CHAPTER XI.LOVE AND JEALOUSY.
There was a time when blissShone o’er her heart from every look of his;When but to see him, hear him, breathe the airIn which he dwelt, was her soul’s fondest prayer;When round him hung such a perpetual spell,Whate’er he did none ever did so well;Yet now he comes, brighter than ever, far,He beamed before; but ah! not bright for her.—Moore.
Fortunately for the fascinated husband and the jealous wife, the Circuit Court was now sitting at Blackville, and the lawyer’s professional duties demanded all Mr. Berner’s time.
Only one year before this, when the struggling young lawyer depended upon his work for his bread, he could hardly get a paying client; now that he was entirely independent of his profession, he was overwhelmed with business. As the wealthy master of the Black Valley manor, with its rich dependencies of farms, quarries, mills, and hamlets, he might have led the easy life of a country gentleman. But in Lyon Berners’ apprehension, work was duty; and so to work he went, as if he had had to get his living by it.
Every day he left home at nine o’clock in the morning, in order to be present at the opening of the court at ten. He reached home again at four in the afternoon, and dined with Sybil and Rosa. After dinner he retired to his study, and spent the evening in working up his briefs and preparing for the next day’s business.
Thus he was entirely separated from his guest, who never saw him except at the table, with the breadth of the board between them, and almost entirely from his wife, who only had his company to herself at night.
Yet Sybil was content. Her love, if, in some of itsphases, it was a jealous and exacting passion, in others was a noble and generous principle. She would not spare a glance, a smile, a caress of his, to any other woman; yet she would give him wholly up to his duty, his profession, his country, or to any grandimpersonalobject. And the few hours out of the twenty-four when she could enjoy his society apart from her dreaded rival, compensated her for the many when he was absent or engaged upon his professional duties.
But ah! this could not last!
It happened, very naturally, that while Mr. Lyon Berners spent his mornings in the court-house, Mrs. Lyon Berners spent hers in receiving the calls and congratulations of her friends, to whom she always presented her permanent visitor, Mrs. Blondelle.
At length two unconnected events happened at the same time. The court adjourned, and the last visit of ceremony was paid.
Sybil, at the instance of Mr. Berners, gave a dinner-party, and they entertained the judges and barristers of the court. And upon that occasion, Mrs. Blondelle of course was introduced, and equally of course, her beauty made a very great sensation. And Sybil was well pleased. She was perfectly willing that her protégé should outshine her in every company, if only she did not outrival her in her husband’s admiration.
But ah! whether it was that the long interruption of his conversations with the beautiful blonde had given a new zest to the pleasure he enjoyed in her society, or whether his admiration for her had been ever, under all circumstances, on the increase, or whether both these causes combined to influence his conduct, is not known; but it is certain that from this time, Lyon Berners became more and more blindly devoted to Rosa Blondelle. And yet, under and over and through all this, the husband loved his wife as henever did or could love any other woman. But Rosa Blondelle was one of those vain and shallow women who must and will have a sentimental flirtation or a platonic friendship with some man or boy, always on hand. She, like those of her mischievous class, really meant no harm, while doing a great deal of wrong. Such a woman will engage a husband’s affections and break a wife’s heart from mere vanity, and for mere pastime, without the slightest regard for either of her victims. And yet, because, they have not been grossly guilty, as well as deeply sinful, they retain their positions in society.
Rosa Blondelle’s whole life lay in these sentimental flirtations and platonic friendships. Without a lover, she did not care to live at all. Yet hers was a sham love, though her victims were not often sham lovers. With her fair and most innocent face, Rosa Blondelle was false and shallow. And Lyon Berners knew this; and even while yielding himself to the fascination of her smiles, he could not help comparing her, to her great disadvantage, with his own true, earnest, deep-hearted wife.
But every morning, while Sybil was engaged in her domestic duties, which were now greatly increased by the preparations that were going on for the masquerade ball, Lyon Berners would be walking with Rosa Blondelle, exploring the romantic glens of the Black Valley, or wandering along the picturesque banks of the Black River. Or if the weather happened to be inclement, Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle would sit in the library together, deep in German mysticism or French sentiment.
Every evening Rosa sat at the grand piano, singing for him the most impassioned songs from the German and Italian operas; and Lyon hung over her chair turning her music, and enraptured with her beauty.
Ah! Rosa Blondelle! vain and selfish and shallow coquette! Trifle, if you must, with any other man’s love,with any other woman’s peace; but you had better invade the lair of the lioness, and seize her cubs—you had better walk blindfold upon the abyss of Hades, than come between Sybil Berners and her husband!
For Sybil saw it all! and not only as any other woman might have seen it, just as it was, but as the jealous wife did—with vast exaggerations and awful forebodings.
They did not suspect how much she knew, or how much more she imagined. Before them the refined instincts of the lady still kept down the angry passions of the woman.
Whenever her emotions were about to overcome her, she slipped away, not to her own room, where she was liable to interruption, but far up into the empty attics of the old house, where, in some corresponding chamber of desolation, she gave way to such storms of anguish and despair as leave the deepest
“Traces on heart and brain.”
And after an hour or two she would return to the drawing-room, whence she had never been missed by the pair of sentimentalists, who had been too much absorbed in each other, and in Mozart or Beethoven, to notice her absence.
And while all unconscious of her, they continued their musical flirtation, she would sit with her back to the light, toying with her crochet-work and listening to Rosa’s songs.
