THE LAMP BURNS OUT AT LAST.
From the roof of the house to the floor of the cellar, ominous silence
reigned in Deerham Court. Mrs. Verner lay in it--dying. She had been
conveyed home from the Hall on the morning following the catastrophe.
Miss Hautley and Sir Edmund urged her remaining longer, offering every
possible hospitality; but poor Sibylla seemed to have taken a caprice
against it. Caprices she would have, up to her last breath. All her
words were "Home! home!" Jan said she might be moved with safety; and
she was taken there.
She seemed none the worse for the removal--she was none the worse for
it. She was dying, but the transit had not increased her danger or her
pain. Dr. Hayes had been over in the course of the night, and was now
expected again.
"It's all waste of time, his coming; he can't do anything; but it is
satisfaction for Lionel," observed Jan to his mother.
Lady Verner felt inclined to blame those of her household who had been
left at home, for Sibylla's escapade: all of them--Lionel, Lucy Tempest,
and the servants. They ought to have prevented it, she said; have kept
her in by force, had need been. But she blamed them wrongly. Lionel
might have done so had he been present; there was no knowing whether he
would so far have exerted his authority, but the scene that would
inevitably have ensued might not have been less fatal in its
consequences to Sibylla. Lucy answered, and with truth, that any
remonstrance of hers to Sibylla would never have been listened to; and
the servants excused themselves--it was not their place to presume to
oppose Mr. Verner's wife.
She lay on the sofa in her dressing-room, propped up by pillows; her
face wan, her breathing laboured. Decima with her, calm and still;
Catherine hovered near, to be useful, if necessary; Lady Verner was in
her room within call; Lucy Tempest sat on the stairs. Lucy, remembering
certain curious explosions, feared that her presence might not be
acceptable to the invalid; but Lucy partook of the general restlessness,
and sat down in her simple fashion on the stairs, listening for news
from the sick-chamber. Neither she nor any one else in the house could
have divested themselves of the prevailing excitement that day, or
settled to calmness in the remotest degree. Lucy wished from her very
heart that she could do anything to alleviate the sufferings of Mrs.
Verner, or to soothe the general discomfort.
By and by, Jan entered, and came straight up the stairs. "Am I to walk
over you, Miss Lucy?"
"There's plenty of room to go by, Jan," she answered, pulling her dress
aside.
"Are you doing penance?" he asked, as he strode past her.
"It is so dull remaining in the drawing-room by myself," answered Lucy
apologetically. "Everybody is upstairs."
Jan went into the sick-room, and Lucy sat on in silence; her head bent
down on her knees, as before. Presently Jan returned.
"Is she any better, Jan?"
"She's no worse," was Jan's answer. "That's something, when it comes to
this stage. Where's Lionel?"
"I do not know," replied Lucy. "I think he went out. Jan," she added,
dropping her voice, "will she get well?"
"Get well!" echoed Jan in his plainness. "It's not likely. She won't be
here four-and-twenty hours longer."
"Oh, Jan!" uttered Lucy, painfully startled and distressed. "What a
dreadful thing! And all because of her going out last night!"
"Not altogether," answered Jan. "It has hastened it, no doubt; but the
ending was not far off in any case."
"If I could but save her!" murmured Lucy in her unselfish sympathy. "I
shall always be thinking that perhaps if I had spoken to her last night,
instead of going out to find Mr. Verner, she might not have gone."
"Look here," said Jan. "You are not an angel yet, are you, Miss Lucy?"
"Not at all like one, I fear, Jan," was her sad answer.
"Well, then, I can tell you for your satisfaction that an angel, coming
down from heaven and endued with angel's powers, wouldn't have stopped
her last night. She'd have gone in spite of it; in spite of you all. Her
mind was made up to it; and her telling Lionel in the morning that she'd
give up going, provided he would promise to take her for a day's
pleasure to Heartburg, was only a ruse to throw the house off its
guard."
Jan passed down; Lucy sat on. As Jan was crossing the courtyard--for he
actually went out at the front door for once in his life, as he had done
the day he carried the blanket and the black tea-kettle--he encountered
John Massingbird. Mr. John wore his usual free-and-easy costume, and had
his short pipe in his mouth.
"I say," began he, "what's this tale about Mrs. Lionel? Folks are saying
that she went off to Hautley's last night, and danced herself to death."
"That's near enough," replied Jan. "She would go; and she did; and she
danced; and she finished it up by breaking a blood-vessel. And now she
is dying."
"What was Lionel about, to let her go?"
"Lionel knew nothing of it. She slipped off while he was out. Nobody was
in the house but Lucy Tempest and one or two of the servants. She
dressed herself on the quiet, sent for a fly, and went."
"And danced!"
"And danced," assented Jan. "Her back and shoulders looked like a bag
of bones. You might nearly have heard them rattle."
"I always said there were moments when Sibylla's mind was not right,"
composedly observed John Massingbird. "Is there any hope?"
