XXX. NEWS FROM AUSTRALIA…

XXX. NEWS FROM AUSTRALIA

Lionel Verner could scarcely believe in his own identity. The train, which was to have contained him, was whirling towards London; he, a poor aspirant for future fortune, ought to have been in it; he had counted most certainly to be in it; but here was he, while the steam of that train yet snorted in his ears, walking out of the station, a wealthy man, come into a proud inheritance, the inheritance of his fathers. In the first moment of tumultuous thought, Lionel almost felt as if some fairy must have been at work with a magic wand.

It was all true. He linked his arm within Jan's, and listened to the recital in detail. Jan had found Mrs. Verner, on his arrival at Verner's Pride, weeping over letters from Australia; one from a Captain Cannonby, one from Sibylla. They contained the tidings that Frederick Massingbird had died of fever, and that Sibylla was anxious to come home again.

"Who is Captain Cannonby?" asked Lionel of Jan.

"Have you forgotten the name?" returned Jan. "That friend of Fred Massingbird's who sold out, and was knocking about London; Fred went up once or twice to see him. He went to the diggings last autumn, and it seems Fred and Sibylla lighted on him at Melbourne. He had laid poor Fred in the grave the day before he wrote, he says."

"I can scarcely believe it all now, Jan," said Lionel. "What a change!"

"Ay. You won't believe it for a day or two. I say, Lionel, Uncle Stephen need not have left Verner's Pride to the Massingbirds; they have not lived to enjoy it. Neither need there have been all that bother about the codicil. I know what."

"What?" asked Lionel, looking at him; for Jan spoke significantly.

"That Madam Sibylla would give her two ears now to have married you, instead of Fred Massingbird."

Lionel's face flushed, and he replied coldly, hauteur in his tone, "Nonsense, Jan! you are speaking most unwarrantably. When Sibylla chose Fred Massingbird, I was the heir to Verner's Pride."

"I know," said Jan. "Verner's Pride would be a great temptation to Sibylla; and I can but think she knew it was left to Fred when she married him."

Lionel did not condescend to retort. He would as soon believe himself capable of bowing down before the god of gold, in a mean spirit, as believe Sibylla capable of it. Indeed, though he was wont to charm himself with the flattering notion that his love for Sibylla had died out, or near upon it, he was very far off the point when he could think any ill of Sibylla.

"My patients will be foaming," remarked Jan, who continued his way to Verner's Pride with Lionel. "They will conclude I have gone off with Dr. West; and I have his list on my hands now, as well as my own. I say, Lionel, when I told you the letters from Australia were in, how little we guessed they would contain this news."

"Little, indeed!" said Lionel.

"I suppose you won't go to London now?"

"I suppose not," was the reply of Lionel; and a rush of gladness illumined his heart as he spoke it. No more toil over those dry old law books! The study had never been to his taste.

The servants were gathered in the hall when Lionel and Jan entered it. Decorously sorry, of course, for the tidings which had arrived, but unable to conceal the inward satisfaction which peeped out--not satisfaction at the death of Fred, but at the accession of Lionel. It is curious to observe how jealous the old retainers of a family are, upon all points which touch the honour or the well-being of the house. Fred Massingbird was an alien; Lionel was a Verner; and now, as Lionel entered, they formed into a double line that he might pass between them, their master from henceforth.

Mrs. Verner was in the old place, the study. Jan had seen her in bed that morning; but, since then, she had risen. Early as the hour yet was, recent as the sad news had been, Mrs. Verner had dropped asleep. She sat nodding in her chair, snoring heavily, breathing painfully, her neck and face all one colour--carmine red. That she looked--as Jan had observed--a very apoplectic subject, struck Lionel most particularly on this morning.

"Why don't you bleed her, Jan?" he whispered.

"She won't be bled," responded Jan. "She won't take physic. She won't do anything that she ought to do. You may as well talk to a post. She'll do nothing but eat and drink, and fall asleep afterwards, and then wake up to eat and drink and fall asleep again. Mrs. Verner"--exalting his voice--"here's Lionel."

Mrs. Verner partially woke up. Her eyes opened sufficiently to observe Jan; and her mind apparently grew awake to a confused remembrance of facts. "He's gone to London," said she to Jan. "You won't catch him:" and then she nodded again.

"I did catch him," shouted Jan. "Lionel's here."

Lionel sat down by her, and she woke up pretty fully.

"I am grieved at this news for your sake, Mrs. Verner," he said in a kind tone, as he took her hand. "I am sorry for Frederick."

"Both my boys gone before me, Lionel!" she cried, melting into tears--"John first; Fred next. Why did they go out there to die?"

"It is indeed sad for you," replied Lionel. "Jan says Fred died of fever."

"He has died of fever. Don't you remember when Sibylla wrote, she said he was ill with fever? He never got well. He never got well! I take it that it must have been a sort of intermittent fever--pretty well one day, down ill the next--for he had started for the place where John died--I forget its name, but you'll find it written there. Only a few hours after quitting Melbourne, he grew worse and died."

"Was he alone?" asked Lionel.

"Captain Cannonby was with him. They were going together up to--I forget, I say, the name of the place--where John died, you know. It was nine or ten days' distance from Melbourne, and they had travelled but a day of it. And I suppose," added Mrs. Verner, with tears in her eyes, "that he'd be put into the ground like a dog!"

Lionel, on this score, could give no consolation. He knew not whether the fact might be so, or not. Jan hoisted himself on to the top of a high bureau, and sat in comfort.

"He'd be buried like a dog," repeated Mrs. Verner. "What do they know about parsons and consecrated ground out there? Cannonby buried him, he says, and then he went back to Melbourne to carry the tidings to Sibylla."

"Sibylla? Was Sibylla not with him when he died?" exclaimed Lionel.

"It seems not. It's sure not, in fact, by the letters. You can read them, Lionel. There's one from her and one from Captain Cannonby."

"It's not likely they'd drag Sibylla up to the diggings," interposed Jan.

"And yet almost as unlikely that her husband would leave her alone in such a place as Melbourne appears to be," dissented Lionel.

"She was not left alone," said Mrs. Verner. "If you'd read the letters, Lionel, you would see. She stayed in Melbourne with a family: friends, I think she says, of Captain Cannonby's. She has written for money to be sent out to her by the first ship, that she may pay her passage home again."

This item of intelligence astonished Lionel more than any other.

"Written for money to be sent out for her passage home!" he reiterated. "Has she no money?"

Mrs. Verner looked at him. "They accuse me of forgetting things in my sleep, Lionel; but I think you must be growing worse than I am. Poor Fred told us in his last letter that he had been robbed of his desk, and that it had got his money in it."

"But I did not suppose it contained all--that they were reduced so low as for his wife to have no money left for a passage. What will she do there until some can be got out?"

"If she is with comfortable folks, they'd not turn her out," cried Jan.

Lionel took up the letters, and ran his eyes over them. They told him little else of the facts; though more of the details. It appeared to have taken place pretty much as Mrs. Verner said. The closing part of Sibylla's letter ran as follows:--

"After we wrote to you, Fred met Captain Cannonby. You must remember, dear aunt, how often Fred would speak of him. Captain Cannonby has relatives out here, people in very good position--if people can be said to be in a position at all in such a horrid place. We knew Captain Cannonby had come over, but thought he was at the Bendigo diggings. However, Fred met him; and he was very civil and obliging. He got us apartments in the best hotel--one of the very places that had refused us, saying they were crowded. Fred seemed to grow a trifle better, and it was decided that they should go to the place where John died, and try to get particulars about his money, etc., which in Melbourne we could hear nothing of. Indeed, nobody seemed to know even John's name. Captain Cannonby (who has really made money here in some way--trading, he says--and expects to make a good deal more) agreed to go with Fred. Then Fred told me of the loss of his desk and money, his bills of credit, and that; whatever the term may be. It was stolen from the quay, the day we arrived, and he had never been able to hear of it; but, while there seemed a chance of finding it, he would not let me know the ill news. Of course, with this loss upon us, there was all the more necessity for our getting John's money as speedily as might be. Captain Cannonby introduced me to his relatives, the Eyres, told them my husband wanted to go up the country for a short while, and they invited me to stay with them. And here I am, and very kind they are to me in this dreadful trouble.

