AN EVENING AT LADY VERNER'S.
In the well-lighted drawing-room at Deerham Court was its mistress, Lady
Verner. Seated with her on the same sofa was her son, Lionel. Decima, at
a little distance, was standing talking to Lord Garle. Lucy Tempest sat
at the table cutting the leaves of a new book; and Sibylla was bending
over the fire in a shivering attitude, as if she could not get enough of
its heat. Lord Garle had been dining with them.
The door opened and Jan entered. "I have brought you a visitor,
Sibylla," said he, in his unceremonious fashion, without any sort of
greeting to anybody. "Come in, doctor."
It caused quite a confusion, the entrance of Dr. West. All were
surprised. Lionel rose, Lucy rose; Lord Garle and Decima came forward,
and Sibylla sprang towards him with a cry. Lady Verner was the only one
who retained entire calmness.
"Papa! it cannot be you! When did you come?"
Dr. West kissed her, and turned to Lady Verner with some courtly words.
Dr. West was an adept at such. Not the courtly words that spring
genuinely from a kindly and refined nature; but those that are put on to
hide a false one. All people, true-hearted ones, too, cannot distinguish
between them; the false and the real. Next, the doctor grasped the hand
of Lionel.
"My son-in-law!" he exclaimed in a very demonstrative manner. "The last
time you and I had the pleasure of meeting, Mr. Verner, we little
anticipated that such a relationship would ensue. I rejoice to welcome
you in it, my dear sir."
"True," said Lionel, with a quiet smile. "Coming events do not always
cast their shadows before."
With Decima, with Lord Garle, with Lucy Tempest, the doctor severally
shook hands; he had a phrase of suavity for them all.
"I should not have known you," he said to the latter.
"No!" returned Lucy. "Why?"
"You have grown, Miss Tempest. Grown much."
"Then I must have been very short before," said Lucy. "I am not tall
now."
"You have grown into remarkable beauty," added the doctor.
Whether Lucy had grown into beauty, or not, she did not like being told
of it. And she did not like Dr. West. She had not been in love with him
ever, as you may recollect; but she seemed to like him now, as he stood
before her, less and less. Drawing away from him when she could do so
civilly, she went up and talked to Jan.
A little while, and they had become more settled, dispersing into
groups. The doctor, his daughter, and Lionel were sitting on a couch
apart, conversing in an undertone; the rest disposed themselves as they
would. Dr. West had accepted a cup of coffee. He kept it in his hand,
sipping it now and then, and slowly ate a biscuit.
"Mr. Jan tells me Sibylla is not very strong," he observed, addressing
both of them, but more particularly Lionel.
"Not very," replied Lionel. "The cold weather of this winter has tried
her; has given her a cough. She will be better, I hope, when it comes in
warm."
"How do you feel, my dear?" inquired the doctor, apparently looking at
his coffee-cup instead of Sibylla. "Weak here?"--touching his chest.
"Not more weak than I had used to be," she answered in a cross tone, as
if the confession that she did feel weak was not pleasant to her.
"There's nothing the matter with me, papa; only Lionel makes a fuss."
"Nay, Sibylla," interposed Lionel good-humouredly, "I leave that to you
and Jan."
"You would like to make papa believe you don't make a fuss!" she cried,
in a most resentful tone; "when you know, not two days ago, you wanted
to prevent my going to the party at Mrs. Bitterworth's!"
"I plead guilty to that," said Lionel. "It was a most inclement night, a
cold, raw fog that penetrated everywhere, carriages and all else, and I
wished you not to venture out in it. The doing so increased your cough."
"Mr. Verner was right," said Dr. West. "Night fogs are pernicious to a
degree, where the chest and lungs are delicate. You should not stir out
of the house, Sibylla, after sunset. Now don't interrupt, my dear. Let
the carriage be ever so closely shut, it makes no difference. There is
the change of atmosphere from the warm room to the cold carriage; there
are the draughts of air in passing to it. You must not do it, Sibylla."