"None. There has not been hope, in point of fact, for a long while,"
continued Jan, "as anybody might have seen, except Sibylla. She has been
obstinately blind to it. Although her father warned her, when he was
here, that she could not live."
John Massingbird smoked for some moments in silence. "She was always
sickly," he presently said; "sickly in constitution; sickly in temper."
Jan nodded. But what he might further have said was stopped by the
entrance of Lionel. He came in at the gate, looking jaded and tired. His
mind was ill at ease, and he had not been to bed.
"I have been searching for you, Jan. Dr. West ought to be telegraphed
to. Can you tell where he is?"
"No, I can't," replied Jan. "He was at Biarritz when he last wrote; but
they were about to leave. I expect to hear from him daily. If we did
know where he is, Lionel, telegraphing would be of no use. He could not
get here."
"I should like him telegraphed to, if possible," was Lionel's answer.
"I'll telegraph to Biarritz, if you like," said Jan. "He is sure to have
left it, though."
"Do so," returned Lionel. "Will you come in?" he added to John
Massingbird.
"No, thank you," replied John Massingbird. "They'd not like my pipe.
Tell Sibylla I hope she'll get over it. I'll come again by and by, and
hear how she is."
Lionel went indoors and passed upstairs with a heavy footstep. Lucy
started from her place, but not before he had seen her in it.
"Why do you sit there, Lucy?"
"I don't know," she answered, blushing that _he_ should have caught her
there, though she had not cared for Jan's doing so. "It is lonely
downstairs to-day; here I can ask everybody who comes out of the room
how she is. I wish I could cure her! I wish I could do anything for
her!"
He laid his hand lightly on her head as he passed. "Thank you for all,
my dear child!" and there was a strange tone of pain in his low voice as
he spoke it.
Only Decima was in the room then, and she quitted it as Lionel entered.
Treading softly across the carpet, he took his seat in a chair opposite
Sibylla's couch. She slept--for a great wonder--or appeared to sleep.
The whole morning long--nay, the whole night long, her bright, restless
eyes had been wide open; sleep as far from her as it could well be. It
had seemed that her fractious temper kept the sleep away. But her eyes
were closed now, and two dark, purple rims inclosed them, terribly dark
on the wan, white face. Suddenly the eyes unclosed with a start, as if
her doze had been abruptly disturbed, though Lionel had been perfectly
still. She looked at him for a minute or two in silence, and he, knowing
it would be well that she should doze again, neither spoke nor moved.
"Lionel, am I dying?"
Quietly as the words were spoken, they struck on his ear with startling
intensity. He rose then and pushed her hair from her damp brow with a
fond hand, murmuring some general inquiry as to how she felt.
"Am I dying?" came again from the panting lips.
What was he to answer her? To say that she was dying might send her into
a paroxysm of terror; to deceive her in that awful hour by telling her
she was not, went against every feeling of his heart.
"But I don't want to die," she urged, in some excitement, interpreting
his silence to mean the worst. "Can't Jan do anything for me? Can't Dr.
Hayes?"
"Dr. Hayes will be here soon," observed Lionel soothingly, if somewhat
evasively. "He will come by the next train."
She took his hand, held it between hers, and looked beseechingly up to
his face. "I don't want to leave you," she whispered. "Oh, Lionel! keep
me here if you can! You know you are always kind to me. Sometimes I have
reproached you that you were not, but it was not true. You have been
ever kind, have you not?"
"I have ever striven to be so," he answered, the tears glistening on his
eyelashes.
"I don't want to die. I want to get well and go about again, as I used
to do when at Verner's Pride. Now Sir Edmund Hautley is come home, that
will be a good place to visit at. Lionel, I don't want to die! _Can't_
you keep me in life?"
"If by sacrificing my own life, I could save yours, Heaven knows how
willingly I would do it," he tenderly answered.
"Why should I die? Why should I die more than others? I don't think I am
dying, Lionel," she added, after a pause. "I shall get well yet."
She stretched out her hand for some cooling drink that was near, and
Lionel gave her a teaspoonful. He was giving her another, but she jerked
her head away and spilled it.
"It's not nice," she said. So he put it down.
"I want to see Deborah," she resumed.
"My dear, they are at Heartburg. I told you so this morning. They will
be home, no doubt, by the next train. Jan has sent to them."
"What should they do at Heartburg?" she fractiously asked.
"They went over yesterday to remain until to-day, I hear."
Subsiding into silence, she lay quite still, save for her panting
breath, holding Lionel's hand as he bent over her. Some noise in the
corridor outside attracted her attention, and she signed to him to open
the door.
"Perhaps it is Dr. Hayes," she murmured. "He is better than Jan."
Better than Jan, insomuch as that he was rather given to assure his
patients they would soon be strong enough to enjoy the al fresco
delights of a gipsy party, even though he knew that they had not an
hour's prolonged life left in them. Not so Jan. Never did a more
cheering doctor enter a sick-room than Jan, so long as there was the
faintest shade of hope. But, when the closing scene was actually come,
the spirit all but upon the wing, then Jan whispered of hope no more. He
could not do it in his pure sincerity. Jan could be silent; but Jan
could not tell a man, whose soul was hovering on the threshold of the
next world, that he might yet recreate himself dancing hornpipes in
this. Dr. Hayes would; it was in his creed to do so; and in that respect
Dr. Hayes was different from Jan.