"Aunt Verner, I thought I should have died when, a day or two after they started, I saw Captain Cannonby come back alone, with a long, sorrowful face. I seemed to know in a moment what had happened; I had thought at the time they started that Fred was too ill to go. I said to him, 'My husband is dead!' and he confessed that it was so. He had been taken ill at the end of the first day, and did not live many hours.

"I can't tell you any more, dear Aunt Verner; I am too sick and ill, and if I filled ten sheets with the particulars, it would not alter the dreadful facts. I want to come home to you; I know you will receive me, and let me live with you always. I have not any money. Please send me out sufficient to bring me home by the first ship that sails. I don't care for any of the things we brought out; they may stop here or be lost in the sea, for all the difference it will make to me: I only want to come home. Captain Cannonby says he will take upon himself now to look after John's money, and transmit it to us, if he can get it.

"Mrs. Eyre has just come in. She desires me to say that they are taking every care of me, and are all happy to have me with them: she says I am to tell you that her own daughters are about my age. It is all true, dear aunt, and they are exceedingly kind to me. They seem to have plenty of money, are intimate with the governor's family, and with what they call the good society of the colony. When I think what my position would have been now had I not met with them, I grow quite frightened.

"I have to write to papa, and must close this. I have requested Captain Cannonby to write to you himself, and give you particulars about the last moments of Frederick. Send me the money without delay, dear aunt. The place is hateful to me now he is gone, and I'd rather be dead than stop in it.

"Your affectionate and afflicted niece,

"SIBYLLA MASSINGBIRD."

Lionel folded the letter musingly. "It would almost appear that they had not heard of your son's accession to Verner's Pride," he remarked to Mrs. Verner. "It is not alluded to in any way."

"I think it is sure they had not heard of it," she answered "I remarked so to Mary Tynn. The letters must have been delayed in their passage. Lionel, you will see to the sending out of the money for me."

"Immediately," replied Lionel.

"And when do you come home?"

"Do you mean--do you mean when do I come here?" returned Lionel.

"To be sure I mean it. It is your home. Verner's Pride is your home, Lionel, now; not mine. It has been yours this three or four months past, only we did not know it. You must come home to it at once, Lionel."

"I suppose it will be right that I should do so," he answered.

"And I shall be thankful," said Mrs. Verner. "There will be a master once more, and no need to bother me. I have been bothered, Lionel. Mr. Jan,"--turning to the bureau--"it's that which has made me feel ill. One comes to me with some worry or other, and another comes to me: they will come to me. The complaints and tales of that Roy fidget my life out."

"I shall discharge Roy at once, Mrs. Verner."

Mrs. Verner made a deprecatory movement of the hands, as much as to say that it was no business of hers. "Lionel, I have only one request to make of you: never speak of the estate to me again, or of anything connected with its management. You are its sole master, and can do as you please. Shall you turn me out?"

Lionel's face flushed. "No, Mrs. Verner," he almost passionately answered. "You could not think so."

"You have the right. Had Fred come home, he would have had the right. But I'd hardly reconcile myself to any other house how."

"It is a right which I should never exercise," said Lionel.

"I shall mostly keep my room," resumed Mrs. Verner; "perhaps wholly keep it: and Mary Tynn will wait upon me. The servants will be yours, Lionel. In fact, they are yours; not mine. What a blessing! to know that I may be at peace from henceforth: that the care will be upon another's shoulders! My poor Fred! My dear sons! I little thought I was taking leave of them both for the last time!"

Jan jumped off his bureau. Now that the brunt of the surprise was over, and plans began to be discussed, Jan bethought himself of his impatient sick list, who were doubtlessly wondering at the non-appearance of their doctor. Lionel rose to depart with him.

"But, you should not go," said Mrs. Verner. "In five minutes I vacate this study; resign it to you. This change will give you plenty to do, Lionel."

"I know it will, dear Mrs. Verner. I shall be back soon, but I must hasten to acquaint my mother."

"You will promise not to go away again, Lionel. It is your lawful home, remember."

"I shall not go away again," was Lionel's answer; and Mrs. Verner breathed freely. To be emancipated from what she had regarded as the great worry of life, was felt to be a relief. Now she could eat and sleep all day, and never need be asked a single question, or hear whether the outside world had stopped, or was going on still.

"You will just pen a few words for me to Sibylla, Lionel," she called out. "I am past much writing now."

"If it be necessary that I should," he coldly replied.

"And send them with the remittance," concluded Mrs. Verner. "You will know how much to send. Tell Sibylla that Verner's Pride is no longer mine, and I cannot invite her to it. It would hardly be the--the thing for a young girl, and she's little better, to be living here with you all day long, and I always shut up in my room. Would it?"

Lionel somewhat haughtily shrugged his shoulders. "Scarcely," he answered.

"She must go to her sisters, of course. Poor girl! what a thing it seems to have to return to her old house again!"

Jan put in his head. "I thought you said you were coming, Lionel?"

"So I am--this instant." And they departed together: encountering Mr. Bitterworth in the road.

He grasped hold of Lionel in much excitement.

"Is it true--what people are saying? That you have come into Verner's Pride?"

"Quite true," replied Lionel. And he gave Mr. Bitterworth a summary of the facts.

"Now look there!" cried Mr. Bitterworth, who was evidently deeply impressed; "it's of no use to try to go against honest right: sooner or later it will triumph. In your case, it has come wonderfully soon. I told my old friend that the Massingbirds had no claim to Verner's Pride; that if they were exalted to it, over your head, it would not prosper them--not, poor fellows, that I thought of their death. May you remain in undisturbed possession of it, Lionel! May your children succeed to it after you!"

Lionel and Jan continued their road. But they soon parted company, for Jan turned off to his patients. Lionel made the best of his way to Deerham Court. In the room he entered, steadily practising, was Lucy Tempest, alone. She turned her head to see who it was, and at the sight of Lionel started up in alarm.

"What is it? Why are you back?" she exclaimed. "Has the train broken down?"

Lionel smiled at her vehemence; at her crimsoned countenance; at her unbounded astonishment altogether.

"The train has not broken down, I trust, Lucy. I did not go with it. Do you know where my mother is?"

"She is gone out with Decima."

He felt a temporary disappointment; the news, he was aware, would be so deeply welcome to Lady Verner. Lucy stood regarding him, waiting the solution of the mystery.

"What should you say, Lucy, if I tell you Deerham is not going to get rid of me at all?"

"I do not understand you," replied Lucy, colouring with surprise and emotion. "Do you mean that you are going to remain here?"

"Not here--in this house. That would be a calamity for you."

Lucy looked as if it would be anything but a calamity.

"You are as bad as our French mistress at the rectory," she said. "She would never tell us anything; she used to make us guess."

Her words were interrupted by the breaking out of the church bells: a loud peal, telling of joy. A misgiving crossed Lionel that the news had got wind, and that some officious person had been setting on the bells to ring for him, in honour of his succession. The exceeding bad taste of the proceeding--should it prove so--called a flush of anger to his brow. His inheritance had cost Mrs. Verner her son.

The suspicion was confirmed. One of the servants, who had been to the village, came running in at this juncture with open mouth, calling out that Mr. Lionel had come into his own, and that the bells were ringing for it. Lucy Tempest heard the words, and turned to Lionel.

"It is so, Lucy," he said, answering the look. "Verner's Pride is at last mine. But--"

She grew strangely excited. Lionel could see her heart beat--could see the tears of emotion gather in her eyes.

"I am so glad!" she said in a low, heartfelt tone. "I thought it would be so, sometime. Have you found the codicil?"

"Hush, Lucy! Before you express your gladness, you must learn that sad circumstances are mixed with it. The codicil has not been found; but Frederick Massingbird has died."

Lucy shook her head. "He had no right to Verner's Pride, and I did not like him. I am sorry, though, for himself, that he is dead. And--Lionel--you will never go away now?"

"I suppose not: to live."

"I am so glad! I may tell you that I am glad, may I not?"

She half timidly held out her hand as she spoke. Lionel took it between both of his, toying with it as tenderly as he had ever toyed with Sibylla's. And his low voice took a tone which was certainly not that of hatred, as he bent towards her.

"I am glad also, Lucy. The least pleasant part of my recent projected departure was the constantly remembered fact that I was about to put a distance of many miles between myself and you. It grew all too palpable towards the last."

Lucy laughed and drew away her hand, her radiant countenance falling before the gaze of Lionel.

