ENDURANCE.
Lionel had probably obeyed the summons sooner than was expected by Lady
Verner and Decima; sooner, perhaps, than they deemed he could have
obeyed it. Neither of them was in the breakfast-room: no one was there
but Lucy Tempest.
By the very way in which she looked at him--the flushed cheeks, the
eager eyes--he saw that the tidings had reached her. She timidly held
out her hand to him, her anxious gaze meeting his. Whatever may have
been the depth of feeling entertained for him, Lucy was too
single-minded not to express all she felt of sympathy.
"Is it true?" were her first whispered words, offering no other
salutation.
"Is what true, Lucy?" he asked. "How am I to know what you mean?"
They stood looking at each other. Lionel waiting for her to speak; she
hesitating. Until Lionel was perfectly certain that she alluded to that
particular report, he would not speak of it. Lucy moved a few steps from
him, and stood nervously playing with the ends of her waist-band, the
soft colour rising in her cheeks.
"I do not like to tell you," she said simply. "It would not be a
pleasant thing for you to hear, if it be not true."
"And still less pleasant for me, if it be true," he replied, the words
bringing him conviction that the rumour they had heard was correct. "I
fear it is true, Lucy."
"That--some one--has come back?"
"Some one who was supposed to be dead."
The avowal seemed to take from her all hope. Her hands fell listlessly
by her side, and the tears rose to her eyes. "I am so sorry!" she
breathed. "I am so sorry for you, and for--for----"
"My wife. Is that what you were going to say?"
"Yes, it is. I did not like much to say it. I am truly grieved. I wish I
could have helped it!"
"Ah! you are not a fairy with an all-powerful wand yet, Lucy, as we read
of in children's books. It is a terrible blow, for her and for me. Do
you know how the rumour reached my mother?"
"I think it was through the servants. Some of them heard it, and old
Catherine told her. Lady Verner has been like any one wild; but for
Decima, she would have started----"
Lucy's voice died away. Gliding in at the door, with a white face and
drawn-back lips, was Lady Verner. She caught hold of Lionel, her eyes
searching his countenance for the confirmation of her fears, or their
contradiction. Lionel took her hands in his.
"It is true, mother. Be brave, for my sake."
With a wailing cry she sat down on the sofa, drawing him beside her.
Decima entered and stood before them, her hands clasped in pain. Lady
Verner made him tell her all the particulars; all he knew, all he
feared.
"How does Sibylla meet it?" was her first question when she had listened
to the end.
"Not very well," he answered, after a momentary hesitation. "Who could
meet it well?" "Lionel, it is a judgment upon her. She--"
Lionel started up, his brow flushing.
"I beg your pardon, mother. You forget that you are speaking of my wife.
She _is_ my wife," he more calmly added, "until she shall have been
proved not to be."
No. Whatever may have been Sibylla's conduct to him personally, neither
before her face nor behind her back, would Lionel forget one jot of the
respect due to her. Or suffer another to forget it; although that other
should be his mother.
"What shall you do with her, Lionel?"
"Do with her?" he repeated, not understanding how to take the question.
"When the man makes himself known?"
"I am content to leave that to the time," replied Lionel, in a tone that
debarred further discussion.
"I knew no good would come of it," resumed Lady Verner, persistent in
expressing her opinion. "But for the wiles of that girl you might have
married happily, might have married Mary Elmsley."
"Mother, there is trouble enough upon us just now without introducing
old vexations," rejoined Lionel. "I have told you before that had I
never set eyes upon Sibylla after she married Frederick Massingbird,
Mary Elmsley would not have been my wife."
"If he comes back, he comes back to Verner's Pride?" pursued Lady Verner
in a low tone, breaking the pause which had ensued.
"Yes. Verner's Pride is his."
"And what shall you do? Turned, like a beggar, out on the face of the
earth?"
Like a beggar? Ay, far more like a beggar than Lady Verner, in her worst
apprehension, could picture.
"I must make my way on the earth as I best can," he replied in answer,
"I shall leave Europe--probably for India. I may find some means,
through my late father's friends, of getting my bread there."
Lady Verner appeared to appreciate the motive which no doubt dictated
the suggested course. She did not attempt to controvert it; she only
wrung her hands in passionate wailing.
"Oh, that you had not married her! that you had not subjected yourself
to this dreadful blight!"
Lionel rose. There were limits of endurance even for his aching heart.
Reproaches in a moment of trouble are as cold iron entering the soul.
"I will come in another time when you are more yourself, mother," was
all he said. "I could have borne sympathy from you this morning, better
than complaint."
He shook hands with her. He laid his hand in silence on Decima's
shoulder with a fond pressure as he passed her; her face was turned from
him, the tears silently streaming down it. He nodded to Lucy, who stood
at the other end of the room, and went out. But, ere he was half-way
across the ante-room, he heard hasty footsteps behind him. He turned to
behold Lucy Tempest, her hands extended, her face streaming down with
tears.
"Oh, Lionel, please not to go away thinking nobody sympathises with you!
I am so grieved; I am so sorry! If I can do anything for you, or for
Sibylla, to lighten the distress, I will do it."
He took the pretty, pleading hands in his, bending his face until it was
nearly on a level with hers. But that emotion nearly over-mastered him
in the moment's anguish, the very consciousness that he might be free
from married obligations, would have rendered his manner cold to Lucy
Tempest. Whether Frederick Massingbird was alive or not, _he_ must be a
man isolated from other wedded ties, so long as Sibylla remained on the
earth. The kind young face, held up to him in its grief, disarmed his
reserve. He spoke out to Lucy as freely as he had done in that long-ago
illness, when she was his full confidante. Nay, whether from her looks,
or from some lately untouched chord in his memory reawakened, that old
time was before him now, rather than the present, as his next words
proved.
"Lucy, with one thing and another, my heart is half broken. I wish I had
died in that illness. Better for me! Better--perhaps--for you."
"Not for me," said she, through her tears. "Do not think of me. I wish I
could help you in this great sorrow!"
"Help from you of any sort, Lucy, I forfeited in my blind wilfulness,"
he hoarsely whispered. "God bless you!" he added, wringing her hands to
pain. "God bless you for ever!"
She did not loose them. He was about to draw his hands away, but she
held them still, her tears and sobs nearly choking her.
"You spoke of India. Should it be that land that you choose for your
exile, go to papa. He may be able to do great things for you. And, if in
his power, he _would_ do them, for Sir Lionel Verner's sake. Papa longs
to know you. He always says so much about you in his letters to me."
"You have never told me so, Lucy."
"I thought it better not to talk to you too much," she simply said. "And
you have not been always at Deerham."
Lionel looked at her, holding her hands still. She knew how futile it
was to affect ignorance of truths in that moment of unreserve; she knew
that her mind and its feelings were as clear to Lionel as though she had
been made of glass, and she spoke freely in her open simplicity. She
knew, probably, that his deepest love and esteem were given to her.
Lionel knew it, if she did not; knew it to his very heart's core. He
could only reiterate his prayer, as he finally turned from her--"God
bless you, Lucy, for ever, and for ever!"