She was still as a volcano before it bursts forth to bury cities under its burning lava flood!
Why did she not, in the sacred privacy of their mutual apartment appeal to the better nature of her husband by telling him how much his flirtation with their guest pained her, his wife? Or else, why had she not spoken plainly with her guest?
Why? Because Sybil Berners had too much pride and too little faith to do the one or the other. She could not stoop to plead with her husband for the love that she thoughthe had withdrawn from her; still less could she bend to tell her guest how much his defection troubled her. Nor did she believe her interference would do any good. For, to Sybil Berners earnest nature, all things seemed earnest, and this vain and shallow flirtation wore the aspect of a deep, impassioned attachment. And in her forbearance she acted from instinct rather than from reason, for she never even thought of interfering between these platonists. So, outwardly at least, she was calm. But this calmness could not last. Her heart was bleeding, burning, breaking! and its prisoned flood of fire and blood must burst forth at length. The volcano seems quiet; but the pent up lava in its bosom must at last give forth mutterings of its impending irruption, and swiftly upon these mutterings must follow flames and ruin!
It happened thus with Sybil.
One morning, when the weather was too threatening to permit any one to indulge in an outdoor walk, it chanced that Lyon and Sybil Berners were sitting together at a centre-table in the parlor—Lyon reading the morning paper; Sybiltryingto read a new magazine—when Rosa Blondelle, with her flowing, azure-hued robes and her floating golden locks, and her beaming smiles, entered the room and seated herself at the table, saying sweetly:
“My dear Mrs. Berners, is it to-morrow that you and I have arranged to drive out and return the calls that were made upon us?”
“Yes, madam,” politely replied Sybil.
“Then, dear Mr. Berners, I shall have to ask you to write a few visiting-cards for me. I have not an engraved one in the world. But you write such a beautiful hand, that your writing will look like copper-plate. You will oblige me?” she inquired, smiling, and placing a pack of blank cards before him.
“With the greatest pleasure,” answered Lyon Berners, promptly putting aside his paper.
Rosa turned to leave the room.
“Will you not remain with us?” courteously inquired Sybil.
“No, dear; much as I should like to do so,” replied Rosa.
“But why?” inquired Lyon Berners, looking disappointed.
“Oh! because I have my dress to see about. We are far from all fashionable modistes here; but I must try to do honor to madam’s masquerade for all that,” laughed Rosa, as she passed gracefully out of the room.
With a sigh that seemed to his sorrowing wife to betray his regret for the beauty’s departure, Lyon Berners drew the packet of blank cards before him, scattered them in a loose heap on his left hand, and then selecting one at a time, began to write. As he carefully wrote upon and finished each card, he as carefully laid it on his right hand, until a little heap grew there.
Sybil, who gloried in all her husband’s accomplishments, from the greatest to the least, admired very much his skill in ornamental chirography. She drew her chair closer to the table, and took up the topmost card, and began to decipher, rather than to read, the name in the beautiful old English characters, so tangled in a thicket of rose-buds and forget-me-nots as to be scarcely legible. She looked closely and more closely at the name on the card.
What was there in it to drive all the color from her cheeks?
She snatched up and scrutinized a second card, a third, a fourth; then, springing to her feet, she seized the whole mass, hurled them into the fire, and turned, and confronted her husband.
Her teeth were clenched upon her bloodless lips, her face seemed marble, her eyes lambent flames.
He rose to his feet in surprise and dismay.
“Sybil! what is all this? Why have you destroyed the cards?”
“Why?” she gasped, pressing both hands upon her heart, as if to keep down its horrible throbbings. “Why? Because they are lies!lies!lies!”
“Sybil! have you gone suddenly mad?” he cried, gazing at the “embodied storm” before him with increasing astonishment and consternation.
“No! I have suddenly come to my senses!” she gasped between the catches of her breath, for she could scarcely speak.
“You must calm yourself, and tell me what this means, my wife,” said Lyon Berners, exerting a great control over himself, and pushing aside the last card he had written.
But she snatched up that card, glanced at it fiercely, tore it in two, and threw the fragments far apart, exclaiming in bitter triumph:
“Not yet! oh! not yet! I am not dead yet! Nor have the halls and acres of my fathers passed quite away from their daughter to the possession of a traitor and an ingrate.”
He gazed upon her now in amazement and alarm.Hadshe gone suddenly mad?
She stood there before him the incarnation of the fiercest and intensest passion he had ever seen or imagined.
He went and took her in his arms, saying more gently than before:
“Sybil, what is it?”
She tried, harshly and cruelly, to break from him. But he held her in a fast, loving embrace, murmuring still:
“Sybil, you must tell me what troubles you?”
“What troubles me!” she furiously exclaimed. “Let me go, man! Your touch is a dishonor to me! Let me go!”
“But, dearest Sybil.”
“Let me go, I say! What! will you use yourbrute strength to hold me?”
He dropped his arms, and left her free.
“No; I beg your pardon, Sybil. I thought you were my loving wife,” he said.
“You were mistaken. I am not Rosa Blondelle!” she cried.
“Hush! hush! my dearest Sybil!” he muttered earnestly, as he went and closed and locked the parlor door, to save her from being seen by the servants in her present insane passion.
But she swept past him like a storm, and laid her hand on the lock. She found it fast.
“Open, and let me pass,” she cried.
“No, no, my dear Sybil. Remain here until you are calmer, and then tell me—”
“Let me out, I say!”
