Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/85

. 10, 1863.] “Shall I bring tea in, Miss Lucy?” asked Catherine.

Lucy turned her eyes on Sibylla.

“Would you like tea now, Mrs. Verner?”

“No,” answered Sibylla. “Not yet.”

She left the room as she spoke. Old Catherine, who had been lowering the curtains, followed next. Lucy drew a chair to the fire, sat down, and fell into a reverie.

She was aroused by the door opening again. It proved to be Catherine with the tea-things.

“I thought I’d bring them in, and then they’ll be ready,” remarked she. “You can please to ring, miss, when you want the urn.”

Lucy simply nodded, and Catherine returned to the kitchen, to enjoy a social tête-à-tête supper with the cook. Mademoiselle Thérèse, taking advantage of her mistress’s absence, had gone out for the rest of the evening. The two servants sat on and chatted together: so long, that Catherine openly wondered at the urn’s not being called for.

“They must both have gone to sleep, I should think,” quoth she. “Miss Lucy over the fire in the sitting-room, and Mr. Lionel’s wife over hers, upstairs. I have not heard her come down—”

Catherine stopped. The cook had started up, her eyes fixed on the doorway. Catherine, whose back was towards it, hastily turned; and an involuntary exclamation broke from her lips.

Standing there was Mrs. Verner, looking like—like a bedecked skeleton. She was in fairy attire. A gossamer robe of white with shining ornaments, and a wreath that seemed to sparkle with glittering dewdrops on her head. But her arms were thin, wasted; and the bones of her poor neck seemed to rattle as they heaved painfully under the gems; and her face had not so much as the faintest tinge of hectic, but was utterly colourless: worse; it was wan, ghastly. A distressing sight to look upon, was she, as she stood there: she and the festal attire were so completely at variance. She came forward, before the servants could recover from their astonishment.

“Where’s Richard?” she asked, speaking in a low, subdued tone, as if fearing to be heard—though there was nobody in the house to hear her, save Lucy Tempest. And probably it was from her wish to avoid all attention to her proceeding, that caused her to come down stealthily to the servants, instead of ringing for them.

“Richard is not come back, ma'am,” answered Catherine. “We have just been saying that he’ll most likely stop up there with the Hall servants until my lady returns.”

“Not back!” echoed Sibylla. “Cook, you must go out for me,” she imperiously added, after a moment’s pause. “Go to Dean’s and order one of their flies here directly. Wait, and come back with it.”

The cook, a simple sort of young woman, save in her own special department, did not demur, or appear to question in the least the expediency of the order. Catherine questioned it very much indeed; but while she hesitated what to do, whether to stop the cook, or to venture on a remonstrance to Mrs. Verner, or to appeal to Miss Tempest to do it, the cook was gone. Servants are not particular in country places, and the girl went straight out as she was, staying to put nothing on.

Sibylla appeared to be shivering. She took up her place right in front of the fire, holding out her hands to the blaze. Her teeth chattered, her whole frame trembled.

“The fire in my dressing-room went out,” she remarked. “Take care that you make up a large one by the time I return.”

“You’ll never go, ma'am!” cried old Catherine, breaking through her reserve. “You are not strong enough.”

“Mind your own business,” sharply retorted Sibylla. “Do you think I don’t know my own feelings, whether I am strong, or whether I am not? I am as strong as you.”

Catherine dared no more. Sibylla cowered over the fire, her head turned sideways as she glanced on the table.

“What’s that?” she suddenly cried, pointing to the contents of a jug.

“It’s beer, ma'am,” answered Catherine. “That stupid girl drew just as much as if Richard and Thérèse had been at home. Maybe Thérèse will be in yet for supper.”

“Give me a glass of it. I am thirsty.”

Again old Catherine hesitated. Malt liquor had been expressly forbidden to Mrs. Verner. It made her cough frightfully.

“You know, ma'am, the doctors have said—”

“Will you hold your tongue? And give me what I require? You are as bad as Mr. Verner.”

Catherine reached a tumbler, poured it half full, and handed it, Mrs. Verner did not take it.

“Fill it,” she said.

So old Catherine, much against her will, had to fill it, and Sibylla drained the glass to the very bottom. In truth, she was continually thirsty: she seemed to have a perpetual inward fever upon her. Her shoulders were shivering as she set down the glass.

“Go and find my opera cloak, Catherine. It must have dropped on the stairs. I know I put it on as I left my room.”

Catherine quitted the kitchen on the errand. She would have liked to close the door after her; but it happened to be pushed quite back with a chair against it; and the pointedly shutting it might have been noticed by Sibylla. She found the opera cloak lying on the landing, near Sibylla’s bedroom door. Catching it up, she slipped off her shoes at the same moment, stole down noiselessly and went into the presence of Miss Tempest.

Lucy looked astonished. She sat at the table reading, waiting with all patience the entrance of Sibylla, ere she made the tea. To see Catherine steal in covertly with her finger to her lips, excited her wonder.

“Miss Lucy, she’s going to the ball,” was the old servant’s salutation, as she approached close to Lucy, and spoke in the faintest whisper. “She is shivering over the kitchen fire, with hardly a bit of gown to her back, so far as warmth goes. Here’s her opera cloak: she dropped it coming down. Cook’s gone out for a fly.’” [sic]