The doctor was an honest though not brilliant man, and did his best for the patient, without thinking of fee or reward. Sybil, in her intense anxiety, doubted his skill: but how was she to procure that of others? There were, she knew, great physicians in London and elsewhere, but she was destitute of the means for employing them. Times there were, when, in her desperation, she thought of writing to Audley; but she knew that her mother would never have approved of such a proceeding; and their parting had been so strange, that she shrunk from the idea as suddenly as it had been conceived, and she thought, as she whispered in her heart the words of a once familiar song, that hers was—
"A love that took an early root,
And had an early doom,
Like trees that never come to fruit,
And early shed their bloom—
Of vanished hopes and sunny smiles,
All lost for evermore;
Like ships that sailed for sunny isles
But never saw their shore."
She thought, too of the fatherly old soldier, General Trecarrel, and then as quickly remembered that he had been present during that humiliating interview at Rhoscadzhel; but any idea of writing to him for advice was crushed finally, when a stray newspaper announced one day, that the General "and his family" had sailed in the Netley transport for India, his extra aide-de-camp, the Honourable Mr. Audley Trevelyan, having proceeded overland, to serve on his staff in the new campaign against the Afghans.
Something of secret satisfaction mingled with the sorrow and fear of the lonely girl, as she read this paragraph—which she did a great many times—satisfaction that Audley had not gone in the same vessel with these gay Trecarrels, which he could easily have done, if so disposed; sorrow, that they were so completely and hopelessly separated now, and fear for the events of the coming campaign in which he was to serve, and more than probably her brother Denzil, too. Sybil could little suppose that it was purposely to avoid being quizzed by the Trecarrels about herself, and to avoid the imputation, or too probable danger, consequent to a long voyage with two such handsome and enterprising flirts as Mabel and Rose were known to be, that he had, with a few brother officers, started for the East overland, a less easy and luxurious journey then than it is now.
But Sybil was soon compelled by the exigencies of their situation to exert herself beyond her years and experience, for creditors, we have said, had become clamorous. Everything that could be spared was to be turned into money, and they were to seek another and more humble home. All the beautiful art-treasures collected by the taste of her parents in their continental wanderings, the oak and marqueterie cabinets, the chaste china of Dresden and Sèvres, the quaint Majolica vases, and alabaster groups, with all the most valued household gods, were despatched to the nearest market town in charge of the useful Mr. Sharkly, and disposed of with a ruinous commission to that somewhat "seedy" personage! and a little time after saw the pretty villa, so long the abode of so much peaceful and sequestered happiness, in the possession of strangers, while Sybil and her mamma were content to locate them in a small cottage which they rented from old Michael Treherne, the miner, and furnished in the plainest manner; but all their debts were cleared, and even Denzil's Indian outfit paid.
To Constance all places were pretty much alike now, for she had become listless and indifferent to external objects; but times there were when much of exasperation mingled with Sybil's grief, at the thought that her mamma—she so gently bred and nurtured, and so petted by her drowned father—she, who should then be in Rhoscadzhel, surrounded by every appliance that wealth, luxury, skill, and rank could furnish, was now in her desolate widowhood, and sore extremity, the inmate of a poor and sordid cottage.
Thus day succeeded day, and weeks rolled on without any change, at least for the better—weeks which seemed so long, heavy and monotonous, that to Sybil the world and time appeared to stand still. No letters came from Denzil now, for he had marched up-country somewhere, and India was not then what it has been since the Great Mutiny of the Sepoys, intersected by railways and telegraph wires; but Denzil's last epistle was full of unusual interest to Sybil and her mamma.
He had, of course, been duly acquainted by the former of all that had occurred at home, with the startling revelations consequent to his father's journey to Montreal, and his death at sea; and now he should probably meet, ere long, this cousin of his, this Audley Trevelyan, for they belonged to the same regiment, and it was, perhaps, to form a portion of Trecarrel's brigade. And how were they to meet—as friends and brother officers, as relations or enemies?—for Audley's father occupied his (Denzil's) place in the world or in society, at least.
Relations—pshaw!—could they ever be aught but foes? was the young man's immediate thought, and his sister's boding fear. And so his father was gone—his good, kind father, his friend, companion, and preceptor in many a manly sport. How often had they rode and rambled, shot and fished together in Calabria, the Abruzzi, and Switzerland, and at home in sturdy Cornwall, so many thousand miles away! Only those who are so far from home—so far away as India, with all its strange external influences and objects—can know how keen, and strong, and tender, to the young at least, are the ties of home and kindred, especially as the home-ties decrease in number by distance, change, and death.
Dead—his father dead! The "governor," as he had styled him, like "other fellows" at Sandhurst, his "dear old dad," as he called him in the home that was a broken home now; and as the pleasant face, that he never more would look upon, with years of past affection, came back to memory, the lad had covered his face with his hands, and wept.