“But, dearest Sybil.”
“What! would youkeep me a prisoner—by force?” she cried, with a cruel sneer.
He unlocked the door and set it wide open.
“No, even though you are a lunatic, as I do believe. Go, and expose your condition, if you must. I cannot restrain you by fair means, and I will not by foul.”
And Sybil swept from the room, but she did not expose herself. She fled away to that “chamber of desolation” where she had passed so many agonizing hours, and threw herself, face downwards, upon the floor, and lay there in the collapse of utter despair.
Meanwhile Lyon Berners paced up and down the parlor floor.
CHAPTER XII.“CRUEL AS THE GRAVE.”
Go, when the hunter’s hand hath wrungFrom forest cave her shrieking young,And calm the raging lioness;But soothe not—mock not my distress.—Byron.
Lyon Berners was utterly perplexed and troubled. He could not in any way explain to himself the sudden and furious passion of his wife.
Suddenly it occurred to him that it was in some way connected with the cards she had thrown into the fire. They were not all burned up. Some few had fallen scorched upon the hearth. These he gathered up and examined; and as he looked at one after another, his face expressed, in turn, surprise, dismay, and amusement. Then he burst out laughing. He really could not help doing so, serious as the subject was; for upon every single card, instead of Rosa Blondelle, he had written:
Mrs.Rosa Berners.
“Was there ever such a mischief of a mistake?” he exclaimed, as he ceased laughing and sat down by his table to consider what was to be done next.
“Poor Sybil! poor, dear, fiery-hearted child, it is no wonder! And yet, Heaven truly knows it was because I was thinking ofyou, and not of the owner of the cards, that I wrote that name upon them unconsciously,” he said to himself, as he sat with his fine head bowed upon his hand, gravely reviewing the history of the last few days.
His eyes were opened now—not only to his wife’s jealousy, but to his own thoughtless conduct in doing anything to arouse it.
In the innermost of his own soul he was so sure of the perfect integrity of his love for his wife, that it had neverbefore occurred to him thatshecould doubt it—that any unconscious act or thoughtless gallantry on his part could cause her to doubt it.
Now, however, he remembered with remorse that, of late, since the rising of the court, all his mornings and evenings had been spent exclusively in the company of the beautiful blonde. Any wife under such circumstances might have been jealous; but few could have suffered such agonies of wounded love as wrung the bosom of Sybil Berners,—of Sybil Berners, the last of a race in whose nature more of the divine and more of the infernal met than in almost any other race that ever lived on earth.
Her husband thought of all this now. He remembered what lovers and what haters the men and women of her house had been.
He recalled how, in one generation, a certain Reginald Berners, who was engaged to be married to a very lovely young lady, on one occasion found his betrothed and an imaginary rival sitting side by side, amusing themselves with what they might have considered a very harmless flirtation, when, transported with jealous fury, he slew the man before the very eyes of the girl. For this crime Reginald was tried, but for some inexplicable reason, acquitted; and he lived to marry the girl for whose sake he had imbrued his hands in a fellow-man’s blood.
He recalled how, in another generation, one Agatha Berners, in a frenzy of jealousy, had stabbed her rival, and then thrown herself into the Black Lake. Fortunately neither of the attempted crimes had been consummated, for the wounded woman recovered, and the would-be suicide lived to wear out her days in a convent.
Reflecting upon these terrible outbursts of the family passion, Lyon Berners became very much alarmed for Sybil.
He started up and went in search of her. He lookedsuccessively through the drawing-room, the dining-room, and library. Not finding her in any of these rooms, he ascended to the second floor and sought her in their own apartment. Still not finding her, his alarm became agony.
“I will search every square yard within these walls,” he said, as he hurried through all the empty chambers of that floor, and then went up into the attic.
There, in the lumber-room—the chamber of desolation—he found his wife, lying with her face downwards on the floor. He hastened towards her, fearing that she was in a swoon. But no; she was only exhausted by the violence of her emotions.
Without saying a word, he lifted her in his arms as if she had been a child. She was too faint now to resist him. He carried her down stairs to her own chamber and laid her on the sofa, and while he gently smoothed the damp dark hair from her pale brow, he whispered softly:
“My wife, I know now what has troubled you. It was a great error, my own dear Sybil. You have no cause to doubt me, or to distress yourself.”
She did not reply, but with a tearless sob, turned her face to the wall.
“It was ofyouthat I was thinking, my beloved, when I wrote that name on the cards,” he continued, as he still smoothed her hair with his light mesmeric touch. She did not repel his caresses, but neither did she reply to his words. And he saw, by the heaving of her bosom and the quivering of her lips, that the storm had not yet subsided.
He essayed once more to reassure her.
“Dear wife,” he earnestly commenced, “you believe that my affections are inconstant, and that they have wandered from you?”
She answered by a nod and another tearless sob, but she did not look around or speak to him.
“Yet withal you believe me to be a man of truthful words?”
Again she nodded acquiescence.
“Then, dear Sybil, you must believe my words when I assure you, on my sacred truth and honor, that your suspicions of me are utterly erroneous.”
Now she turned her head, opened her large dark eyes in astonishment, and gazed into his earnest face.
“As Heaven hears me, my own dear wife, I love no other woman in the world but you.”
“But—you are almost always withher!” at length replied Sybil, with another dry sob.
“I confess that, dear; but it was because you were almost always absent on your domestic affairs.”
“You hang enraptured over her, when she sings and plays!”
