A VISIT OF CEREMONY.
Whatever may have been Lionel Verner's private sentiments, with regard
to his choice of a wife--whether he repented his hasty bargain or
whether he did not, no shade of dissatisfaction escaped him. Sibylla
took up her abode with her sisters, and Lionel visited her, just as
other men visit the young ladies they may be going to marry. The
servants at Verner's Pride were informed that a mistress for them was in
contemplation, and preparations for the marriage were begun. Not until
summer would it take place, when twelve months should have elapsed from
the demise of Frederick Massingbird.
Deerham was, of course, free in its comments, differing in no wise on
that score from other places. Lionel Verner was pitied, and Sibylla
abused. The heir of Verner's Pride, with his good looks, his manifold
attractions, his somewhat cold impassibility as to the tempting snares
laid out for him in the way of matrimony, had been a beacon for many a
young lady to steer towards. Had he married Lucy Tempest, had he married
Lady Mary Elmsley, had he married a royal princess, he and she would
both have been equally cavilled at. He, for placing himself beyond the
pale of competition; she, for securing the prize. It always was so, and
it always will be.
His choice of Mrs. Massingbird, however, really did afford some grounds
for grumbling. She was not worthy of Lionel Verner. So Deerham thought;
so Deerham said. He was throwing himself away; he would live to repent
it; she must have been the most crafty of women, so to have secured him!
Free words enough, and harshly spoken; but they were as water by the
side of those uttered by Lady Verner.
In the first bitter hour of disappointment, Lady Verner gave free speech
to harsh things. It was in her love for Lionel that she so grieved.
Setting aside the facts that Sibylla had been the wife of another man,
that she was, in position, beneath Lionel--which facts, however, Lady
Verner could not set aside, for they were ever present to her--her great
objection lay in the conviction that Sibylla would prove entirely
unsuited to him; that it would turn out an unhappy union. Short and
sharp was the storm with Lady Verner; but in a week or two she subsided
into quietness, buried her grief and resentment within her, and made no
further outward demonstration.
"Mother, you will call upon Sibylla?" Lionel said to her one day that he
had gone to Deerham Court. He spoke in a low, deprecating tone, and his
face flushed; he anticipated he knew not what torrent of objection.
Lady Verner met the request differently.
"I suppose it will be expected of me, that I should do so," she replied,
strangely calm. "How I dislike this artificial state of things! Where
the customs of society must be bowed to, by those who live in it; their
actions, good or bad, commented upon and judged! You have been
expecting that I should call before this, I suppose, Lionel?"
"I have been hoping, from day to day, that you would call."
"I will call--for your sake. Lionel," she passionately added, turning to
him, and seizing his hands between hers, "what I do now, I do for your
sake. It has been a cruel blow to me; but I will try to make the best of
it, for you, my best-loved son."
He bent down to his mother, and kissed her tenderly. It was his mode of
showing her his thanks.
"Do not mistake me, Lionel. I will go just so far in this matter as may
be necessary to avoid open disapproval. If I appear to approve it, that
the world may not cavil and you complain, it will be little more than an
appearance. I will call upon your intended wife, but the call will be
one of etiquette, of formal ceremony: you must not expect me to get into
the habit of repeating it. I shall never become intimate with her."
"You do not know what the future may bring forth," returned Lionel,
looking at his mother with a smile. "I trust the time will come when you
shall have learned to love Sibylla."
"I do not think that time will ever arrive," was the frigid reply of
Lady Verner. "Oh, Lionel!" she added, in an impulse of sorrow, "what a
barrier this has raised between us--what a severing for the future!"
"The barrier exists in your own mind only, mother," was his answer,
spoken sadly. "Sibylla would be a loving daughter to you, if you would
allow her so to be."
A slight, haughty shake of the head, suppressed at once, was the reply
of Lady Verner. "I had looked for a different daughter," she continued.
"I had hoped for Mary Elmsley."
"Upon this point, at any rate, there need be no misunderstanding,"
returned Lionel. "Believe me once for all, mother: I should never have
married Mary Elmsley. Had I and Sibylla remained apart for life,
separated as wide as the two poles, it is not Mary Elmsley whom I should
have made my wife. It is more than probable that my choice would have
pleased you only in a degree more than it does now."
The jealous ears of Lady Verner detected an undercurrent of meaning in
the words.
"You speak just as though you had some one in particular in your
thoughts!" she uttered.
It recalled Lucy, it recalled the past connected with her, all too
plainly to his mind; and he returned an evasive answer. He never
willingly recalled her: or it: if they obtruded themselves on his
memory--as they very often did--he drove them away, as he was driving
them now.