"So you will be troubled with me yet, you see, Miss Lucy," he added, in a lighter tone, as he left her and strode off with a step that might have matched Jan's, on his way to ask the bells whether they were not ashamed of themselves.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXXI. ROY EATING HUMBLE PIE

And so the laws of right and justice had eventually triumphed, and Lionel Verner took possession of his own. Mrs. Verner took possession of her own--her chamber; all she was ever again likely to take possession of at Verner's Pride. She had no particular ailment, unless heaviness could be called an ailment, and steadily refused any suggestion of Jan's.

"You'll go off in a fit," said plain Jan to her.

"Then I must go," replied Mrs. Verner. "I can't submit to be made wretched with your medical and surgical remedies, Mr. Jan. Old people should be let alone, to doze away their days in peace."

"As good give some old people poison outright, as let them always doze," remonstrated Jan.

"You'd like me to live sparingly--to starve myself, in short--and you'd like me to take exercise!" returned Mrs. Verner. "Wouldn't you, now?"

"It would add ten years to your life," said Jan.

"I dare say! It's of no use your coming preaching to me, Mr. Jan. Go and try your eloquence upon others. I always have had enough to eat, and I hope I always shall. And as to my getting about, or walking, I can't. When folks come to be my size, it's cruel to want them to do it."

Mrs. Verner was nodding before she had well spoken the last words, and Jan said no more. You may have met with some such case in your own experience.

When the news of Lionel Verner's succession fell upon Roy, the bailiff, he could have gnashed his teeth in very vexation. Had he foreseen what was to happen he would have played his cards so differently. It had not entered into the head-piece of Roy to reflect that Frederick Massingbird might die. Scarcely had it that he could die. A man, young and strong, what was likely to take him off? John had died, it was true; but John's death had been a violent one. Had Roy argued the point at all--which he did not, for it had never occurred to his mind--he might have assumed that because John had died, Fred was the more likely to live. It is a somewhat rare case for two brothers to be cut down in their youth and prime, one closely following upon the other.

Roy lived in a cottage standing by itself, a little beyond Clay Lane, but not so far off as the gamekeeper's. On the morning when the bells had rung out--to the surprise and vexation of Lionel--Roy happened to be at home. Roy never grudged himself holiday when it could be devoted to the benefit of his wife. A negative benefit she may have thought it, since it invariably consisted in what Roy called a "blowing of her up."

Mrs. Roy had heard that the Australian mail was in. But the postman had not been to their door, therefore no letter could have arrived for them from Luke. A great many mails, as it appeared to Mrs. Roy, had come in with the like result. That Luke had been murdered, as his master, John Massingbird, had been before him, was the least she feared. Her fears and troubles touching Luke were great; they were never at rest; and her tears fell frequently. All of which excited the ire of Roy.

She sat in a rocking-chair in the kitchen--a chair which had been new when the absent Luke was a baby, and which was sure to be the seat chosen by Mrs. Roy when she was in a mood to indulge any passing tribulation. The kitchen opened to the road, as the kitchens of many of the dwellings did open to it; a parlour was on the right, which was used only on the grand occasion of receiving visitors; and the stairs, leading to two rooms above, ascended from the kitchen. Here she sat, silently wiping away her dropping tears with a red cotton pocket-handkerchief. Roy was not in the sweetest possible temper himself that morning, so, of course, he turned it upon her.

"There you be, a-snivelling as usual! I'd have a bucket always at my feet, if I was you. It might save the trouble of catching rain-water."

"If the letter-man had got anything for us, he'd have been round here an hour ago," responded Mrs. Roy, bursting into unrestrained sobs.

Now, this happened to be the very grievance that was affecting the gentleman's temper--the postman's not having gone there. They had heard that the Australian mail was in. Not that he was actuated by any strong paternal feelings--such sentiments did not prey upon Mr. Roy. The hearing or the not hearing from his son would not thus have disturbed his equanimity. He took it for granted that Luke was alive somewhere--probably getting on--and was content to wait until himself or a letter should turn up. The one whom he had been expecting to hear from was his new master, Mr. Massingbird. He had fondly indulged the hope that credential letters would arrive for him, confirming him in his place of manager; he believed that this mail would inevitably bring them, as the last mails had not. Hence he had stayed at home to receive the postman. But the postman had not come, and it gave Roy a pain in his temper.

"They be a-coming back, that's what it is," was the conclusion he arrived at, when his disappointment had a little subsided. "Perhaps they might have come by this very ship! I wonder if it brings folks as well as letters?"

"I know he must be dead!" sobbed Mrs. Roy.

"He's dead as much as you be," retorted Roy. "He's a-making his fortune, and he'll come home after it--that's what Luke's a-doing. For all you know he may be come too."

The words appeared to startle Mrs. Roy; she looked up, and he saw that her face had gone white with terror.

"Why! what does ail you?" cried he, in wonder. "Be you took crazy?"

"I don't want him to come home," she replied in an awe-struck whisper. "Roy, I don't want him to."

"You don't want to be anything but a idiot," returned Roy, with supreme contempt.

"But I'd like to hear from him," she wailed, swaying herself to and fro. "I'm always a-dreaming of it."

"You'll just dream a bit about getting the dinner ready," commanded Roy morosely; "that's what you'll dream about now. I said I'd have biled pork and turnips, and nicely you be a-getting on with it. Hark ye! I'm a-going now, but I shall be in at twelve, and if it ain't ready, mind your skin!"

He swung open the kitchen door just in time to hear the church bells burst out with a loud and joyous peal. It surprised Roy. In quiet Deerham, such sounds were not very frequent.

"What's up now?" cried Roy savagely. Not that the abstract fact of the bells ringing was of any moment to him, but he was in a mood to be angry with everything. "Here, you!" continued he, seizing hold of a boy who was running by, "what be them bells a-clattering for?"

Brought to thus summarily, the boy had no resource but to stop. It was a young gentleman whom you have had the pleasure of meeting before--Master Dan Duff. So fast had he been flying, that a moment or two elapsed ere he could get breath to speak.

The delay did not tend to soothe his capturer; and he administered a slight shake. "Can't you speak, Dan Duff? Don't you see who it is that's a-asking of you? What be them bells a-working for?"

"Please, sir, it's for Mr. Lionel Verner."

The answer took Roy somewhat aback. He knew--as everybody else knew--that Mr. Lionel Verner's departure from Deerham was fixed for that day; but to believe that the bells would ring out a peal of joy on that account was a staggerer even to Roy's ears. Dan Duff found himself treated to another shake, together with a sharp reprimand.

"So they be a-ringing for him!" panted he. "There ain't no call to shake my inside out of me for saying so. Mr. Lionel have got Verner's Pride at last, and he ain't a-going away at all, and the bells be a-ringing for it. Mother have sent me to tell the gamekeeper. She said he'd sure to give me a penny, if I was the first to tell him."

Roy let go the boy. His arms and his mouth alike dropped. "Is that--that there codicil found?" gasped he.

Dan Duff shook his head. "I dun know nothink about codinals," said he. "Mr. Fred Massingbird's dead. He can't keep Mr. Lionel out of his own any longer, and the bells is a-ringing for it."

Unrestrained now, he sped away. Roy was not altogether in a state to stop him. He had turned of a glowing heat, and was asking himself whether the news could be true. Mrs. Roy stepped forward, her tears arrested.

"Law, Roy, whatever shall you do?" spoke she deprecatingly. "I said as you should have kept in with Mr. Lionel. You'll have to eat humble pie, for certain."

The humble pie would taste none the more palatable for his being reminded of it by his wife, and Roy drove her back with a shower of harsh words. He shut the door with a bang, and went out, a forlorn hope lighting him that the news might be false.

But the news, he found, was too true. Frederick Massingbird was really dead, and the true heir had come into his own.

Roy stood in much inward perturbation. The eating of humble pie--as Mrs. Roy had been kind enough to suggest--would not cost much to a man of his cringing nature; but he entertained a shrewd suspicion that no amount of humble pie would avail him with Mr. Verner; that, in short, he should be discarded entirely. While thus standing, the centre of a knot of gossipers, for the news had caused Deerham to collect in groups, the bells ceased as suddenly as they had begun, and Lionel Verner himself was observed coming from the direction of the church. Roy stood out from the rest, and, as a preliminary slice of the humble pie, took off his hat, and stood bare-headed while Lionel passed by.

It did not avail him. On the following day Roy found himself summoned to Verner's Pride. He went up, and was shown to the old business room--the study.

