TRYING ON WREATHS.
The months went on, and Deerham was in a commotion: not the Clay Lane part of it, of whom I think you have mostly heard, but that more refined if less useful portion, represented by Lady Verner, the Elmsleys, the Bitterworths, and other of the aristocracy congregating in its environs.
Summer had long come in, and was now on the wane; and Sir Edmund Hautley, the only son and heir of Sir Rufus, was expected home. He had quitted the service, had made the overland route, and was now halting in Paris; but the day of his arrival at Deerham Hall was fixed. And this caused the commotion: for it had pleased Miss Hautley to determine to welcome him with a fête and ball, the like of which for splendour had never been heard of in the county.
Miss Hautley was a little given to have an opinion of her own, and to hold to it. Sir Rufus had been the same. Their friends called it firmness; their enemies obstinacy. The only sister of Sir Rufus, not cordial with him during his life, she had invaded the Hall as soon as the life had left him, quitting her own comfortable and substantial residence to do it, and persisted in taking up her abode there until Sir Edmund should return; as she was persisting now in giving this fête in honour of it. In vain those who deemed themselves privileged to speak, pointed out to Miss Hautley that a fête might be considered out of place, given before Sir Rufus had been dead a twelvemonth, and that Sir Edmund might deem it so; furthermore, that Sir Edmund might prefer to find quietness on his arrival instead of a crowd.
They might as well have talked to the wind, for all the impression it made upon Miss Hautley. The preparations for the gathering went on quickly, the invitations had gone out, and Deerham's head was turned. Those who did not get invitations were ready to swallow up those who did. Miss Hautley was as exclusive as ever proud old Sir Rufus had been, and many were left out who thought they might have been invited. Amongst others, the Misses West thought so, especially as one card had gone to their house—for Mr. Jan Verner.
Two cards had been left at Deerham Court. For Lady and Miss Verner: for Mr. and Mrs. Verner. By some strange oversight, Miss Tempest was omitted. That it was a simple oversight there was no doubt; and so it turned out to be; for, after the fête was over, reserved old Miss Hautley condescended to explain that it was, and to apologise; but this is dating forward. It was not known to be an oversight when the cards arrived, and Lady Verner felt inclined to resent it. She hesitated whether to treat it resentfully and stay away herself; or to take no notice of it, further than by conveying Lucy to the Hall in place of Decima.
Lucy laughed. She did not seem to care at all for the omission; but as to going without the invitation, or in anybody's place, she would not hear of it.
"Decima will not mind staying at home," said Lady Verner. "She never cares to go out. You will not care to go, will you, Decima?"
An unwonted flush of crimson rose to Decima's usually calm face. "I should like to go to this, mamma, as Miss Hautley has invited me."
"Like to go to it!" repeated Lady Verner. "Are you growing capricious, Decima? You generally profess to 'like' to stay at home."
"I would rather go this time, if you have no objection," was the quiet answer of Decima.
"Dear Lady Verner, if Decima remained at home ever so, I should not go," interposed Lucy. "Only fancy my intruding there without an invitation! Miss Hautley might order me out again."
"It is well to make a joke of it, Lucy, when I am vexed," said Lady Verner. "I dare say it is only a mistake; but I don't like such mistakes."
"I dare say it is nothing else," replied Lucy, laughing. "But as to making my appearance there under the circumstances, I could not really do it to oblige even you, Lady Verner. And I would just as soon be at home."
Lady Verner resigned herself to the decision, but she did not look pleased.
"It is to be I and Decima, then. Lionel," glancing across the table at him—"you will accompany me. I cannot go without you."
It was at the luncheon table they were discussing this; a meal of which Lionel rarely partook; in fact, he was rarely at home to partake of it; but he happened to be there to-day. Sibylla was present. Recovered from the accident—if it may be so called—of the breaking of the blood-vessel; she had appeared to grow stronger and better with the summer weather. Jan knew the improvement was all deceit, and told them so; told her so; that the very greatest caution was necessary, if she would avert a second similar attack; in fact, half the time of Jan's visits at Deerham Court was spent in enjoining perfect tranquillity on Sibylla.
But she was so obstinate! She would not keep herself quiet; she would go out; she would wear those thin summer dresses, low, in the evening. She is wearing a delicate muslin now, as she sits by Lady Verner, and her blue eyes are suspiciously bright, and her cheeks are suspiciously hectic, and the old laboured breath can be seen through the muslin moving her chest up and down, as it used to be seen—a lovely vision still, with her golden hair clustering about her; but her hands are hot and trembling, and her frame is painfully thin. Certainly she does not look fit to enter upon evening gaiety, and Lady Verner in addressing her son, "You will go with me, Lionel," proved that she never so much as cast a thought to the improbability that Sibylla would venture thither.
"If—you—particularly wish it, mother," was Lionel's reply, spoken with hesitation.
"Do you not wish to go?" rejoined Lady Verner.
"I would very much prefer not," he replied.
"Nonsense, Lionel! I don't think you have gone out once since you left Verner's Pride. Staying at home won't mend matters. I wish you to go with me; I shall make a point of it."
Lady Verner spoke with some irritation, and Lionel said no more. He supposed he must acquiesce.
It was no long-timed invitation of weeks. The cards arrived on the Monday, and the fête was for the following Thursday. Lionel thought no more about it; he was not as the ladies, whose toilettes would take all of that time to prepare. On the Wednesday, Decima took him aside.
"Lionel, do you know that Mrs. Verner intends to go to-morrow evening?"
Lionel paused; paused from surprise.
"You must be mistaken, Decima. She sent a refusal."