“Enraptured with her music, darling, not with her. To me she is a prima donna, whose performances I must admire and applaud—nothing more.”
“Then I wish I was a prima donna too,” said Sybil, bitterly.
“My wife!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, I do! I would be all in all to you, Lyon, as you are everything to me,” she cried, her face quivering, her bosom heaving with emotion.
“My own dear Sybil, youareall in all to me. Do you not know, dear, that you are unique? that there is not another like you in the world; and that I value you and love you accordingly? What is this shallow-hearted blonde beauty to me? This woman, who, in a week, could forget the man who had robbed and deserted her, and give herself up to amusement! No, dear wife. I may be pleased with her good-natured efforts to please me; I may admire her beauty and delight in her music; but I care so little for herself, that were she to die to-day, I should only say, ‘Poor thing,’ and immediately forget her! While, ifyouwere to die, dear wife, life would be a living death, and the world a sepulchre to me!”
“Is this true? Oh! is this indeed true?” exclaimed Sybil, in deep emotion.
“As I am a man of truth, it is, as true as Heaven!” answered Lyon Berners, earnestly.
And Sybil turned and threw herself in his arms, weeping for joy.
“You shall have no more cause for distress, dear, warm-hearted wife. This lady must find other audience for her music. For, as to me, I shall not indulge in her society at such a cost to your feelings,” said Lyon Berners earnestly, as he returned her warm caress.
“No, no, no, no,” exclaimed Sybil, generously. “You shall deny yourself no pleasure, for my sake, dear, dear Lyon! I am not such a churl as to require such a sacrifice. Only let me feel sure of your love, and then you may read with her all the morning, and play and sing with her all the evening, and I shall not care. I shall even be pleased, because you are so. But only let me feel sure of your love. For, oh! dear Lyon! I live only in your heart, and if any woman were to thrust me thence, I should die!”
“Nor man, nor woman, nor angel, nor devil, shall ever do that, dear Sybil,” he earnestly answered.
The reconciliation between the husband and the wife was perfect. And Sybil was so happy that, in the lightness of her heart, she became kinder to Mrs. Blondelle than she had been for many days past.
But as for Mr. Berners, from this time he carefully avoided Mrs. Blondelle. He was as courteous to her as ever, even more courteous than ever when his wife was present, but as soon as Sybil would leave the room, Lyon would make some excuse and follow her. This went on for some days, during which Mrs. Blondelle, being cut short in her platonic flirtation, first wondered and then moped, and then resolved to win back her fancied slave. So she whitenedher face with bismuth, to make it look pale and interesting, and she arranged her golden locks and flowing robes with the most studied air of graceful neglect, and she affected silence, pensiveness, and abstraction; and thus she utterly imposed on Lyon Berners, whose sympathies were awakened by her.
“Is it possible, that this pretty little fool can really be pleased with me, and pained by my neglect?” he inquired of himself. And then, human being like, he flattered himself and pitied her.
When this course of conduct had been kept up for a week, it happened one day that Sybil went alone to Blackville to purchase some articles for her approaching mask ball.
Lyon Berners was reclining on the sofa in the drawing-room, with the last number of the “North American Review” in his hands.
Suddenly a soft hand stole into his, and a soft voice murmured in his ear:
“Mr. Berners, how have I been so unhappy as to offend you?”
He looked up in surprise to see Rosa Blondelle standing by him. Her lovely face was very pale, her beautiful hair in disorder, her blue eyes full of tears, her tender voice tremulous with emotion.
As Lyon Berners met her appealing gaze, his heart smote him for his late coldness to her.
“In what manner have I been so unhappy as to offend you, Mr. Berners?” she repeated, tearfully.
“In no manner at all, dear. How could one so gentle as yourself offend any one?” exclaimed Lyon Berners, rising, and taking both her unresisting hands in his own; and feeling for the first time a sentiment oftenderness, as well as of admiration, for her.
“But I thought I had offended you. You have been sochanged to me of late,” murmured Rosa, with her blue eyes full of tears.
“No, no, dear, not really changed, indeed. Only—absorbed by other engagements,” answered Lyon Berners, evasively.
“You are the only friend I have in the whole world. And ifyoushould desert me, I should perish,” murmured Rosa, pathetically.
“But I will never desert you, dear. Nor am I the only friend you have in the world. My wife is surely your friend,” said Lyon Berners, earnestly.
Slowly and sorrowfully Rosa Blondelle shook her head, murmuring sadly:
“No woman ever was my friend. I know not why.”
“Ican easily imagine why. But in regard to my dear wife, you are mistaken. Surely she has proved herself your friend.”
“She is a noble lady, and I honor her. She is my benefactress, and I thank her. But she is not my friend, and so I do not love her.”
“I am sorry to hear you say so, dear.”
“And I am sorry to be obliged to say so. But it is true.Youare my only friend, Mr. Berners. The only friend I have in the wide, wide world.”
“And do you love me?” inquired Lyon Berners, taking the siren’s hand, and utterly yielding to her allurements; “say, fair one, do you love me?”
“Hush! hush!” breathed Rosa, drawing away her hand and covering her face—“hush! that is a question you must not ask, nor I answer.”
“But—as abrother, I mean?” whispered Lyon.
“Oh! yes, yes, yes! as a dear brother, I love you dearly,” fervently exclaimed Rosa.
“And as a dear sister you shall share my love and care always,” earnestly answered Mr. Berners.
“And you will not be cold to me any longer?”
