MEETING THE NEWS.
Lionel Verner could not speak comfort to his wife; or, at the best,
comfort of a most negative nature. He held her to him in the study, the
door locked against intruders. They were somewhat at cross-purposes.
Lionel supposed that the information had been imparted to her by Captain
Cannonby; he never doubted but that she had been told Frederick
Massingbird had returned and was on the scene; that he might come in any
moment--even that very present one as they spoke--to put in his claim
to her. Sibylla, on the contrary, did not think (what little she was
capable of thinking) that Lionel had had previous information of the
matter.
"What am I to do?" she cried, her emotion becoming hysterical. "Oh,
Lionel! don't you give me up!"
"I would have got here earlier had there been means," he soothingly
said, wisely evading all answer to the last suggestion. "I feared he
would be telling you in my I absence; better that you should have heard
of it from me."
She lifted her face to look at him. "Then you know it!"
"I have known it this clay or two. My journey to-day--"
She broke out into a most violent fit of emotion, shrieking, trembling,
clinging to Lionel, calling out at the top of her voice that she would
not leave him. All his efforts were directed to stilling the noise. He
implored her to be tranquil, to remember there were listeners around; he
pointed out that, until the blow actually fell, there was no necessity
for those listeners to be made cognisant of it. All that he _could_ do
for her protection and comfort, he would do, he earnestly said. And
Sibylla subsided into a softer mood, and cried quietly.
"I'd rather die," she sobbed, "than have this disgrace brought upon me."
Lionel put her into the large arm-chair, which remained in the study
still, the old arm-chair of Mr. Verner. He stood by her and held her
hands, his pale face grave, sad, loving, bent towards her with the most
earnest sympathy. She lifted her eyes to it, whispering--
"Will they say you are not my husband?"
"Hush, Sibylla! There are moments, even yet, when I deceive myself into
a fancy that it may be somewhat averted. _I cannot_ understand how he
can be alive. Has Cannonby told you whence the error arose?"
She did not answer. She began to shake again; she tossed back her golden
hair. Some blue ribbons had been wreathed in it for dinner; she pulled
them out and threw them on the ground, her hair partially falling with
their departure.
"I wish I could have some wine?"
He moved to the door to get it for her. "Don't you let _her_ in,
Lionel," she called out as he unlocked it.
"Who?"
"That Deborah. I hate her now," was the ungenerous remark.
Lionel opened the door, called to Tynn, and desired him to bring wine.
"What time did Captain Cannonby get here?" he whispered, as he took it
from the butler.
"Who, sir?" asked Tynn.
"Captain Cannonby."
Tynn paused, like one who does not understand. "There's no gentleman
here of that name, sir. A Mr. Rushworth called to-day, and my mistress
asked him to stay dinner. He is in the drawing-room now. There is no
other stranger."
"Has Captain Cannonby not been here at all?" reiterated Lionel. "He left
London this morning to come."
Tynn shook his head to express a negative. "He has not arrived, sir."
Lionel went in again, his feelings undergoing a sort of revulsion, for
there now peeped out a glimmer of hope. So long as the nearly certain
conviction on Lionel's mind was not confirmed by positive testimony--as
he expected Captain Cannonby's would be--he could not entirely lose
sight of all hope. That he most fervently prayed the blow might not
fall, might even now be averted, you will readily believe. Sibylla had
not been to him the wife he had fondly hoped for; she provoked him every
hour in the day; she appeared to do what she could, wilfully to estrange
his affection. He was conscious of all this; he was all too conscious
that his inmost love was another's, not hers. But he lost sight of
himself in anxiety for her; it was for her sake he prayed and hoped.
Whether she was his wife by law or not; whether she was loved or hated,
Lionel's course of duty lay plain before him now--to shield her, so far
as he might be allowed, in all care and tenderness. He would have shed
his last drop of blood to promote her comfort; he would have sacrificed
every feeling of his heart for her sake.
The wine in his hand, he turned into the room again. A change had taken
place in her aspect. She had left the chair, and was standing against
the wall opposite the door, her tears dried, her eyes unnaturally
bright, her cheeks burning.
"Lionel," she uttered, a catching of the breath betraying her emotion,
"if _he_ is alive, whose is Verner's Pride?"
"His," replied Lionel, in a low tone.
She shrieked out, very much after the manner of a petulant child. "I
won't leave it!--I won't leave Verner's Pride! You could not be so cruel
as to wish me. Who says he is alive? Lionel, I ask you who it is that
says he is alive?"
"Hush, my dear! This excitement will do you a world of harm, and it
cannot mend the matter, however it may be. I want to know who told you
of this, Sibylla. I supposed it to be Cannonby; but Tynn says Cannonby
has not been here."
The question appeared to divert her thoughts into another channel.
"Cannonby! What should bring him here? Did you expect him to come?"
"Drink your wine, and then I will tell you," he said, holding the glass
towards her.