Ah! things were changed now--changed from what they had been; and Roy was feeling it to his heart's core. It was no longer the feeble invalid, Stephen Verner, who sat there, to whom all business was unwelcome, and who shunned as much of it as he could shun, leaving it to Roy; it was no longer the ignorant and easy Mrs. Verner to whom (as she herself had once expressed it) Roy could represent white as black, and black as white: but he who reigned now was essentially master--master of himself and of all who were dependent on him.

Roy felt it the moment he entered; felt it keenly. Lionel stood before a table covered with papers. He appeared to have risen from his chair and to be searching for something. He lifted his head when Roy appeared, quitted the table and stood looking at the man, his figure drawn to its full height. The exceeding nobility of the face and form struck even Roy.

But Lionel greeted him in a quiet, courteous tone; to meet any one, the poorest person on his estate, otherwise than courteously was next to an impossibility for Lionel Verner. "Sit down, Roy," he said. "You are at no loss, I imagine, to guess what my business is with you."

Roy did not accept the offered seat. He stood in discomfiture, saying something to the effect that he'd change his mode of dealing with the men, would do all he could to give satisfaction to his master, Mr. Verner, if the latter would consent to continue him on.

"You must know, yourself, that I am not likely to do it," returned Lionel briefly. "But I do not wish to be harsh, Roy--I trust I never shall be harsh with any one--and if you choose to accept of work on the estate, you can do so."

"You'll not continue me in my post over the brick-yard, sir--over the men generally?"

"No," replied Lionel, "Perhaps the less we go into those past matters the better. I have no objection to speak of them, Roy; but, if I do, you will hear some home truths that may not be palatable. You can have work if you wish for it; and good pay."

"As one of the men, sir?" asked Roy, a shade of grumbling in his tone.

"As one of the superior men!"

Roy hesitated. The blow had fallen; but it was only what he feared. "Might I ask as you'd give me a day to consider it over, sir?" he presently said.

"A dozen days if you choose. The work is always to be had; it will not run away; if you prefer to spend time deliberating upon the point, it is your affair, not mine."

"Thank ye, sir. Then I'll think it over. It'll be hard lines, coming down to be a workman, where I've been, as may be said, a sort of master."

"Roy."

Roy turned back. He had been moving away. "Yes, sir."

"I shall expect you to pay rent for your cottage now, if you remain in it. Mr. Verner, I believe, threw it into your post; made it part of your perquisites. Mrs. Verner has, no doubt, done the same. But that is at an end. I can show no more favour to you than I do to others."

"I'll think it over, sir," concluded Roy, his tone as sullen a one as he dared let appear. And he departed.

Before the week was out, he came again to Verner's Pride, and said he would accept the work, and pay rent for the cottage; but he hoped Mr. Verner would name a fair rent.

"I should not name an unfair one, Roy," was the reply of Lionel. "You will pay the same that others pay, whose dwellings are the same size as yours. Mr Verner's scale of rents is not high, but low, as you know; I shall not alter it."

And so Roy continued on the estate.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter XXXII

"IT'S APPLEPLEXY."

A short period elapsed. One night Jan Verner, upon getting into bed, found he need not have taken the trouble, for the night-bell rang, and Jan had to get up again. He opened his window and called out to know who was there. A boy came round from the surgery door into view, and Jan recognised him for the youngest son of his brother's gamekeeper, a youth of twelve. He said his mother was ill.

"What's the matter with her?" asked Jan.

"Please, sir, she's took bad in the stomach. She's a-groaning awful. Father thinks she'll die."

Jan dressed himself and started off, carrying with him a dose of tincture of opium. When he arrived, however, he found the woman so violently sick and ill, that he suspected it did not arise simply from natural causes. "What has she been eating?" inquired Jan.

"Some late mushrooms out of the fields."

"Ah, that's just it," said Jan. And he knew the woman had been poisoned. He took a leaf from his pocket-book, wrote a rapid word on it, and ordered the boy to carry it to the house, and give it to Mr. Cheese.

"Now, look you, Jack," said he, "if you want your mother to get well, you'll go there and back as fast as your legs can carry you. I can do little till you bring me what I have sent for. Go past the Willow Pool, and straight across to my house."

The boy looked aghast at the injunction. "Past the Willow Pool!" echoed he. "I'd not go past there, sir, at night, for all the world."

"Why not?" questioned Jan.

"I'd see Rachel Frost's ghost, may be," returned Jack, his round eyes open with perplexity.

The conceit of seeing a ghost amused Jan beyond everything. He sat down on a high press that was in the kitchen, and grinned at the boy. "What would the ghost do to you?" cried he.

Jack Broom could not say. All he knew was that neither he, nor a good many more, had gone near that pond at night since the report had arisen (which, of course, it had, simultaneously with the death) that Rachel's ghost was to be seen there.

"Wouldn't you go to save your mother?" cried Jan.

"I'd--I'd not go to be made winner of the leg of mutton atop of a greased pole," responded the boy, in a mortal fright lest Jan should send him.

"You are a nice son, Mr. Jack! A brave young man, truly!"

"Jim Hook, he was a-going by the pond one night, and he see'd it," cried the boy earnestly. "It don't take two minutes longer to cut down Clay Lane, please, sir."

"Be off, then," said Jan, "and see how quick you can be. What has put such a thing into his head?" he presently asked of the gamekeeper, who was hard at work preparing hot water.

"Little fools!" ejaculated the man. "I think the report first took its rise, sir, through Robin Frost's going to the pond of a moonlight night, and walking about on its brink."

"Robert Frost did!" cried Jan. "What did he do that for?"

"What indeed, sir! It did no good, as I told him more than once, when I came upon him there. He has not been lately, I think. Folks get up a talk that Robin went there to meet his sister's spirit, and it put the youngsters into a fright."

Back came Mr. Jack in an incredibly short time. He could not have come much quicker, had he dashed right through the pool. Jan set himself to his work, and did not leave the woman until she was better. That was the best of Jan Verner. He paid every atom as much attention to the poor as he did to the rich. Jan never considered who or what his patients were: all his object was, to get them well.

His nearest way home lay past the pool, and he took it: he did not fear poor Rachel's ghost. It was a sharpish night, bright, somewhat of a frost. As Jan neared the pool, he turned his head towards it and half stopped, gazing on its still waters. He had been away when the catastrophe happened; but the circumstances had been detailed to him. "How it would startle Jack and a few of those timid ones," said he aloud, "if some night--"

"Is that you, sir?"

Some persons, with nerves less serene than Jan's, might have started at the sudden interruption there and then. Not so Jan. He turned round with composure, and saw Bennet, the footman from Verner's Pride. The man had come up hastily from behind the hedge.

"I have been to your house, sir, and they told me you were at the gamekeeper's, so I was hastening there. My mistress is taken ill, sir."

"Is it a fit?" cried Jan, remembering his fears and prognostications, with regard to Mrs. Verner.

"It's worse than that, sir; it's appleplexy. Leastways, sir, my master and Mrs. Tynn's afraid that it is. She looks like dead, sir, and there's froth on her mouth."

Jan waited for no more. He turned short round, and flew by the nearest path to Verner's Pride.

The evil had come. Apoplexy it indeed was, and Jan feared that all his efforts to remedy it would be of no avail.

"It was by the merest chance that I found it out, sir," Mrs. Tynn said to him. "I happened to wake up, and I thought how quiet my mistress was lying; mostly she might be heard ever so far off when she was asleep. I got up, sir, and took the rushlight out of the shade, and looked at her. And then I saw what had happened, and went and called Mr. Lionel."

"Can you restore her, Jan?" whispered Lionel.

Jan made no reply. He had his own private opinion; but, whatever that may have been, he set himself to the task in right earnest.

She never rallied. She lived only until the dawn of morning. Scarcely had the clock told eight, when the death-bell went booming over the village; the bell of that very church which had recently been so merry for the succession of Lionel. And when people came running from far and near to inquire for whom the passing-bell was ringing out, they hushed their voices and their footsteps when informed that it was for Mrs. Verner.

Verily, within the last year, Death had made himself at home at Verner's Pride!