“No, dear.”
“And you will come and listen to my poor little songs this evening, and let me do my best to amuse you?”
“Yes, dear, I will throw over all other engagements, and delight myself in your heavenly strains to-night,” answered Lyon Berners.
“Oh! I am so happy to hear you promise that! Of late I have had no heart to open the piano. But to-night I will awaken for you its most glorious chords!”
He raised her hand to his lips, and thanked her warmly.
And just at that very instant Miss Tabitha Winterose appeared in the doorway, her tall, thin form drawn up to its utmost height, her pale, pinched face lengthened, and her dim blue eyes and skinny hands lifted up in surprise and disapprobation.
“Well!” simultaneously exclaimed Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle, as they instinctively drew away from each other.
But Miss Tabitha could not easily recover her composure. She was shocked and scandalized to see a gentleman and lady, who were not related to each other, sitting so close together, while the gentleman kissed the lady’s hand!
“Did you want anything?” inquired Mr. Berners, rather impatiently.
“No, I didn’t. Yes, I did,” answered Miss Winterose, crossly and confusedly. “I came after that lady there to tell her that I think her child is going to be very sick, and I want her to come and look after him. That is, if she an’t more pleasanter engaged!” added Miss Tabitha, scornfully.
“Please excuse me, Mr. Berners,” murmured Rosa, sweetly, as she got up to go out with the housekeeper “Old Cat!” she muttered, under her breath, as soon as she was out of Lyon’s hearing.
When Mr Berners was left alone, he did not resume thereading of his review. His heart became the prey of bitter-sweet reflections, made up of gratified self-love and of severe self-reproach.
“That beautiful creaturedoescare for me, and is pained by my coldness! Ah! but I hope and trust she loves meonlyas a sister loves a brother! She has no brother, poor child! And her heart must have some one to lean on! I must be that one, for she has chosen me, and I will not be so recreant to humanity as to reject her trust.”
Then his conscience smote him. And he felt that he had shown more tenderness for this lady than the occasion called for, or than his duty warranted. He had called her “dear;” he had kissed her hand; he had asked her if she loved him! And this in the face of all his late protestations to his wife!
Lyon Berners was an honorable man and devotedly attached to his wife, and he was shocked now at the recollection of how far he had been drawn away from the strict line of duty by this lovely blonde!
But then he said to himself that he had only caressed and soothed Rosa in a brotherly way; and that it was a great pity Sybil should be of such a jealous and exacting nature, as to wish to prevent him from showing a little brotherly love to this lovely and lonely lady.
And worried by these opposing thoughts and feelings, Lyon Berners left his sofa and began to pace up and down the length of the drawing-room floor.
In truth now, for the first time, the mischief was done! The siren had at last ensnared him, in her distress and dishabille, with her tears and tenderness, as she never had done in the full blaze of her adorned beauty, or by the most entrancing strains of divine melody.
While Lyon Berners paced up and down the drawing-room floor, he seemed to see again the tender, tearful gaze of her soft blue eyes upon him; seemed to hear again themelting tones of her melodious voice pleading with him: “How have I been so unhappy as to offend you, Mr. Berners?” What a contrast this sweet humility of friendship with the fiery pride of Sybil’s love!
While he was almost involuntarily drawing this comparison, he heard the wheels of the carriage that brought Sybil home roll up to the door and stop.
From her morning drive through the bright and frosty air, Sybil entered the drawing-room blooming, and glowing with health and happiness. For since that full explanation with her husband, she had been very happy.
Lyon Berners hastened to meet her. And perhaps it was his secret and painful consciousness of that little episode with Rosa, that caused him to throw into his manner even more than his usual show of affection, as he drew her to his bosom and kissed her fondly.
“Why!” exclaimed Sybil, laughing and pleased, “you meet me as if I had been gone a month, instead of a morning!”
“Your absence always seems long to me, dear wife, however short it may really be,” he answered earnestly. And he spoke the truth; for notwithstanding his admiration of Rosa, and the invidious comparison he had just drawn between her and Sybil, in his heart of hearts he still loved his wife truly.
She threw off her bonnet and shawl, and sat down beside him and began to rattle away like a happy girl, telling him all the little incidents of her morning’s drive—whom she had seen, what she had purchased, and how excited everybody was on the subject of her approaching fancy ball.
“The first one ever given in this neighborhood, you know. Lyon,” she added.
And having told him all the news, she snatched up her bonnet and shawl and ran up-stairs to her own room, where she found her thin housekeeper engaged in sorting out laces and snivelling.
“Why, what’s the matter now, Miss Tabby?” cheerfully inquired Sybil.
“Well, then, to tell you the truth, ma’am, I am dreadfully exercised into my own mind,” answered Miss Winterose, wiping a tear from the tip of her nose.
“What about, now?” gayly demanded Sybil, who felt not the slightest degree of alarm on account of Miss Tabby, knowing that lady to be a constitutional and habitual whimperer.
“Then, it’s all along of the wickedness and artfulness and deceitfulness of this here world.”
“Well, never mind, Miss Tabby; you’ll not have to answer for it all. But what particular instance of wickedness frets your soul now?” laughed Sybil.
“Why, now, there’s where it is! I don’t know whether I ought to tell, or whether I ought’n to; nor whether, if I was to tell, I would be looked upon into the light of a mischief-maker, or into the light of a true friend!” whimpered Miss Winterose.