"Do you mean to say, papa, that I am to live like a hermit?--never to go
out?" she returned, her bosom heaving with vexation. "It is not much
visiting that I have had, goodness knows, since quitting Verner's Pride:
if I am to give it all up, you may as well put me out of the world. As
good be dead!"
"Sibylla," said the doctor, more impressively than he often spoke, "I
know your constitution, and I know pretty well what you can and what you
can not bear. Don't attempt to stir out after sunset again. Should you
get stronger it will be a different matter. At present it must not be.
Will you remember this, Mr. Verner?"
"If my wife will allow me to remember it," he said, bending to Sibylla
with a kindly tone. "My will was good to keep her in, all this winter;
but she would not be kept."
"What has Jan been telling you about me, papa? It is a shame of him! I
am not ill."
"Mr. Jan has told me very little indeed of your ailments," replied Dr.
West. "He says you are not strong; he says you are fretful, irritable.
My dear, this arises from your state of health."
"I have thought so, too," said Lionel, speaking impulsively. Many and
many a time, latterly, when she had nearly tired out his heart and his
patience, had he been willing to find an excuse for her still--that her
illness of body caused in her the irritation of mind. Or, at any rate,
greatly increased it.
An eye, far less experienced than that of Dr. West--who, whatever may
have been his other shortcomings, was clever in his profession--could
have seen at a glance how weak Sibylla was. She wore an evening dress of
white muslin, its body very low and its sleeves very short; her chest
was painfully thin, and every breath she took lifted it ominously: she
seemed to be breathing outside as well as in. The doctor touched the
muslin.
"This is not a fit dress for you, Sibylla--"
"Lionel has been putting you up to say it, papa!" she burst forth.
Dr. West looked at her. He surmised, what was indeed the case, that her
husband had remonstrated against the unsuitableness of the attire, to
one in her condition.
"You have heard every word Mr. Verner has spoken to me, Sibylla. You
should be wrapped up warmly always. To be exposed as you are now, is
enough to--to"--give you your death, he was about to say, but changed
the words--"make you very ill."
"Decima and Lucy Tempest dress so," she returned in a tone that
threatened tears.
Dr. West lifted his eyes to where Decima and Lucy were standing with
Lord Garle. Decima wore a silk dress, Lucy a white one; each made
evening fashion.
"They are both healthy," he said, "and may wear what they please. Look
at their necks, compared to yours, Sibylla. I shall ask Mr. Verner to
put all these thin dresses, these low bodies, behind the fire."
"He would only have the pleasure of paying for others to replace them,"
was the undutiful rejoinder. "Papa, I have enough trouble, without your
turning against me."
Turning against her! Dr. West did not point out how purposeless were her
words. His intention was to come in in the morning, and talk to her
seriously of her state of health, and the precautions it was necessary
to observe. He took a sip of his coffee, and turned to Lionel.
"I was about to ask you a superfluous question, Mr. Verner--whether that
lost codicil has been heard of. But your leaving Verner's Pride is an
answer."
"It has never been heard of," replied Lionel. "When John Massingbird
returned and put in his claim--when he took possession, I may say, for
the one was coeval with the other--the wanting of the codicil was indeed
a grievance; far more than it had appeared at the time of its loss."
"You must regret it very much."
"I regret it always," he answered. "I regret it bitterly for Sibylla's
sake."
"Papa," she cried, in deep emotion, her cheeks becoming crimson, her
blue eyes flashing with an unnatural light, "if that codicil could be
found it would save my life. Jan, in his rough, stupid way, tells me I
am fretting myself into my grave. Perhaps I am. I want to go back to
Verner's Pride."
It was not a pleasant subject to converse on; it was a subject utterly
hopeless--and Dr. West sought one more genial. Ranging his eyes over the
room, they fell upon Lord Garle, who was still talking with Decima and
Lucy.
"Which of the two young ladies makes the viscount's attraction, Mr.