"I fancy that she did not send a refusal. And I feel sure she is thinking of going. You will not judge that I am unwarrantably interfering," Decima added in a tone of deprecation. "I would not do such a thing. But I thought it was right to apprise you of this. She is not well enough to go out."
With a pressure of the hand on his sister's shoulder, and a few muttered words of dismay, which she did not catch, Lionel sought his wife. No need of questioning, to confirm the truth of what Decima had said. Sibylla was figuring off before the glass, after the manner of her girlish days, with a wreath of white flowers on her head. It was her own sitting-room, the pretty room of the blue and white panels; and the tables and chairs were laden with other wreaths, with various head ornaments. She was trying their different effects, when, on turning round her head as the door opened, she saw it was her husband. His presence did not appear to discompose her, and she continued to place the wreath to her satisfaction, pulling it here and there with her thin and trembling hands.
"What are you doing?" asked Lionel.
"Trying on wreaths," she replied.
"So I perceive. But why?"
"To see which suits me best. This looks too white for me, does it not?" she added, turning her countenance towards him.
If to be the same hue as the complexion was "too white," it certainly did look so. The dead white of the roses was not more utterly colourless than Sibylla's face. She was like a ghost; she often looked so now.
"Sibylla," he said, without answering her question, "you are surely not thinking of going to Sir Edmund's to-morrow night?"
"Yes, I am."
"You said you would write a refusal!"
"I know I said it. I saw how cross-grained you were going to be over it, and that's why I said it to you. I accepted the invitation."
"But, my dear, you must not go!"
Sibylla was flinging off the white wreath, and taking up a pink one, which she began to fix in her hair. She did not answer.
"After all," deliberated she, "I have a great mind to wear pearls. Not a wreath at all."
"Sibylla! I say you must not go."
"Now, Lionel, it is of no use your talking. I have made up my mind to go; I did at first; and go I shall. Don't you remember," she continued, turning her face from the glass towards him, her careless tone changing for one of sharpness, "that papa said I must not be crossed?"
"But you are not in a state to go out," remonstrated Lionel. "Jan forbids it utterly."
"Jan? Jan's in your pay. He says what you tell him to say."
"Child, how can you give utterance to such things?" he asked in a tone of emotion. "When Jan interdicts your going out he has only your welfare at heart. And you know that I have it. Evening air and scenes of excitement are equally pernicious for you."
"I shall go," returned Sibylla. "You are going, you know," she resentfully said. "I wonder you don't propose that I shall be locked up at home in a dark closet, while you are there, dancing."
A moment's deliberation in his mind, and a rapid resolution. "I shall not go, Sibylla," he rejoined. "I shall stay at home with you."
"Who says you are going to stay at home?"
"I say it myself. I intend to do so. I shall do so."
"Oh! Since when, pray, have you come to that decision?"
Had she not the penetration to see that he had come to it then—then, as he talked to her; that he had come to it for her sake? That she should not have it to say he went out while she was at home. Perhaps she did see it; but it was nearly impossible to Sibylla not to indulge in bitter, aggravating retorts.
"I understand!" she continued, throwing up her head with an air of supreme scorn. "Thank you, don't trouble. I am not too ill to stoop, ill as you wish to make me out to be."
In displacing the wreath on her head to a different position, she had let it fall. Lionel's stooping to pick it up had called forth the last remark. As he handed it to her he took her hand.
"Sibylla, promise me to think no more of this. Do give it up."
"I won't give it up," she vehemently answered. "I shall go. And, what's more, I shall dance."
Lionel quitted her and sought his mother. Lady Verner was not very well that afternoon, and was keeping her room. He found her in an invalid chair.
"Mother, I have come to tell you that I cannot accompany you to-morrow evening," he said. "You must please excuse me."
"Why so?" asked Lady Verner.
"I would so very much rather not go," he answered. "Besides, I do not care to leave Sibylla."
Lady Verner made no observation for a few moments. A carious smile, almost a pitying smile, was hovering on her lips.
"Lionel, you are a model husband. Your father was not a bad one, as husbands go; but—he would not have bent his neck to such treatment from me, as you take from Mrs. Verner."
"No?" returned Lionel, with good humour.
"It is not right of you, Lionel, to leave me to go alone, with only Decima."
"Let Jan accompany you, mother."
"Jan!" uttered Lady Verner, in the very extreme of astonishment. "I should be surprised to see Jan attempt to enter such a scene. Jan! I don't suppose he possesses a fit coat and waistcoat."
Lionel smiled, quitted his mother, and bent his steps towards Jan Verner's.
Not to solicit Jan's attendance upon Lady Verner to the festival scene, or to make close inquiries as to the state of Jan's wardrobe. No; Lionel had a more serious motive for his visit.
He found Jan and Master Cheese enjoying a sort of battle. The surgery looked as if it had been turned upside down, so much confusion reigned. White earthenware vessels of every shape and form, glass jars, huge cylinders, brass pots, metal pans, were scattered about in inextricable confusion. Master Cheese had recently got up a taste for chemical experiments, in which it appeared necessary to call into requisition an unlimited quantity of accessories in the apparatus line. He had been entering upon an experiment that afternoon, when Jan came unexpectedly in, and caught him.
Not for the litter and confusion was Jan displeased, but because he found that Master Cheese had so bungled chemical properties in his head, so confounded one dangerous substance with another, that, five minutes later, the result would probably have been the blowing off of the surgery roof, and Master Cheese and his vessels with it. Jan was giving him a sharp and decisive word, not to attempt anything of the sort again, until he could bring more correct knowledge to bear upon it, when Lionel interrupted them.
"I want to speak to you, Jan," he said.
"Here, you be off, and wash the powder from your hands," cried Jan to Master Cheese, 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."
"Very well," 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.