“I can soon settle that question of ethics for you,” laughed Sybil, all unsuspicious of what was coming.
“Do just as your conscience directs you, Miss Tabby, no matter how people may look upon you.”
“Very well, then, ma’am; for my conscience do order me to speak! Oh, Miss Sybil! I have knowed you ever since you was a baby in my arms, and I can’t bear to have you so deceived and imposed upon by that there treacherous, ungrateful White Cat!”
“White Cat?” echoed Sybil, in perplexity.
“Yes, Miss Sybil, that red-headed, false-hearted White Cat, as you took into your house and home, for to beguile and corrupt your own true husband!”
With a gasp and a suppressed cry, Sybil sank into her seat.
Miss Tabby, too full of her subject to notice Sybil’s agitation, continued:
“No sooner had your carriage left the door this morning, Miss Sybil, than that there White Cat comes tipping on her tiptoes out of her room, in a long loose dressing-gown, with her hair all down, in a way as no real lady would ever be seen out of her own chamber, and she tips, tips, tips into the drawing-room, where she knows Mr. Berners is alone, and laying on the sofa!”
With a powerful effort Sybil controlled her violent emotion, held herself still, and listened.
“And that was bad enough, Miss Sybil! but that was nothing to what followed!” sighed Miss Tabby, wiping another tear from the end of her nose.
“What followed?” echoed Sybil, in an expiring voice.
“What followed, ma’am, was this: but to make you understand, I must tell you what I ought to a told you at the start, which is how it happened as I seen her tip, tip, tip, on her tiptoes to the drawing-room, just for all the world like a cat after cream. Well, I was up here, in this very room where I am now, a sorting out of your fine things as come up from the wash, and I found one o’herlace handkerchers among yourn, fotch up by mistake. So I jes took it and went down them back stairs as leads from this room down to hern, to give her back her handkercher; when jes as I got into her room, I seen her slip outen the other door leading into the hall. So after her I goes, to give her her handkercher—which I thought it was best to give it intor her own hands, than to put it anywhere in her room, because I didn’t know nothing about this forring nuss o’ hern; and you know yourself, ma’am, as we ought to be cautious in dealing with strangers.”
“Yes, yes! Go on! go on!” gasped Sybil.
“Well, ma’am, she flitted through them passages too fast for me, jes as if she was afraid o’ being caught afore she got out o’ sight! I jes seen her slip into the drawing-room, where I knowed as Mr. Berners was a lying onto the sofa, and then I turns back and runs away.”
“Oh, why didn’t you follow her in?” groaned Sybil.
“Yes, why didn’t I, ma’am; which I wish I had, and would a done if it hadn’t a been for that forring nuss a coming outenherroom, and a screeching after me:
“‘Missus Winterblossom! Missus Winterblossom!’ which I allus told that huzzy as I wasn’t a ‘missus,’ but a ‘miss,’ nor likewise a ‘blossom,’ but a ‘rose.’ Howsever, there she was, a yelling at the top of her voice, ‘Missus Winterblossom! Missus Winterblossom!’ until I had to run to her, only to stop her mouth!”
“Ah! the wretch! she was the accomplice of her mistress, and wished to bring you away,” breathed Sybil more to herself than to her housekeeper, and in a tone too low to reach the ears of Miss Tabby, who continued:
“It was the baby, as had been eating of new chestnuts, and got the cramp. So the forring nuss, as wasn’t worth her salt, comes screaming after me to come and do something for the baby. Of course I went and did what was right and proper for the poor little suffering creetur; and when I had put him to sleep, I thinks about his neglectful mother, and so I ups and goes after her. And when I opens the drawing-room door, ma’am—well, I sees a sight as strikes me intor a statty o’ stone, or a pillar o’ salt, like Lot’s wife.”
“What? what?” panted Sybil.
“I seen ’em both, him and her, a sitting close together and a going on jes like two lovyers as was going to be married to-morrow, or a bride and groom as was married yesterday.”
“How? how?”
“Well, ma’am, if her head wasn’t a leaning on his shoulder, it was so nigh it as it made no difference! And her hand was squeezed inter hizzen, and her eyes was rolled up inter hizzen in the most be-devilling way as ever I see in my life—for all the world as if she was a loving ofhim, and a worshipping of him, and a praising of him, and a praying to him, all in one gaze!”
“And he!—and he!”
“Oh, my dear honey! what can you expect of a poor, weak,he-man? He looks down on her as if he enjoyed being loved and worshipped and praised and prayed to, and he squeezes of her hand up to his mouth as if he’d like to have eaten it!”
“Oh, my heart! my heart!” moaned Sybil, turning deadly pale.
Still, Miss Tabby, full of her own subject, scarcely noticed the pain she was inflicting, so she continued:
“And jes that minute they happened either to see or to hear me, I don’t know which. Anyways, they looks up, and—whew! they jumps apart as if a fire-cracker had gone off between ’em! Well, I tells my lady as her child is sick, and she jumps up, impatient like, to go and look after him. And I comes away too. And that was just about ten minutes before you got home yourself.”
“Deceived! Betrayed! Scorned! Laughed at!” bitterly exclaimed Sybil.
