought to be civil to the Vicar of
Redcastle for once in a way, so I’ve asked Mr. and Mrs. Chasubel and
the son. He won’t make much difference, and you can put him in the
barracks.’
The barracks is a range of small bedrooms over the offices, devoted
to bachelor visitors of indistinction.
‘Very well; I’ve no objection to the Chasubels. Who else?’
‘The Radnors, and the Vernons, and Cecilia Hawtree.’
‘Too many women,’ says Sir Wilford.
‘Cecilia is my particular friend,’ remarks Miss Cardonnel, with
dignity.
‘Oh, well, let her come.’
‘She is coming the day after to-morrow,’ observes Miss Cardonnel. ‘I
have just written to say I shall send the omnibus to meet her.’
‘What the dooce can one young woman want with a family bus, built to
carry ten?’ exclaims Sir Wilford.
‘She will have her maid,’ replies Miss Cardonnel, ‘and her
portmanteaus.’
‘Ah, boxes enough to load a goods train, I dare say,’ mutters Sir
Wilford. ‘Well, that’s all your list, I suppose?’
‘Yes, Wilford.’
‘Then I’ll give you mine.’
‘Do you want to ask any one else?’ exclaims Miss Cardonnel, with an
injured air. ‘I fancied I had thought of every one you would have
cared about asking.’
‘You’ve thought of a good many I don’t care about.’
‘But, my dear Wilford, I don’t see how I can possibly ask any more.
I’ve filled all the best bedrooms.’
‘Then you must empty some of them. I want you to ask Colonel and Mrs.
Stormont, and that son of theirs on the gray.’
‘But, Wilford, Mrs. Stormont is such a horrid old person--so pushing.’
‘Never mind that. We often have horrid old persons.’
‘And the son,--I don’t know what he’s like off that gray, but he’s
utterly odious on it.’
‘Stupid young cad, rather, but good fun. Be sure you tell him to
bring the gray.’
‘Why should we have the Stormonts to stay with us, Wilford?’ demands
Lavinia, the younger sister, looking up from an easel, upon which she
has been copying a drawing-master’s landscape, and fondly deluding
herself with the idea that she can paint. ‘It’s all very well to ask
them to dinner once in a way, or to a garden party, but why have them
in the house?’
‘Simply because I wish it, Vinnie. I don’t often indulge in whims.
Say that this is one, if you like.’
‘Oh, of course, if you really wish it. But I think it’s rather a
dangerous precedent,’ replies Phœbe. ‘All the Redcastle people will
be expecting to be asked to stay here.’
‘The butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers. Well, they can
go down to their graves in a state of expectation,’ says Sir
Wilford, ‘and now Phœbe, I want you to write a particularly nice
letter--cordial, and all that kind of thing, you know--to Miss
Faunthorpe, asking her and Mr. Trenchard over for the race week.’
‘I ought to have known what was coming,’ exclaims Phœbe.
‘Well, naturally, I shouldn’t be civil to the Stormonts without a
motive. Mrs. Stormont introduced me to Miss Faunthorpe, you see, and
I shouldn’t like the old lady to think I’d make a cat’s-paw of her.’
Phœbe is inwardly rebellious, but too wise to revolt outwardly. She
has seen the sun set on her twenty-ninth birthday, and has been
mistress of the How, the sole and sovereign domestic power, for the
last ten years. It will be a hard thing, to lay down her sceptre,
to retire from that lordly dwelling-place, and to become Miss
Cardonnel of nowhere in particular, a young lady whose non-success
in the matrimonial line sympathizing friends will lament over. And
Phœbe feels that the day when her sceptre must be so resigned is
not very far off, now that Wilford, who has his father’s obstinate
temper, poor dear fellow, has taken a ridiculous fancy to this Miss
Faunthorpe, a mere nobody, with nothing but a pretty face and a rich
uncle to recommend her to notice.
Sir Wilford waits while his sister writes the letter of invitation,
which she is obliged to make much warmer in tone than inclination
would prompt; the baronet looking over her shoulder all the while.
When the letter is in its envelope he surprises Phœbe by taking it
from her and putting it in his pocket.
‘I am going over to Redcastle this afternoon,’ he says, ‘so I can
deliver the letter and bring you back an answer. I should like you to
give Miss Faunthorpe the tapestry room.’
‘My dear Wilford, what are you thinking of? I have ever so many
married couples coming. I must put her in one of the small rooms in
the Kneller gallery.’
‘Oh, very well,’ replies Sir Wilford, ‘she’ll have the pick of the
rooms, perhaps, some of these days.--Hi, Jess, old woman.’
With which awful threat Sir Wilford withdraws, leaving his sisters
free to discuss the calamity that lowers over their house.