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXXIII. JAN'S REMEDY FOR A COLD

A cold bright day in mid-winter. Luncheon was just over at Deerham Court, and Lady Verner, Decima, and Lucy Tempest had gathered round the fire in the dining-room. Lucy had a cold. She laughed at it; said she was used to colds; but Lady Verner had insisted upon her wrapping herself in a shawl, and not stirring out of the dining-room--which was the warmest room in the house--for the day. So there reclined Lucy in state, in an arm-chair with cushions; half laughing at being made into an invalid, half rebelling at it.

Lady Verner sat opposite to her. She wore a rich black silk dress--the mourning for Mrs. Verner--and a white lace cap of the finest guipure. The white gloves on her hands were without a wrinkle, and her curiously fine handkerchief lay on her lap. Lady Verner could indulge her taste for snowy gloves and for delicate handkerchiefs now, untroubled by the thought of the money they cost. The addition to her income, which she had spurned from Stephen Verner, she accepted willingly from Lionel. Lionel was liberal as a man and as a son. He would have given the half of his fortune to his mother, and not said, "It is a gift." Deerham Court had its carriage and horses now, and Deerham Court had its additional servants. Lady Verner visited and received company, and the look of care had gone from her face, and the querulousness from her tone.

But it was in Lady Verner's nature to make a trouble of things; and if she could not do it in a large way, she must do it in a small. To-day, occurred this cold of Lucy's, and that afforded scope for Lady Verner. She sent for Jan as soon as breakfast was over, in defiance of the laughing protestations of Lucy. But Jan had not made his appearance yet, and Lady Verner waxed wroth.

He was coming in now--now, as the servant was carrying out the luncheon-tray, entering by his usual mode--the back-door, and nearly knocking over the servant and tray in his haste, as his long legs strode to the dining-room. Lady Verner had left off reproaching Jan for using the servants' entrance, finding it waste of breath: Jan would have come down the chimney with the sweeps, had it saved him a minute's time. "Who's ill?" asked he.

Lady Verner answered the question by a sharp reprimand, touching Jan's tardiness.

"I can't be in two places at once," good-humouredly replied Jan. "I have been with one patient since four o'clock this morning, until five minutes ago. Who is it that's ill?"

Lucy explained her ailments, giving Jan her own view of them, that there was nothing the matter with her but a bit of a cold.

"Law!" contemptuously returned Jan. "If I didn't think somebody must be dying! Cheese said they'd been after me about six times!"

"If you don't like to attend Miss Tempest, you can let it alone," said Lady Verner. "I can send elsewhere."

"I'll attend anybody that I'm wanted to attend," said Jan. "Where d'ye feel the symptoms of the cold?" asked he of Lucy. "In the head or chest?"

"I am beginning to feel them a little here," replied Lucy, touching her chest.

"Only beginning to feel them, Miss Lucy?"

"Only beginning, Jan."

"Well, then, you just wring out a long strip of rag in cold water, and put it round your neck, letting the ends rest on the chest," said Jan. "A double piece, from two to three inches broad. It must be covered outside with thin waterproof skin to keep the wet in; you know what I mean; Decima's got some; oil-skin's too thick. And get a lot of toast and water, or lemonade; any liquid you like; and sip a drop of it every minute, letting it go down your throat slowly. You'll soon get rid of your sore chest if you do this; and you'll have no cough."

Lady Verner listened to these directions of Jan's in unqualified amazement. She had been accustomed to the very professional remedies of Dr. West. Decima laughed. "Jan," said she, "I could fancy an old woman prescribing this, but not a doctor."

"It'll cure," returned Jan. "It will prevent the cough coming on; and prevention's better than cure. You try it at once, Miss Lucy; and you'll soon see. You will know then what to do if you catch cold in future."

"Jan," interposed Lady Verner, "I consider the very mention of such remedies beneath the dignity of a medical man."

Jan opened his eyes. "But if they are the best remedies, mother?"

"At any rate, Jan, if this is your fashion of prescribing, you will not fill your pockets," said Decima.

"I don't want to fill my pockets by robbing people," returned plain Jan. "If I know a remedy that costs nothing, why shouldn't I let my patients have the benefit of it, instead of charging them for drugs that won't do half the good?"

"Jan," said Lucy, "if it cost gold I should try it. I have great faith in what you say."

"All right," replied Jan. "But it must be done at once, mind. If you let the cold get ahead first, it will not be so efficacious. And now good-day to you all, for I must be off to my patients. Good-bye, mother."

Away went Jan. And, amidst much laughter from Lucy, the wet "rag," Jan's elegant phrase for it, was put round her neck, and covered up. Lionel came in, and they amused him by reciting Jan's prescription.

"It is this house which has given her the cold," grumbled Lady Verner, who invariably laid faults and misfortunes upon something or somebody. "The servants are for ever opening that side-door, and then there comes a current of air throughout the passage. Lionel, I am not sure but I shall leave Deerham Court."

Lionel leaned against the mantel-piece, a smile upon his face. He had completely recovered his good looks, scared away though they had been for a time by his illness. He was in deep mourning for Mrs. Verner. Decima looked up, surprised at Lady Verner's last sentence.

"Leave Deerham Court, mamma! When you are so much attached to it!"

"I don't dislike it," acknowledged Lady Verner. "But it suited me better when we were living quietly, than it does now. If I could find a larger house with the same conveniences, and in an agreeable situation, I might leave this."

Decima did not reply. She felt sure that her mother was attached to the house, and would never quit it. Her eyes said as much as they encountered Lionel's.

"I wish my mother would leave Deerham Court!" he said aloud.

Lady Verner turned to him. "Why should you wish it, Lionel?"

"I wish you would leave it to come to me, mother. Verner's Pride wants a mistress."

"It will not find one in me," said Lady Verner. "Were you an old man, Lionel, I might then come. Not as it is."

"What difference can my age make?" asked he.

"Every difference," said Lady Verner. "Were you an old man, you might not be thinking of getting married; as it is, you will be. Your wife will reign at Verner's Pride, Lionel."

Lionel made no answer.

"You will be marrying sometime, I suppose?" reiterated Lady Verner, with emphasis.

"I suppose I shall be," replied Lionel; and his eyes, as he spoke, involuntarily strayed to Lucy. She caught the look, and blushed vividly.

"How much of that do you intend to drink, Miss Lucy?" asked Lionel, as she sipped the tumbler of lemonade, at her elbow.

"Ever so many tumblers of it," she answered. "Jan said I was to keep sipping it all day long. The water, going down slowly, heals the chest."

"I believe if Jan told you to drink boiling water, you'd do it, Lucy," cried Lady Verner. "You seem to fall in with all he says."

"Because I like him, Lady Verner. Because I have faith in him; and if Jan prescribes a thing, I know that he has faith in it."

"It is not displaying a refined taste to like Jan," observed Lady Verner, intending the words as a covert reprimand to Lucy.

But Lucy stood up for Jan. Even at the dread of openly disagreeing with Lady Verner, Lucy would not be unjust to one whom she deemed of sterling worth.

"I like Jan very much," said she resolutely, in her championship. "There's nobody I like so well as Jan, Lady Verner."

Lady Verner made a slight movement with her shoulders. It was almost as much as to say that Lucy was growing as hopelessly incorrigible as Jan. Lionel turned to Lucy.

"Nobody you like so well as Jan, did you say?"

Poor Lucy! If the look of Lionel, just before, had brought the hot blush to her cheek, that blush was nothing compared to the glowing crimson which mantled there now. She had not been thinking of one sort of liking when she so spoke of Jan: the words had come forth in the honest simplicity of her heart.

Did Lionel read the signs aright, as her eyes fell before his? Very probably. A smile stole over his lips.

"I do like Jan very much," stammered Lucy, essaying to mend the matter. "I may like him, I suppose? There's no harm in it."

"Oh! no harm, certainly," spoke Lady Verner, with a spice of irony. "I never thought Jan could be a favourite before. Not being fastidiously polished yourself, Lucy--forgive my saying it--you entertain, I conclude, a fellow feeling for Jan."

Lucy--for Jan's sake--would not be beaten.

"Don't you think it is better to be like Jan, Lady Verner, than--than--like Dr. West, for instance?"

"In what way?" returned Lady Verner.

"Jan is so true," debated Lucy, ignoring the question.

"And Dr. West was not, I suppose," retorted Lady Verner. "He wrote false prescriptions, perhaps? Gave false advice?"

Lucy looked a little foolish. "I will tell you the difference, as it seems to me, between Jan and other people," she said. "Jan is like a rough diamond--real within, unpolished without--but a genuine diamond withal. Many others are but the imitation stone--glittering outside, false within."