“And that’s all. And now look here, honey! Don’t you go to taking on about this here piece o’ business! And don’t you get mad long o’ your husband on any woman’s account, whatever you do! Come down on the woman! That’s what you do. It is allherfault, not hizzen!Hecouldn’t help himself, poor innocent creetur! Lor! honey, I don’t know much about married life, bein’ of a single woman myself; but I have heard my mother say as men are mons’rous weak-minded poor creeturs, and need to be guided by their wives; and if they an’t ruled by their wives, they are sure to be by some other woman! And it stands to reason it is more respectable to be ruled by their wives! And so, honey, my advice to you is, to send that bad woman about her business, and take that innocent man firmly in hand.”
And so Miss Tabby babbled on, no longer heeded by Sybil, who soon slipped away and hid herself in one of the empty spare rooms.
CHAPTER XIII.MORE THAN THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH.
He to whomI gave my heart with all its wealth of love,Forsakes me for another.—Medea.
“Oh my heart! my heart!” moaned Sybil, as she sank down upon the floor of that spare-room, the door of which she had bolted, to secure herself from intrusion.
“Oh, my heart! my heart!” she wailed, pressing her hand to her side like one who had just received a mortal wound.
“Oh, my heart! my heart!” she groaned, as one who complains of an insupportable agony. And for some moments she could do no more than this. Then at length the stream of utterance flowed forth, and—
“He loves me no longer! my husband loves me no longer!” she cried in more than the bitterness of death. “He loves that false siren in place of me, his true wife. He gives her all the tender words, all the warm caresses he used to lavish on me. His heart is won from me. I am desolate! I am desolate, and I shall die! I shall die! But oh, how much I must suffer before I can die, for I am so strong to suffer! Ah, how I wish I might die at once, or that suicide were no sin!”
But suddenly, out of this deep abasement of grief, blazed up a fierce and fiery anger. She started from her recumbent position, and began to walk wildly up and down the floor, beating her hands together, and exclaiming distractedly:
“But why should I die in my youth, and go down to the dark grave, to make room forher, the traitress! to make room in the heart of my husband and the home of my fathers for her, the—! Oh! there is no word bad enough to express what she is! And shallshelive to bloom and smile and brighten in the sunshine of his love, while I moulder away in the earth? Oh!” she cried, striking her hands violently together, “there is madness and more than madness in the thought! I will not die alone; no, no, no, no, so help me, just Heaven! I will not die alone. Oh, Samson was a brave man as well as a strong one when he lifted the pillars of the temple, and willingly fell beneath its crumbling ruins, crushing all his foes. I will be another sort of Samson; and when I fall, I too will pull down destruction upon the heads of all who have wronged me!”
These and many more wild and wicked words she uttered as she walked fiercely up and down the room, her eyes blazing, her cheeks burning, her whole aspect full of frenzy.
At length, again her mood changed; the fire died out of her eyes, the color faded from her cheeks; her frenzy subsided, and gave place to a stillness more awful than any excitement could possibly be. She sank down upon a low ottoman, and rested her elbows upon her knees and her chin upon the palms of her hands, and gazed straight before her into vacancy. Her face was deadly pale; her lips bloodless and compressed; her eyes contracted and glittering with a cold, black, baleful light; her hair unloosed in her agitation, streamed down each side, and fell upon her bosom like the ends of a long black scarf. At times she muttered to herself like any maniac:
“And oh, how deeply deceitful they have both been with me, affecting a mutual indifference while I was by; falling to caressing each other just as soon as my back was turned! She—she only acted out her false and treacherous nature. But he—oh, he! in whose pure truth I had such pride.Ah, Heaven! how low she must have drawn him before he could have gained his own consent to deceive me so! before he could come fresh from her side and her caresses, and meet and embrace me! What stupendous duplicity! Well, well!” she continued, nodding grimly; “well, well, since deceit is the fashion of the day, I too will be in the fashion; I too will wear a mask of smiles! But behind that mask I will watch!—Oh, how I will watch! Not at my fancy-ball alone will I play a part, but before it, and perhaps,after it! None shall ever know how I watch, what I see, until I descend with the fell swoop of the eagle. And henceforth let me remember that I am a daughter of the house of Berners, who never failed a friend or spared a foe. And oh, let the spirit of my fathers support me, for I mustENDUREuntil I canAVENGE!” she said, as she got up with a grim calmness and paced up and down the floor to recover full self-command.
At length, when she felt sufficiently composed, she went to her own chamber, where she made a more elaborate and beautiful toilet than usual, preparatory to joining her husband and their guest at the dinner-table.
“Now smile, eyes! smile, lips! flatter, tongue! Be a siren among the sirens, Sybil! Be a serpent among the serpents!” she hissed, as she glided down the stairs and entered the dining-room.
Theywere there! They were standing close together, in the recess of the west window, gazing out at the sun, which was just setting behind the mountain. They started, and turned towards her as she advanced. But Sybil, true to her tactics, spoke pleasantly, saying:
“You get a beautiful view of the sunset from that window, Mrs. Blondelle.”
“Yes, dear,” answered Rosa, sweetly. “I was just drawing Mr. Berners’ attention to it, and telling him that I really believe use has blinded him to its beauty.”
“Possession is a great disenchanter,” answered Sybil.
Both the others looked up to see if she had any hidden meaning under her words. But apparently she had not. She was smiling very gayly as she took her place at the head of the table and invited her companions to take their seats.
Throughout the dinner-hour Sybil seemed in very high spirits; she was full of anecdote and wit; she talked and laughed freely. Her companions noticed her unusual gayety; but they ascribed it to the exhilarating effects of her morning drive, and to the anticipations of her mask ball, which now formed the principal subject of conversation at the table.