He quitted the house, and Lady Verner proceeded upstairs to Decima's
room--that pretty room, with its blue panels and hangings, where Lionel
used to be when he was growing convalescent. Decima and Lucy were in it
now. "I wish you to go out with me to make a call," she said to them.
"Both of us, mamma?" inquired Decima.
"Both," repeated Lady Verner. "It is a call of etiquette," she added, a
sound of irony mixing in the tone, "and, therefore, you must both make
it. It is to Lionel's chosen wife."
A hot flush passed into the face of Lucy Tempest; hot words rose to her
lips. Hasty, thoughtless, impulsive words, to the effect that _she_
could not pay a visit to the chosen wife of Lionel Verner.
But she checked them ere they were spoken. She turned to the window,
which had been opened to the early spring day, and suffered the cool air
to blow on her flushed face, and calmed down her impetuous thoughts. Was
_this_ the course of conduct that she had marked out for herself? She
looked round at Lady Verner and said, in a gentle tone, that she would
be ready at any hour named.
"We will go at once," replied Lady Verner. "I have ordered the carriage.
The sooner we make it--as we have to make it--the better."
There was no mistake about it. Lucy had grown to love Lionel Verner.
_How_ she loved him, esteemed him, venerated him, none, save her own
heart, could tell. Her days had been as one long dream of Eden. The very
aspect of the world had changed. The blue sky, the soft-breathing wind,
the scent of the budding flowers, had spoken a language to her, never
before learned: "Rejoice in us, for we are lovely!" It was the strange
bliss in her own heart that threw its rose hues over the face of nature,
the sweet, mysterious rapture arising from love's first dream; which can
never be described by mortal pen; and never, while it lasts, can be
spoken of by living tongue. _While it lasts_. It never does last. It is
the one sole ecstatic phase of life, the solitary romance stealing in
once, and but once, amidst the world's hard realities; the "fire filched
for us from heaven." Has it to arise yet for you--you, who read this? Do
not trust it when it comes, for it will be fleeting as a summer cloud.
Enjoy it, revel in it while you hold it; it will lift you out of earth's
clay and earth's evil with its angel wings; but trust not to its
remaining: even while you are saying, "I will make it mine for ever," it
is gone. It had gone for Lucy Tempest. And, oh! better for her, perhaps,
that it should go; better, perhaps, for all; for if that sweet glimpse
of paradise could take up its abode permanently in the heart, we should
never look, or wish, or pray for that better paradise which has to come
hereafter.
But who can see this in the sharp flood tide of despair? Not Lucy. In
losing Lionel she has lost all; and nothing remained for her but to do
battle with her trouble alone. Passionately and truly as Lionel had
loved Sibylla; so, in her turn, did Lucy love him.
It is not the fashion now for young ladies to die of broken hearts--as
it was in the old days. A little while given to "the grief that kills,"
and then Lucy strove to arouse herself to better things. She would go
upon her way, burying all feelings within her; she would meet him and
others with a calm exterior and placid smile; none should see that she
suffered; no, though her heart were breaking.
"I will forget him," she murmured to herself ten times in the day. "What
a mercy that I did not let him see I loved him! I never should have
loved him, but that I thought he--Psha! why do I recall it? I was
mistaken; I was stupid--and all that's left to me is to make the best of
it."
So she drove her thoughts away, as Lionel did. She set out on her course
bravely, with the determination to forget him. She schooled her heart,
and schooled her face, and believed she was doing great things. To
Lionel she cast no blame--and that was unfortunate for the forgetting
scheme. She blamed herself; not Lionel. Remarkably simple and
humble-minded, Lucy Tempest was accustomed to think of every one before
herself. Who was she, that she should have assumed Lionel Verner was
growing to love her? Sometimes she would glance at another phase of the
picture: That Lionel _had_ been growing to love her; but that Sibylla
Massingbird had, in some weak moment, by some sleight of hand, drawn him
to her again, extracted from him a promise that he could not retract.
She did not dwell upon this; she drove it from her, as she drove away,
or strove to drive away, the other thoughts; although the theory,
regarding the night of Sibylla's return, was the favourite theory of
Lady Verner. Altogether, I say, circumstances were not very favourable
towards Lucy's plan of forgetting him.