Lionel was amused.

"Am I one of the false ones, Miss Lucy?"

She took the question literally.

"No; you are true," she answered, shaking her head, and speaking with grave earnestness.

"Lucy, my dear, I would not espouse Jan's cause so warmly, were I you," advised Lady Verner. "It might be misconstrued."

"How so?" simply asked Lucy.

"It might be thought that you--pray excuse the common vulgarity of the suggestion--were in love with Jan."

"In love with Jan!" Lucy paused for a moment after the words, and then burst into a merry fit of laughter. "Oh, Lady Verner! I cannot fancy anybody falling in love with Jan. I don't think he would know what to do."

"I don't think he would," quietly replied Lady Verner.

A peal at the courtyard bell, and the letting down the steps of a carriage. Visitors for Lady Verner. They were shown to the drawing-room, and the servant came in.

"The Countess of Elmsley and Lady Mary, my lady."

Lady Verner rose with alacrity. They were favourite friends of hers--nearly the only close friends she had made in her retirement.

"Lucy, you must not venture into the drawing-room," she stayed to say. "The room is colder than this. Come."

The last "come" was addressed conjointly to her son and daughter. Decima responded to it, and followed; Lionel remained where he was.

"The cold room would not hurt me, but I am glad not to go," began Lucy, subsiding into a more easy tone, a more social manner, than she ventured on in the presence of Lady Verner. "I think morning visiting the greatest waste of time! I wonder who invented it?"

"Somebody who wanted to kill time," answered Lionel.

"It is not as though friends, who really cared for each other, met and talked. The calls are made just for form's sake, and for nothing else, I will never fall into it when I am my own mistress."

"When is that to be?" asked Lionel, smiling.

"Oh! I don't know," she answered, looking up at him in all confiding simplicity. "When papa comes home, I suppose."

Lionel crossed over to where she was sitting.

"Lucy, I thank you for your partisanship of Jan," he said, in a low, earnest tone. "I do not believe anybody living knows his worth."

"Yes; for I do," she replied, her eyes sparkling.

"Only, don't you get to like him too much--as Lady Verner hinted," continued Lionel, his eyes dancing with merriment at his own words.

Lucy's eyelashes fell on her hot cheek. "Please not to be so foolish," she answered, in a pleading tone.

"Or a certain place--that has been mentioned this morning--might have to go without a mistress for good," he whispered.

What made him say it? It is true he spoke in a light, joking tone; but the words were not justifiable, unless he meant to follow them up seriously in future. He did mean to do so when he spoke them.

Decima came in, sent by Lady Verner to demand Lionel's attendance.

"I am coming directly," replied Lionel. And Decima went back again.

"You ought to take Jan to live at Verner's Pride," said Lucy to him, the words unconsciously proving that she had understood Lionel's allusion to it. "If he were my brother, I would not let him be always slaving himself at his profession."

"If he were your brother, Lucy, you would find that Jan would slave just as he does now, in spite of you. Were Jan to come into Verner's Pride to-morrow, through my death, I really believe he would let it, and live on where he does, and doctor the parish to the end of time."

"Will Verner's Pride go to Jan after you?"

"That depends. It would, were I to die as I am now, a single man. But I may have a wife and children some time, Lucy."

"So you may," said Lucy, filling up her tumbler from the jug of lemonade. "Please to go into the drawing-room now, or Lady Verner will be angry. Mary Elmsley's there, you know."

She gave him a saucy glance from her soft bright eyes. Lionel laughed.

"Who made you so wise about Mary Elmsley, young lady?"

"Lady Verner," was Lucy's answer, her voice subsiding into a confidential tone. "She tells us all about it, me and Decima, when we are sitting by the fire of an evening. She is to be the mistress of Verner's Pride."

"Oh, indeed," said Lionel. "She is, is she! Shall I tell you something, Lucy?"

"Well?"

"If that mistress-ship--is there such a word?--ever comes to pass, I shall not be the master of it."

Lucy looked pleased. "That is just what Decima says. She says it to Lady Verner. I wish you would go to them."

"So I will. Good-bye. I shall not come in again. I have a hundred and one things to do this afternoon."

He took her hand and held it. She, ever courteous of manner, simple though she was, rose and stood before him to say her adieu, her eyes raised to his, her pretty face upturned.

Lionel gazed down upon it, and, as he had forgotten himself once before, so he now forgot himself again. He clasped it to him with a sudden movement of affection, and left on it some fervent kisses, whispering tenderly--

"Take care of yourself, my darling Lucy!"

Leaving her to make the best of the business, Mr. Lionel proceeded to the drawing-room. A few minutes' stay in it, and then he pleaded an engagement, and departed.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXXIV. IMPROVEMENTS

Things were changed now out of doors. There was no dissatisfaction, no complaining. Roy was deposed from his petty authority, and all men were at peace, with the exception, possibly, of Mr. Peckaby. Mr. Peckaby did not, find his shop flourish. Indeed, far from flourishing, so completely was it deserted, that he was fain to give up the trade, and accept work at Chuff the blacksmith's forge, to which employment, it appeared, he had been brought up. A few stale articles remained in the shop, and the counters remained; chiefly for show. Mrs. Peckaby made a pretence of attending to customers; but she did not get two in a week. And if those two entered, they could not be served, for she was pretty sure to be out, gossiping.

This state of things did not please Mrs. Peckaby. In one point of view the failing of the trade pleased her, because it left her less work to do; but she did not like the failing of their income. Whether the shop had been actually theirs, or whether it had been Roy's, there was no doubt that they had drawn sufficient from it to live comfortably and to find Mrs. Peckaby in smart caps. This source was gone, and all they had now was an ignominious fourteen shillings a week, which Peckaby earned. The prevalent opinion in Clay Lane was that this was quite as much as Peckaby deserved; and that it was a special piece of undeserved good fortune which had taken off the blacksmith's brother and assistant in the nick of time, Joe Chuff, to make room for him. Mrs. Peckaby, however, was in a state of semi-rebellion; the worse, that she did not know upon whom to visit it, or see any remedy. She took to passing her time in groaning and tears, somewhat after the fashion of Dinah Roy, venting her complaints upon anybody that would listen to her.

Lionel had not said to the men, "You shall leave Peckaby's shop." He had not even hinted to them that it might be desirable to leave it. In short, he had not interfered. But, the restraint of Roy being removed from the men, they quitted it of their own accord. "No more Roy; no more Peckaby; no more grinding down--hurrah!" shouted they, and went back to the old shops in the village.

All sorts of improvements had Lionel begun. That is, he had planned them: begun yet, they were not. Building better tenements for the labourers, repairing and draining the old ones, adding whatever might be wanted to make the dwellings healthy: draining, ditching, hedging. "It shall not be said that while I live in a palace, my poor live in pigsties," said Lionel to Mr. Bitterworth one day. "I'll do what I can to drive that periodical ague from the place."

"Have you counted the cost?" was Mr. Bitterworth's rejoinder.

"No," said Lionel. "I don't intend to count it. Whatever the changes may cost, I shall carry them out."

And Lionel, like other new schemers, was red-hot upon them. He drew out plans in his head and with his pencil; he consulted architects, he spent half his days with builders. Lionel was astonished at the mean, petty acts of past tyranny, exercised by Roy, which came to light, far more than he had had any idea of. He blushed for himself and for his uncle, that such a state of things had been allowed to go on; he wondered that it could have gone on; that he had been blind to so much of it, or that the men had not exercised Lynch law upon Roy.

Roy had taken his place in the brick-yard as workman; but Lionel, in the anger of the moment, when these things came out, felt inclined to spurn him from the land. He would have done it but for his promise to the man himself; and for the pale, sad face of Mrs. Roy. In the hour when his anger was at its height, the woman came up to Verner's Pride, stealthily, as it seemed, and craved him to write to Australia, "now he was a grand gentleman," and ask the "folks over there" if they could send back news of her son. "It's going on of a twelvemonth since he writed to us, sir, and we don't know where to write to him, and I'm a'most fretted into my grave."

"My opinion is that he is coming home," said Lionel.

"Heaven sink the ship first!" she involuntarily muttered, and then she burst into a violent flood of tears.

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Lionel. "Don't you want him to come home?"

"No, sir. No."

"But why? Are you fearing"--he jumped to the most probable solution of her words that he could suggest--"are you fearing that he and Roy would not agree?--that there would be unpleasant scenes between them, as there used to be?"