After dinner, they went into the drawing-room, where Sybil soon left her husband and her guest alone together; or rather, she pretended to leave them so; but really, with that insanity of jealousy which made her forget her womanhood, she merely went out and around the hall into the library, and placed herself behind the folding doors communicating with the drawing room, where she could hear and see all that might be going on between her husband and her rival.
It is proverbial that “listeners never hear any good of themselves.”
Sybil’s case was no exception to this rule. This is what she heard ofherself.
“What ever could have ailed Mrs. Berners,” inquired Mrs. Blondelle, with a pretty lisp.
“What could have ailed Sybil? Why, nothing, that I noticed. Whatshouldhave ailed her?” on his side inquired Mr. Berners.
“She was very much excited!” exclaimed Mrs. Blondelle, with a significant shrug of her shoulders.
“Oh! that was from her exhilarating morning ride, which raised her spirits.”
“Which excited her excessively, I should say, if it reallywasthe ride.”
“Of course it was the ride. And I admit that she was very gay,” laughed Mr. Berners.
“Gay?” echoed Rosa, raising her eyebrows—“Gay? Why, she was almost delirious, my friend.”
“Oh! well; Sybil gives full vent to her feelings; always did, always will. My little wife is in many respects a mere child, you know,” said Mr. Berners, tenderly.
“Ah! what a happy child, to have her faults so kindly indulged! I wish I were that child!” sighed Rosa.
“But why should you wish to be anything else but yourself, being so charming as you are?” he softly inquired.
“Do you really like me, just as I am, Mr. Berners?” she meekly inquired, dropping her eyes.
“I really do. I have told you so, Rosa,” he answered, approaching her, and taking her hand.
She sighed and turned away her head; but she left her hand in his clasp.
“Dear Rosa! dear child!” he murmured. “You are not happy.”
“No, not happy,” she echoed, in a broken voice.
“Dear Rosa! what can I do to make you happy?” he tenderly inquired.
“You? What can you do? Oh!—But I forget myself! I know not what I say! I must leave you, Mr. Berners!” she exclaimed, in well-acted alarm, as she snatched her hand from his grasp and fled from the room.
Mr. Berners looked after her, sighed heavily, and then began to walk thoughtfully up and down the room.
Sybil, from her covert, watched him, and grimly nodded her head. Then she also slipped away.
An hour later than this, the three, Mr. and Mrs. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle, were in the drawing-room together.
“You promised me some music,” whispered Lyon to Rosa.
“Oh yes; and I will give you some. I am so glad you like my poor songs. I am so happy when I can do anything at all to please you,” she murmured in reply, lifting her humid blue eyes to his face.
“Everything you do pleases me,” he answered, in a very low voice.
Sybil was not standing very near them, yet, with ears sharpened by jealousy, she overheard the whole of that short colloquy, and—treasured it up.
Lyon Berners led Rosa Blondelle to the piano, arranged her music-stool, and placed the music sheets before her. She turned to one of Byron’s impassioned songs, and while he hung enraptured over her, she sang the words, and ever she raised her eyes to his, to give eloquent expression and point to the sentiment. And thenhiseyes answered, if his voice and his heart did not.
That song was finished, and many more songs were sung, each more impassioned than the other, until at last, Rosa, growing weary and becoming slightly hoarse, arose from the piano, and with a half-suppressed sigh sank into an easy-chair.
Then Sybil—who had watched them through the evening, and noted every look and word and smile and sigh that passed between them, and who now found her powers of self-command waning—Sybil, I say, rang for the bedroom candles. And when they were brought, the little party separated and retired for the night.
From this time forth, in the insanity of her jealousy, and with a secretiveness only possible to the morally insane, Sybil completely concealed her suspicions and her sufferings from her husband and her guest. She was affectionate with Lyon, pleasant with Rosa, and confiding in her manners towards both.
And they were completely deceived, and never more fatally so than when they imagined themselves alone together.
They were never alone.
There was never a tender glance, a fluttering sigh, a soft smile, a low-toned, thrilling word passed between the false flirt and the fascinated husband, that was not seen and heard by the heart-broken, brain-crazed young wife!
And oh! could these triflers with sacred love—these wanderers on the brink of a fearful abyss—have seen the look of her face then, they would have fled from each other for ever, rather than to have dared the desperation of her roused soul.
But they saw nothing, knew nothing, suspected nothing! They were, like children playing with deadly poisons, with edge tools, or with fire, ignorant of the fatal toys they handled.
And, moreover they meant nothing. Theirs was the shallowest pretence of love that ever went by the name of a flirtation. On the woman’s side, it was but a love of admiration and an affectation of sentiment. On the man’s side, it was pity and gratified self-love. So little did Rosa Blondelle really care for Lyon Berners, and so truly did she estimate the value of her very luxurious home at Black Hall, that had she known the state of Sybil’s mind, she would very quickly have put an end to her flirtation with the husband, and done all that she could to recover the confidence of the wife, and then—looked out among the attractive young men of the neighborhood for another party to that sentimental, meaningless love-making, which was yet a necessity to her shallow life.
And as for Mr. Berners, had he dreamed of the real depth of anguish this trifling with the blonde beauty caused his true-hearted wife, he would have been the first to propose the immediate departure of their guest.
Had Sybil been frank with either or both the offenders, much misery might have been saved. But the young wife, wounded to the quick in her pride and in her love, hid her sufferings and kept her secret.
And thus the three drifted towards the awful brink of ruin.