Lady Verner's carriage--the most fascinating carriage in all Deerham,
with its blue and silver appointments, its fine horses, all the present
of Lionel--conveyed them to the house of Dr. West. Lady Verner would not
have gone otherwise than in state, for untold gold. Distance allowing
her, for she was not a good walker, she would have gone on foot, without
attendants, to visit the Countess of Elmsley and Lady Mary; but not
Sibylla. You can understand the distinction.
They arrived at an inopportune moment, for Lionel was there. At least,
Lionel thought it inopportune. On leaving his mother's house he had gone
to Sibylla's. And, however gratified he may have been by the speedy
compliance of his mother with his request, he had very much preferred
not to be present himself, if the call comprised, as he saw it did
comprise, Lucy Tempest.
Sibylla was at home alone; her sisters were out. She had been leaning
back in an invalid chair, listening to the words of Lionel, when a
servant opened the door and announced Lady Verner. Neither had observed
the stopping of the carriage. Carriages often stopped at the house, and
visitors entered it; but they were most frequently professional visits,
concerning nobody but Jan. Lady Verner swept in. For her very life she
could not avoid showing hauteur in that moment. Sibylla sprung from her
chair, and stood with a changing face.
Lionel's countenance, too, was changing. It was the first time he had
met Lucy face to face in the close proximity necessitated by a room. He
had studiously striven not to meet her, and had contrived to succeed.
Did he call himself a coward for it? But where was the help?
A few moments given to greeting, to the assuming of seats, and they were
settled down. Lady Verner and Decima on a sofa opposite Sibylla; Lucy
in a low chair--what she was sure to look out for; Lionel leaning
against the mantel-piece--as favourite a position of his, as a low seat
was of Lucy's. Sibylla had been startled by their entrance, and her
chest was beating. Her brilliant colour went and came, her hand was
pressed upon her bosom, as if to still it, and she lay rather back in
her chair for support. She had not assumed a widow's cap since her
arrival, and her pretty hair fell around her in a shower of gold. In
spite of Lady Verner's prejudices, she could not help thinking her very
beautiful; but she looked suspiciously delicate.
"It is very kind of you to come to see me," said Sibylla, speaking
timidly across to Lady Verner.
Lady Verner slightly bowed. "You do not look strong," she observed to
Sibylla, speaking in the moment's impulse. "Are you well?"
"I am pretty well. I am not strong. Since I returned home, a little
thing seems to flutter me, as your entrance has done now. Lionel had
just told me you would call upon me, he thought. I was so glad to hear
it! Somehow I had feared you would not."
Candid, at any rate; and Lady Verner did not disapprove the apparent
feeling that prompted it; but how her heart revolted at hearing those
lips pronounce "Lionel" familiarly, she alone could tell. Again came the
offence.
"Lionel tells me sometimes I am so changed since I went out, that even
he would scarcely have known me. I do not think I am so changed as all
that. I had a great deal of vexation and trouble, and I grew thin. But I
shall soon be well again now."
A pause.
"You ascertained no certain news of John Massingbird, I hear," observed
Lady Verner.
"Not any. A gentleman there is endeavouring to trace out more
particulars. I heard--did Lionel mention to you--that I heard, strange
to say, of Luke Roy, from the family I was visiting--the Eyres?
Lionel"--turning to him--"did you repeat it to Lady Verner?"
"I believe not," replied Lionel. He could not say to Sibylla, "My mother
would tolerate no conversation on any topic connected with you."
Another flagging pause.
Lionel, to create a divertisement, raised a remarkably, fine specimen
of coral from the table, and carried it to his mother.
"It is beautiful," he remarked. "Sibylla brought it home with her."
Lady Verner allowed that it was beautiful.
"Show it to Lucy," she said, when she had examined it with interest.
"Lucy, my dear, do you remember what I was telling you the other
evening, about the black coral?"
Sibylla rose and approached Lucy with Lionel.
"I am so pleased to make your acquaintance," she said warmly. "You only
came to Deerham a short while before I was leaving it, and I saw
scarcely anything of you. Lionel has seen a great deal of you, I fancy,
though he will not speak of you. I told him one day it looked
suspicious; that I should be jealous of you, if he did not mind."
It was a foolish speech--foolish of Sibylla to give utterance to it; but
she did so in all singleness of heart, meaning nothing. Lucy was bending
over the coral, held by Lionel. She felt her own cheeks flush, and she
saw by chance, not by direct look, that Lionel's face had turned a deep
scarlet. Jealous of her! She continued to admire the coral some little
time longer, and then resigned it to him with a smile.
"Thank you, Mr. Verner. I am fond of these marine curiosities. We had a
good many of them at the rectory. Mr. Cust's brother was a sailor."
