“It is a pity he is na a laird, ma’am, and a duke to the back of that! a princely gentleman he is, me leddy.”
“I quite agree with you, Janet. Well, leave your charge for a moment, and come and arrange my hair for me. Unluckily I can not change my dress, for my luggage was left behind at Blackville, and I don’t suppose it has arrived here yet,” said Rosa Blondelle, as she returned to her room attended by her maid. But there an agreeable surprise met her. She found her trunks set in order, ready for her.
“I declare, there they are! And I suppose the servants who brought them, finding the door wide open and no one in the room, just put them in here and retired. Janet, open that trunk and get out my black velvet, and point lace set. I must not wear anything very light and gay on this first evening, after a fatiguing journey, when we all feel so tired as to be fit for nothing but bed,” said Rosa Blondelle, throwing herself languidly into the green-covered easy-chair before the dressing-table.
“And, ’deed, me leddy, there’s nae dress ye look sae weell in as that bonny black velvet,” said the maid.
Rosa knew this well, and for this reason, perhaps, selected the dress.
The maid quickly and skilfully arranged her mistress’s hair in its natural golden ringlets, that needed no ornament whatever. And when her toilet was complete, Rosa Blondelle’s fair beauty was even more resplendent than usual, from its contrast with the rich blackness of her dress.
“‘A star upon the brow of night!’” quoted Sybil, as she entered the room and stood for a moment in involuntary admiration. Then, with a smile, she drew the arm of her guest within her own and led her off to the supper-table, where they were joined by Mr. Berners.
It was a warm wainscotted little room, with crimson carpet and crimson curtains, a good open fire of hickory wood, and a small, but luxuriously spread supper-table.
Mr. Berners led their guest to her place at the board, and left his wife to follow. These courtesies were no doubt due the visitor, yet they made the wife’s heart ache. She hated to miss the attentions her husband had always hitherto bestowed on her alone; and she hated more to see them lavished on another, and that other a beautiful, fascinating, and, as she half suspected, most dangerous woman. It was in vain she said to herself that these attentions were no more than any gentleman should show to the invited visitor of his wife. She could not argue away her heartache. She could not endure to see her husband touch the beauty’s hand. It drove her almost out of her self-possession to see their eyes meet in that provoking mutual smile. Oh! how she repented ever having invited this fatal beauty to her house! And yet she pitied the friendless stranger too, and she struggled bravely against those feelings of jealousy and hatred that were creeping into her heart. And, in fact, from this time the whole inner life of Sybil Berners became one hard struggle between her passions and her reason. And this struggle soon manifested itself in a series of inconsistencies of conduct that were perfectly incomprehensible to both Lyon Berners and Rosa Blondelle.
For instance, on this first night at home, while they sat at the supper-table. Sybil was silent, abstracted, and depressed. Her companions mentally ascribed her condition to fatigue; but Sybil then scarcely knew what fatigue meant. After supper she aroused herself by an effort, and offered to attend Mrs. Blondelle back again to that lady’s chamber; and when they got there, even lingered a little while, and very kindly repeated her request that if Rosa should be frightened in the night, she should run up the communicating stairs and rap at Sybil’s bedroom door for assistance. And then Sybil bade her visitor good-night, and vanished up the stairs.