Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/82

74 your hands,” cried Jan to Master ChesseCheese [sic], who was looking ruefully cross. “I’ll put the things straight.”

The young gentleman departed. Lionel sat down on the only chair he could see—one probably kept for the accommodation of patients who might want a few teeth drawn. Jan was rapidly reducing the place to order.

“What is it, Lionel?” he asked, when it was pretty clear.

“Jan, you must see Sibylla. She wants to go to Deerham Hall to-morrow night.”

“She can’t go,” replied Jan. “Nonsense.”

“But she says she will go.”

Jan leaned his long body over the counter, and brought his face nearly on a level with Lionel’s, speaking slowly and impressively.

“If she goes, Lionel, it will kill her.”

Lionel rose to depart. He was on his way to Verner’s Pride.

“I called in to tell you this, Jan, and to ask you to step up and remonstrate with her.”

“I’ll go,” said Jan. “Mark me, Lionel, she must not go. And if there’s no other way of keeping her away, you, her husband, must forbid it. A little more excitement than usual, and there’ll be another vessel of the lungs ruptured. If that happens, nothing can save her life. Keep her at home, by force if necessary: any way keep her.”

“And what of the excitement that that will cause?” questioned Lionel. “It may be as fatal as the other.”

“I don’t know,” returned Jan, speaking for once in his life testily, in the vexation the difficulty brought him. “My belief is, that Sibylla’s mad. She’d never be so stupid, were she sane.”

“Go to her, and see what you can do,” concluded Lionel, as he turned away.

Jan proceeded to Deerham Court, and had an interview with Mrs. Verner. It was not of a very agreeable nature, neither did much satisfaction ensue from it. After a few recriminating retorts to Jan’s arguments, which he received as equably as though they had been compliments, Sibylla subsided into sullen silence. And when Jan left, he could not tell whether she still persisted in her project, or whether she gave it up.

Lionel returned late in the evening: he had been detained at Verner’s Pride. Sibylla appeared sullen still. She was in her own sitting-room, upstairs, and Lucy was bearing her company. Decima was in Lady Verner’s chamber.

“Have you had any dinner?” inquired Lucy. She did not ask. She would not have asked had he been starving.

“I took a bit with John Massingbird,” he replied. “Is my mother better, do you know?”

“Not much, I think,” said Lucy. “Decima is sitting with her.”

Lionel stood in his old attitude, his elbow on the mantelpiece by his wife’s side, looking down at her. Her eyes were suspiciously bright, her cheeks now shone with their most crimson hectic. It was often the case at this, the twilight hour of the evening. She wore a low dress, and the gold chain on her neck rose and fell with every breath. Lucy’s neck was uncovered, too: a fair, pretty neck; one that did not give you the shudders when looked at, as poor Sibylla’s did. Sibylla leaned back on the cushions of her chair, toying with a fragile hand-screen of feathers: Lucy, sitting on the opposite side, had been reading; but she laid the book down when Lionel entered.

“John Massingbird desired me to ask you, Sibylla, if he should send you the first plate of grapes they cut.”

“I’d rather have the first bag of walnuts they shake,” answered Sibylla. “I never care for grapes.”

“He can send you both,” said Lionel: but an uncomfortable, dim recollection came over him, of Jan’s having told her she must not eat walnuts. For Jan to tell her not to do a thing, however—or, in fact, anybody else—was the sure signal for Sibylla to do it.

“Does John Massingbird intend to go to-morrow evening?” inquired Sibylla.

“To Deerham Hall, do you mean? John Massingbird has received no invitation.”

“What’s that for?” quickly asked Sibylla.

“Some whim of Miss Hautley’s, I suppose. They have been issued very partially. John says it is just as well he did not get one, for he should either not have responded to it, or else made his appearance there with his clay pipe.”

Lucy laughed.

“He is glad to be left out,” continued Lionel. “It saves him the trouble of a refusal. I don’t think any ball would get John Massingbird to it; unless he could be received in what he calls his diggings toggery.”

“I’d not have gone with him; I don’t like him well enough,” resentfully spoke Sibylla; “but as he is not going, he can let me have the loan of my own carriage—at least, the carriage that was my own. I dislike those old hired things.”

The words struck on Lionel like a knell. He foresaw trouble.

“Sibylla,” he gravely said, “I have been speaking to Jan. He—”

“Yes, you have!” she vehemently interrupted, her pent-up anger bursting forth. “You went to him, and sent him here, and told him what to say,—all on purpose to cross me. It is wicked of you to be so jealous of my having a little pleasure.”

“Jealous of—I don’t understand you, Sibylla.”

“You won’t understand me, you mean. Never mind! never mind!”

“Sibylla,” he said, bending his head slightly towards her, and speaking in low, persuasive accents, “I cannot let you go to-morrow night. If I cared for you less, I might let you risk it. I have given up going, and—”

“You never meant to go,” she interrupted.

“Yes I did: to please my mother. But that is of no consequence—”

“I tell you, you never meant to go, Lionel Verner!” she passionately burst forth, her cheeks flaming. “You are stopping at home on purpose to be with Lucy Tempest. It is a concocted plan between you and her. Her society is more to you than any you’d find at Deerham Hall.”

Lucy looked up with a start—a sort of shiver—