The woman had her face buried in her hands, and she never lifted it as she answered, in a stifled voice, "It's what I'm a-fearing, sir."

Lionel could not quite understand her. He thought her more weak and silly than usual.

"But he is not coming home," she resumed. "No, sir, I don't believe that England will ever see him again; and it's best as it is, for there's nothing but care and sorrow here, in the old country. But I'd like to know what's become of him; whether he is alive or dead, whether he is starving or in comfort. Oh, sir!" she added, with a burst of wailing anguish, "write for me, and ask news of him! They'd answer you. My heart is aching for it."

He did not explain to her then, how very uncertain was the fate of emigrants to that country, how next to impossible it might be to obtain intelligence of an obscure young man like Luke; he contented himself with giving her what he thought would be better comfort.

"Mrs. Frederick Massingbird will be returning in the course of a few months, and I think she may bring news of him. Should she not, I will see what inquiries can be made."

"Will she be coming soon, sir?"

"In two or three months, I should suppose. The Misses West may be able to tell you more definitely, if they have heard from her."

"Thank ye, sir; then I'll wait till she's home. You'll not tell Roy that I have been up here, sir?"

"Not I," said Lionel. "I was debating, when you came in, whether I should not turn Roy off the estate altogether. His past conduct to the men has been disgraceful."

"Ay, it have, sir! But it was my fate to marry him, and I have had to look on in quiet, and see things done, not daring to say as my soul's my own. It's not my fault, sir."

Lionel knew that it was not. He pitied her, rather than blamed.

"Will you go into the servants' hall and eat something after your walk?" he kindly asked.

"No, sir, many thanks. I don't want to see the servants. They might get telling that I have been here."

She stole out from his presence, her pale, sad face, her evidently deep sorrow, whatever might be its source, making a vivid impression upon Lionel. But for that sad face, he might have dealt more harshly with her husband. And so Roy was tolerated still.

It was upon these various past topics that Lionel's mind was running as he walked away from Deerham Court after that afternoon's interview with Lucy, which he had made so significant. He had pleaded an engagement, as an excuse for quitting his mother's drawing-room and her guests. It must have been at home, we must suppose, for ho took his way straight towards Verner's Pride, sauntering through the village as if he had leisure to look about him, his thoughts deep in his projected improvements.

Here, a piece of stagnant water was to be filled in; there was the site of his new tenements; yonder, was the spot for a library and reading-room; on he walked, throwing his glances everywhere. As he neared the shop of Mrs. Duff, a man came suddenly in view, facing him; a little man, in a suit of rusty black, and a white neckcloth, with a pale face and red whiskers, whom Lionel remembered to have seen once before, a day or two previously. As soon as he caught sight of Lionel he turned short off, crossed the street, and darted out of sight down the Belvidere Road.

"That looks as though he wanted to avoid me," thought Lionel. "I wonder who he may be? Do you know who that man is, Mrs. Duff?" asked he aloud; for that lady was taking the air at her shop-door, and had watched the movement.

"I don't know much about him, sir. He have been stopping in the place this day or two. What did I hear his name was, again?" added Mrs. Duff, putting her fingers to her temples in a considering fit. "Jarrum, I think. Yes, that was it. Brother Jarrum, sir."

"Brother Jarrum?" repeated Lionel, uncertain whether the "Brother" might be spoken in a social point of view, or was a name bestowed upon the gentleman in baptism.

"He's a missionary from abroad, or something of that sort, sir. He is come to see what he can do towards converting us."

"Oh, indeed," said Lionel, his lip curling with a smile. The man's face had not taken his fancy. "Honest missionaries do not need to run away to avoid meeting people, Mrs. Duff."

"He have got cross eyes," responded Mrs. Duff. "Perhaps that's a reason he mayn't like to look gentlefolks in the face, sir."

"Where does he come from?"

"Well, now, sir, I did hear," replied Mrs. Duff, putting on her considering cap again, "it were some religious place, sir, that's talked of a good deal in the Bible. Jericho, were it? No. It began with a J, though. Oh, I have got it, sir! It were Jerusalem. He conies all the way from Jerusalem."

"Where is he lodging?" continued Lionel.

"He have been lodging at the George and Dragon, sir. But to-day he have gone and took that spare bedroom as the Peckabys have wanted to let, since their custom fell off."

"He means to make a stay, then?"

"It looks like it, sir. Susan Peckaby, she were in here half an hour ago, a-buying new ribbons for a cap, all agog with it. He's a-going to hold forth in their shop, she says, and see how many of the parish he can turn into saints. I say it won't be a bad 'turn,' if it keeps the men from the beer-houses."

Lionel laughed as he went on. He supposed it was a new movement that would have its brief day and then be over, leaving results neither good nor bad behind it; and he dismissed the man from his memory.

He walked on, in the elasticity of his youth and health. All nature seemed to be smiling around him. Outward things take their hue very much from the inward feelings, and Lionel felt happier than he had done for months and months. Had the image of Lucy Tempest anything to do with this? No--nothing. He had not yet grown to love Lucy in that idolising manner, as to bring her ever present to him. He was thinking of the change in his own fortunes; he cast his eyes around to the right and the left, and they rested on his own domains--domains which had for a time been wrested from him; and as his quick steps rung on the frosty road, his heart went up in thankfulness to the Giver of all good.

Just before he reached Verner's Pride, he overtook Mr. Bitterworth, who was leaning against a roadside gate. He had been attacked by sudden giddiness, he said, and asked Lionel to give him an arm home. Lionel proposed that he should come in and remain for a short while at Verner's Pride; but Mr. Bitterworth preferred to go home.

"It is one of my bilious attacks coming on," he remarked, as he went along. "I have not had a bad one for this four months."

Lionel took him safe home, and remained with him for some time, talking; the chief theme being his own contemplated improvements, and how to go to work upon them; a topic which seemed to bring no satiety to Lionel Verner.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXXV. BACK AGAIN

It was late when Lionel reached Verner's Pride. Night had set in, and his dinner was waiting.

He ate it hurriedly--he mostly did eat hurriedly when he was alone, as if he were glad to get it over--Tynn waiting on him. Tynn liked to wait upon his young master. Tynn had been in a state of glowing delight since the accession of Lionel. Attached to the old family, Tynn had felt it almost as keenly as Lionel himself, when the estate had lapsed to the Massingbirds. Mrs. Tynn was in a glow of delight also. There was no mistress, and she ruled the household, including Tynn.

The dinner gone away and the wine on the table, Lionel drew his chair in front of the fire, and fell into a train of thought, leaving the wine untouched. Full half an hour had he thus sat, when the entrance of Tynn aroused him. He poured out a glass, and raised it to his lips. Tynn bore a note on his silver waiter.

"Matiss's boy has just brought it. He is waiting to know whether there's any answer."

Lionel opened the note, and was reading it, when a sound of carriage wheels came rattling on to the terrace, passed the windows, and stopped at the hall door. "Who can be paying me a visit to-night, I wonder?" cried he. "Go and see, Tynn."

"It sounded like one of them rattling one-horse flies from the railway station," was Tynn's comment to his master, as he left the room.

Whoever it might be, they appeared pretty long in entering, and Lionel, very greatly to his surprise, heard a sound as of much luggage being deposited in the hall. He was on the point of going out to see, when the door opened, and a lovely vision glided forward--a young, fair face and form, clothed in deep mourning, with a shower of golden curls shading her damask cheeks. For one single moment, Lionel was lost in the beauty of the vision. Then he recognised her, before Tynn's announcement was heard; and his heart leaped as if it would burst its bounds--

"Mrs. Massingbird, sir."

--leaped within him fast and furiously. His pulses throbbed, his blood coursed on, and his face went hot and cold with emotion. Had he been fondly persuading himself, during the past months, that she was forgotten? Truly the present moment rudely undeceived him.

Tynn shut the door, leaving them alone. Lionel was not so agitated as to forget the courtesies of life. He shook hands with her, and, in the impulse of the moment, called her Sibylla; and then bit his tongue for doing it.

She burst into tears. There, as he held her hand. She lifted her lovely face to him with a yearning, pleading look. "Oh, Lionel!--you will give me a home, won't you?"

What was he to say? He could not, in that first instant, abruptly say to her--No, you cannot have a home here. Lionel could not hurt the feelings of any one. "Sit down, Mrs. Massingbird," he gently said, drawing an easy-chair to the fire. "You have taken me quite by surprise. When did you land?"