She pushed the wine from her capriciously. "I don't want wine now. I am
hot. I should like some water."
"I will get it for you directly. Tell me, first of all, how you came to
know of this?"
"Deborah told me. She sent for me out of the drawing-room where I was so
happy, to tell me this horrid tale. Lionel"--sinking her voice again to
a whisper--"is--he--here?"
"I cannot tell you--"
"But you must tell me," she passionately interrupted. "I will know. I
have a right to know it, Lionel."
"When I say I cannot tell you, Sibylla, I mean that I cannot tell you
with any certainty. I will tell you all I do know. Some one is in the
neighbourhood who bears a great resemblance to him. He is seen sometimes
at night; and--and--I have other testimony that he has returned from
Australia."
"What will be done if he comes here?"
Lionel was silent.
"Shall you fight him?"
"Fight him!" echoed Lionel. "No."
"You will give up Verner's Pride without a struggle! You will give up
me! Then, are you a coward, Lionel Verner?"
"You know that I would give up neither willingly, Sibylla."
Grievously pained was his tone as he replied to her. She was meeting
this as she did most other things--without sense or reason; not as a
thinking, rational being. Her manner was loud, her emotion violent; but
deep and true her grief was _not_. Depth of feeling, truth of nature,
were qualities that never yet had place in Sibylla Verner. Not once,
throughout all their married life, had Lionel been so painfully
impressed with the fact as he was now.
"Am I to die for the want of that water?" she resumed. "If you don't
get it for me I shall ring for the servants to bring it."
He opened the door again without a word. He knew quite well that she had
thrown in that little shaft about ringing for the servants, because it
would not be pleasant to him that the servants should intrude upon them
then. Outside the door, about to knock at it, was Deborah West.
"I must go home," she whispered. "Mr. Verner, how sadly she is meeting
this!"
The very thought that was in Lionel's heart. But not to another would he
cast a shade of reflection on his wife.
"It is a terrible thing for any one to meet," he answered. "I could have
wished, Miss West, that you had not imparted it to her. Better that I
should have done it, when it must have been done."
"I did it from a good motive," was the reply of Deborah, who was looking
sadly down-hearted, and had evidently been crying. "She ought to leave
you until some certainty shall be arrived at."
"Nonsense! No!" said Lionel. "I beg you--I _beg_ you, Miss West, not
to say anything more that can distress or disturb her. If
the--the--explosion comes, of course it must come; and we must all meet
it as we best may, and see then what is best to be done."
"But it is not right that she should remain with you in this
uncertainty," urged Deborah, who could be obstinate when she thought she
had cause. "The world will not deem it to be right. You should remember
this."
"I do not act to please the world. I am responsible to God and my
conscience."
"Responsible to--Good gracious, Mr. Verner!" returned Deborah, every
line in her face expressing astonishment. "You call keeping her with you
acting as a responsible man ought! If Sibylla's husband is living, you
must put her away from your side."
"When the time shall come. Until then, my duty--as I judge it--is to
keep her by my side; to shelter her from harm and annoyance, petty as
well as great."
"You deem _that_ your duty!"
"I do," he firmly answered. "My duty to her and to God."
Deborah shook her head and her hands. "It ought not to be let go on,"
she said, moving nearer to the study door. "I shall urge the leaving you
upon her."
Lionel calmly laid his hand upon the lock. "Pardon me, Miss West. I
cannot allow my wife to be subjected to it."
"But if she is not your wife?"
A streak of red came into his pale face. "It has yet to be proved that
she is not. Until that time shall come, Miss West, she _is_ my wife, and
I shall protect her as such."
"You will not let me see her?" asked Deborah, for his hand was not
lifted from the handle.
"No. Not if your object be the motives you avow. Sleep a night upon it,
Miss West, and see if you do not change your mode of thinking and come
over to mine. Return here in the morning with words of love and comfort
for her, and none will welcome you more sincerely than I."
"Answer me one thing, Mr. Verner. Do you believe in your heart that
Frederick Massingbird is alive and has returned?"
"Unfortunately I have no resource but to believe it," he replied.
"Then, to your way of thinking I can never come," returned Deborah in
some agitation. "It is just sin, Mr. Verner, in the sight of Heaven."
"I think not," he quietly answered. "I am content to let Heaven judge
me, and the motives that actuate me; a judgment more merciful than
man's."
Deborah West, in her conscientious, but severe rectitude, turned to the
hall door and departed, her hands uplifted still. Lionel ordered Tynn to
attend Miss West home. He then procured some water for his wife and
carried it in, as he had previously carried in the wine.
A fruitless service. Sibylla rejected it. She wanted neither water nor
anything else, were all the thanks Lionel received, querulously spoken.
He laid the glass upon the table, and, sitting down by her side in all
patience, he set himself to the work of soothing her, gently and
lovingly as though she had been what she was showing herself--a wayward
child.