Verner?"
Lionel smiled. "They do not take me into their confidence, sir; any one
of the three."
"I am sure it is not Decima, papa," spoke up Sibylla. "She's as cold as
a stone. I won't answer for its not being Lucy Tempest. Lord Garle comes
here a good deal, and he and Lucy seem great friends. I often think he
comes for Lucy."
"Then there's little doubt upon the point," observed the doctor, coming
to a more rapid conclusion than the words really warranted. "Time was,
Mr. Verner, when I thought that young lady would have been your wife."
"Who?" asked Lionel. But that he only asked the question in his
confusion, without need, was evident; the tell-tale flush betrayed it.
His pale face had turned red; red to the very roots of his hair.
"In those old days when you were ill, lying here, and Miss Tempest was
so much with you, I fancied I saw the signs of a mutual attachment,"
continued the doctor. "I conclude I must have been mistaken."
"Little doubt of that, doctor," lightly answered Lionel, recovering his
equanimity, though he could not yet recover his disturbed complexion,
and laughing as he spoke.
Sibylla's greedy ears had drunk up the words, her sharp eyes had caught
the conscious flush, and her jealous heart was making the most of it. At
that unfortunate moment, as ill-luck had it, Lucy brought up the basket
of cakes and held it out to Dr. West. Lionel rose to take it from her.
"I was taking your name in vain, Miss Tempest," said the complacent
doctor. "Did you hear me?"
"No," replied Lucy, smiling. "What about?"
"I was telling Mr. Verner that in the old days I had deemed his choice
was falling upon another, rather than my daughter. Do you remember,
young lady?--in that long illness of his?"
Lucy did remember. And the remembrance, thus called suddenly before her,
the words themselves, the presence of Lionel, all brought to her far
more emotion than had arisen to him. Her throat heaved as with a spasm,
and the startled colour dyed her face. Lionel saw it. Sibylla saw it.
"It proves to us how we may be mistaken, Miss Tempest," observed the
doctor, who, from that habit of his, already hinted at, of never looking
people in the face when he spoke to them, had failed to observe
anything. "I hear there is a probability of this fair hand being
appropriated by another. One who can enhance his value by coupling it
with a coronet."
"Don't take the trouble, Lucy. I am holding it."
It was Lionel who spoke. In her confusion she had not loosed hold of the
cake-basket, although he had taken it. Quietly, impassively, in the most
unruffled manner spoke he, smiling carelessly. Only for a moment had his
self-control been shaken. "Will you take a biscuit, Dr. West?" he
asked; and the doctor chose one.
"Lucy, my dear, will you step here to me?"
The request came from the other end of the room, from Lady Verner.
Lionel, who was about to place the cake-basket on the table, stopped and
held out his arm to Lucy, to conduct her to his mother. They went
forward, utterly unconscious that Sibylla was casting angry and jealous
glances at them; conscious only that those sacred feelings in either
heart, so well hid from the world, had been stirred to their very
depths.
The door opened, and one of the servants entered. "Mr. Jan is wanted."
"Who's been taken ill now, I wonder?" cried Jan, descending from the arm
of his mother's sofa, where he had been perched.
In the ante-room was Master Cheese, looking rueful.
"There's a message come from Squire Pidcock's," cried he in a most
resentful tone. "Somebody's to attend immediately. Am _I_ to go?"
"I suppose you'd faint at having to go, after being up to Miss
Hautley's," returned Jan. "You'd never survive the two, should you?"
"Well, you know, Jan, it's a good mile and a half to Pidcock's, and I
had to go to the other place without my tea," remonstrated Master
Cheese.
"I dare say Miss Deb has given you your tea since you came home."
"But it's not like having it at the usual hour. And I couldn't finish it
in comfort, when this message came."
"Be off back and finish it now, then," said Jan. And the young gentleman
departed with alacrity, while Jan made the best of his way to Squire
Pidcock's.