It was not Dr. Hayes. As Lionel opened the door, Lucy was passing it,
and Therese was at the end of the corridor talking to Lady Verner. Lucy
stopped to make her kind inquiries, her tone a low one, of how the
invalid was then.
"Whose voice is that?" called out Mrs. Verner, her words scarcely
reaching her husband's ears.
"It is Lucy Tempest's," he said, closing the door, and returning to her.
"She was asking after you."
"Tell her to come in."
Lionel opened the door again, and beckoned to Lucy. "Mrs. Verner is
asking if you will come in and see her," he said, as she approached.
All the old grievances, the insults of Sibylla, blotted out from her
gentle and forgiving mind, lost sight of in this great crisis, Lucy went
up to the couch, and stood by the side of Sibylla. Lionel leaned over
its back.
"I trust you are not feeling very ill, Mrs. Verner," she said in a low,
sweet tone as she bent towards her and touched her hand. Touched it
only; let her own fall lightly upon it; as if she did not feel
sufficiently sure of Sibylla's humour to presume to take it.
"No, I don't think I'm better. I am so weak here."
She touched her chest as she spoke. Lucy, perhaps somewhat at a loss
what to say, stood in silence.
"I have been very cross to you sometimes, Lucy," she resumed. "I meant
nothing. I used to feel vexed with everybody, and said foolish things
without meaning it. It was so cruel to be turned from Verner's Pride,
and it made me unhappy."
"Indeed I do not think anything about it," replied Lucy, the tears
rising to her eyes in her forgiving tenderness. "I know how ill you must
have felt. I used to feel that I should like to help you to bear the
pain and the sorrow."
Sibylla lay panting. Lucy remained as she was; Lionel also. Presently
she, Sibylla, glanced at Lucy.
"I wish you'd kiss me."
Lucy, unnerved by the words, bent closer to her, a shower of tears
falling from her eyes on Sibylla's face.
"If I could but save her life for you!" she murmured to Lionel, glancing
up at him through her tears as she rose from the embrace. And she saw
that Lionel's eyes were as wet as hers.
And now there was a commotion outside. Sounds, as of talking and wailing
and crying, were heard. Little need to tell Lionel that they came from
the Misses West; he recognised the voices; and Lucy glided forward to
open the door.
Poor ladies! They were wont to say ever after that their absence had
happened on purpose. Mortified at being ignored in Miss Hautley's
invitations, they had made a little plan to get out of Deerham. An old
friend in Heartburg had repeatedly pressed them to dine there and remain
for the night, and they determined to avail themselves of the invitation
this very day of the _fete_ at Deerham Hall. It would be pleasant to
have to say to inquisitive friends, "We could not attend it; we were
engaged to Heartburg." Many a lady, of more account in the world than
Deborah or Amilly West, has resorted to a less innocent ruse to conceal
an offered slight. Jan had despatched Master Cheese by the new railway
that morning with the information of Sibylla's illness; and here they
were back again, full of grief, of consternation, and ready to show it
in their demonstrative way.
Lionel hastened out to them, a Hush--sh! upon his tongue. He caught hold
of them as they were hastening in.
"Yes; but not like this. Be still, for her sake."
Deborah looked at his pale face, reading it aright. "Is she so ill as
_tha'_?" she gasped. "Is there no hope?"
He only shook his head. "Whatever you do, preserve a calm demeanour
before her. We must keep her in tranquillity."
"Master Cheese says she went to the ball--and danced," said Deborah.
"Mr. Verner, how could you allow it?"
"She did go," he answered. "It was no fault of mine."
Heavier footsteps up the stairs now. They were those of the physician,
who had come by the train which had brought the Misses West. He, Dr.
Hayes, entered the room, and they stole in after him; Lionel followed;
Jan came bursting in, and made another; and Lucy remained outside.
Lady Verner saw Dr. Hayes when he was going away.
"There was no change," he said, in answer to her inquiries. "Mrs. Verner
was certainly in a very weak, sick state, and--there was no change."
The Misses West removed their travelling garments, and took up their
stations in the sick-room--not to leave it again, until the life should
have departed from Sibylla. Lionel remained in it. Decima and Catherine
went in and out, and Jan made frequent visits to the house.
"Tell papa it is the leaving Verner's Pride that has killed me," said
Sibylla to Amilly with nearly her latest breath.
There was no bed for any of them that night, any more than there had
been the previous one. A life was hovering in the balance. Lucy sat with
Lady Verner, and the rest went in to them occasionally, taking news.
Dawn was breaking when one went in for the last time.
It was Jan. He had come to break the tidings to his mother, and he sat
himself down on the arm of the sofa--Jan fashion--while he did it.
The flickering lamp of life had burned out at last.