Lionel could not remember the time when she had called him "Mr. Verner."
It was right, however, that she should do so; but in his heart he felt
thankful for that sweet smile. It seemed to tell him that she, at any
rate, was heart-whole, that she certainly bore him no resentment. He
spoke freely now.
"You are not looking well, Lucy--as we have been upon the subject of
looks."
"I? Oh, I have had another cold since the one Jan cured. I did not try
his remedies in time, and it fastened upon me. I don't know which barked
the most--I or Growler."
"Jan says he shall have Growler here," remarked Sibylla.
"No, Sibylla," interposed Lionel; "Jan said he should like to have
Growler here, if it were convenient to do so, and my mother would spare
him. A medical man's is not the place for a barking dog; he might attack
the night applicants."
"Is it Jan's dog?" inquired Lucy.
"Yes," said Lionel. "I thought you knew it. Why, don't you remember,
Lucy, the day I--"
Whatever reminiscence Lionel may have been about to recall, he cut it
short midway, and subsided into silence. What was his motive? Did Lucy
know? She did not ask for the ending, and the rest were then occupied,
and had not heard.
More awkward pauses--as in these visits where the parties do not
amalgamate is sure to be the case, and then Lady Verner slightly bowed
to Lucy, as she might have done on their retiring from table, and rose.
Extending the tips of her delicately-gloved fingers to Sibylla, she
swept out of the room. Decima shook hands with her more cordially,
although she had not spoken half a dozen words during the interview, and
Sibylla turned and put her hand into Lucy's.
"I hope we shall be intimate friends," she said. "I hope you will be our
frequent guest at Verner's Pride."
"Thank you," replied Lucy. And perhaps the sudden flush on her face
might have been less vivid had Lionel not been standing there.
He attended them to the carriage, taking up his hat as he passed through
the vestibule; for really the confined space that did duty for hall in
Dr. West's house did not deserve the name. Lady Verner sat on one side
the carriage, Decima and Lucy on the seat opposite. Lionel stood a
moment after handing them in.
"If you can tear yourself away from the house for half an hour, I wish
you would take a drive with us," said Lady Verner, her tone of voice no
more pleasant than her words. Try as she would, she could not help her
jealous resentment against Sibylla from peeping out.
Lionel smiled, and took his seat by his mother, opposite to Lucy. He was
resolved to foster no ill-feeling by his own conduct, but to do all that
lay in his power to subdue it in Lady Verner. He had not taken leave of
Sibylla; and it may have been this, the proof that he was about to
return to her, which had excited the ire of my lady. She, his mother,
nothing to him; Sibylla all in all. Sibylla stood at the window, and
Lionel bent forward, nodded his adieu, and raised his hat.
The footman ascended to his place, and the carriage went on. All in
silence for some minutes. A silence which Lady Verner suddenly broke.
"What have you been doing to your cheeks, Lucy? You look as if you had
caught a fever."
Lucy laughed. "Do I, Lady Verner? I hope it is not a third cold coming
on, or Jan will grumble that I take them on purpose--as he did the last
lime."
She caught the eyes of Lionel riveted on her with a strangely perplexed
expression. It did not tend to subdue the excitement of her cheeks.
Another moment, and Decima's cheeks appeared to have caught the
infection. They had suddenly become one glowing crimson; a strange sight
on her delicately pale face. What could have caused it? Surely not the
quiet riding up to the carriage of a stately old gentleman who was
passing, wearing a white frilled shirt and hessian boots. He looked as
if he had come out of a picture-frame, as he sat there, his hat off and
his white hair flowing, courteously, but not cordially, inquiring after
the health of my Lady Verner.
"Pretty well, Sir Rufus. I have had a great deal of vexation to try me
lately."
"As we all have, my dear lady. Vexation has formed a large portion of my
life. I have been calling at Verner's Pride, Mr. Verner."
"Have you, Sir Rufus? I am sorry I was not at home."
"These fine spring days tempt me out. Miss Tempest, you are looking
remarkably well. Good-morning, Lady Verner. Good-morning."
A bow to Lady Verner, a sweeping bow to the rest collectively, and Sir
Rufus rode away at a trot, putting on his hat as he went. His groom
trotted after him, touching his hat as he passed the carriage.
But not a word had he spoken to Decima Verner, not a look had he given
her. The omission was unnoticed by the others; not by Decima. The
crimson of her cheeks had faded to an ashy paleness, and she silently
let fall her veil to hide it.
What secret understanding could there be between herself and Sir Rufus
Hautley?