She threw off her bonnet, shook back those golden curls, and sat down in the chair, a large heavy shawl on her shoulders. "I will not take it off yet," she said in a plaintive voice. "I am very cold."

She shivered slightly. Lionel drew her chair yet nearer the fire, and brought a footstool for her feet, repeating his question as he did so.

"We reached Liverpool late yesterday, and I started for home this morning," she answered, her eyelashes wet still, as she gazed into the fire. "What a miserable journey it has been!" she added, turning to Lionel. "A miserable voyage out; a miserable ending!"

"Are you aware of the changes that have taken place since you left?" he asked. "Your aunt is dead."

"Yes, I know it," she answered. "They told me at the station just now. That lame porter came up and knew me; and his first news to me was that Mrs. Verner was dead. What a greeting! I was coming home here to live with her."

"You could not have received my letter. One which I wrote at the request of Mrs. Verner in answer to yours."

"What news was in it?" she asked. "I received no letter from you."

"It contained remittances. It was sent, I say, in answer to yours, in which you requested money should be forwarded for your home passage. You did not wait for it?"

"I was tired of waiting. I was sick for home. And one day, when I had been crying more than usual, Mrs. Eyre said to me that if I were so anxious to go, there need be no difficulty about the passage-money, that they would advance me any amount I might require. Oh, I was so glad! I came away by the next ship."

"Why did you not write saying that you were coming?"

"I did not think it mattered--and I knew I had this home to come to. If I had had to go to my old home again at papa's, then I should have written. I should have seemed like an intruder arriving at their house, and have deemed it necessary to warn them of it."

"You heard in Australia of Mr. Verner's death, I presume?"

"I heard of that, and that my husband had inherited Verner's Pride. The news came out just before I sailed for home. Of course I thought I had a right to come to this home, though he was dead. I suppose it is yours now?"

"Yes."

"Who lives here?"

"Only myself."

"Have I a right to live here--as Frederick's widow?" she continued, lifting her large blue eyes anxiously at Lionel. "I mean would the law give it me?"

"No," he replied, in a low tone. He felt that the truth must be told to her without disguise. She was placing both him and herself in an embarrassing situation.

"Was there any money left to me?--or to Frederick?"

"None to you. Verner's Pride was left to your husband; but at his demise it came to me."

"Did my aunt leave me nothing?"

"She had nothing to leave, Mrs. Massingbird. The settlement which Mr. Verner executed on her, when they married, was only for her life. It lapsed back to the Verner's Pride revenues when she died."

"Then I am left without a shilling, to the mercy of the world!"

Lionel felt for her--felt for her rather more than was safe. He began planning in his own mind how he could secure to her an income from the Verner's Pride estate, without her knowing whence it came. Frederick Massingbird had been its inheritor for a short three or four months, and Lionel's sense of justice revolted against his widow being thrown on the world, as she expressed it, without a shilling.

"The revenues of the estate during the short time that elapsed between Mr. Verner's death and your husband's are undoubtedly yours, Mrs. Massingbird," he said. "I will see Matiss about it, and they shall be paid over."

"How long will it be first?"

"A few days, possibly. In a note which I received but now from Matiss, he tells me he is starting for London, but will be home the beginning of the week. It shall be arranged on his return."

"Thank you. And, until then, I may stay here?"

Lionel was at a nonplus. It is not a pleasing thing to tell a lady that she must quit your house, in which, like a stray lamb, she has taken refuge. Even though it be, for her own fair sake, expedient that she should go.

"I am here alone," said Lionel, after a pause. "Your temporary home had better be with your sisters."

"No, that it never shall," returned Sibylla, in a hasty tone of fear. "I will never go home to them, now papa's away. Why did he leave Deerham? They told me at the station that he was gone, and Jan was doctor."

"Dr. West is travelling on the Continent, as medical attendant and companion to a nobleman. At least--I think I heard it was a nobleman," continued Lionel. "I am really not sure."

"And you would like me to go home to those two cross, fault-finding sisters!" she resumed. "They might reproach me all day long with coming home to be kept. As if it were my fault that I am left without anything. Oh, Lionel! don't turn me out! Let me stay until I can see what is to be done for myself. I shall not hurt you. It would have been all mine had Frederick lived."

He did not know what to do. Every moment there seemed to grow less chance that she would leave the house. A bright thought darted into his mind. It was, that he would get his mother or Decima to come and stay with him for a time.

"What would you like to take?" he inquired. "Mrs. Tynn will get you anything you wish. I----"

"Nothing yet," she interrupted. "I could not eat; I am too unhappy. I will take some tea presently, but not until I am warmer. I am very cold."

She cowered over the fire again, shivering much. Lionel, saying he had a note to write, sat down to a distant table. He penned a few hasty lines to his mother, telling her that Mrs. Massingbird had arrived, under the impression that she was coming to Mrs. Verner, and that he could not well turn her out again that night, fatigued and poorly as she appeared to him to be. He begged his mother to come to him for a day or two, in the emergency, or to send Decima.

An undercurrent of conviction ran in Lionel's mind during the time of writing it that his mother would not come; he doubted even whether she would allow Decima to come. He drove the thought away from him; but the impression remained. Carrying the note out of the room when written, he despatched it to Deerham Court by a mounted groom. As he was returning to the dining-room he encountered Mrs. Tynn.

"I hear Mrs. Massingbird has arrived, sir," cried she.

"Yes," replied Lionel. "She will like some tea presently. She appears very much fatigued."

"Is the luggage to be taken upstairs, sir?" she continued, pointing to the pile in the hall. "Is she going to stay here?"

Lionel really did not know what answer to make.

"She came expecting to stay," he said, after a pause. "She did not know but your mistress was still here. Should she remain, I dare say Lady Verner, or my sister, will join her. You have beds ready?"

"Plenty of them, sir, at five minutes' notice."

When Lionel entered the room, Sibylla was in the same attitude, shivering over the fire. Unnaturally cold she appeared to be, and yet her cheeks were brilliantly bright, as if with a touch of fever.

"I fear you have caught cold on the journey to-day," he said.

"I don't think so," she answered. "I am cold from nervousness. I went cold at the station when they told me that my aunt was dead, and I have been shivering ever since. Never mind me; it will go off presently."

Lionel drew a chair to the other side of the fire, compassionately regarding her. He could have found in his heart to take her in his arms, and warm her there.

"What was that about a codicil?" she suddenly asked him. "When my aunt wrote to me upon Mr. Verner's death, she said that a codicil had been lost: or that, otherwise, the estate would have been yours."

Lionel explained it to her, concealing nothing.

"Then--if that codicil had been forthcoming, Frederick's share would have been but five hundred pounds?"

"That is all."

"It was very little to leave him," she musingly rejoined.

"And still less to leave me, considering my nearer relationship--my nearer claims. When the codicil could not be found, the will had to be acted upon: and five hundred pounds was all the sum it gave me."

"Has the codicil never been found?"

"Never."

"How very strange! What became of it, do you think?"

"I wish I could think what," replied Lionel. "Although Verner's Pride has come to me without it, it would be satisfactory to solve the mystery."

Sibylla looked round cautiously, and sunk her voice. "Could Tynn or his wife have done anything with it? You say they were present when it was signed."

"Most decidedly they did not. Both of them were anxious that I should succeed."

"It is so strange! To lock a paper up in a desk, and for it to disappear of its own accord! The moths could not have got in and eaten it?"

"Scarcely," smiled Lionel. "The day before your aunt died, she----"

"Don't talk of that," interrupted Mrs. Massingbird. "I will hear about her death to-morrow. I shall be ill if I cry much to-night."

She sank into silence, and Lionel did not interrupt it. It continued, until his quick ears caught the sound of the groom's return. The man rode his horse round to the stables at once. Presently Tynn came in with a note. It was from Lady Verner. A few lines, written hastily with a pencil:--

"I do not understand your request, Lionel, or why you make it. Whatever may be my opinion of Frederick Massingbird's widow, I will not insult her sense of propriety by supposing that she would attempt to remain at Verner's Pride now her aunt is dead. It is absurd of you to ask me to come; neither shall I send Decima. Were I and Decima residing with you, it would not be the place for Sibylla Massingbird. She has her own home to go to."

There was no signature. Lionel knew his mother's handwriting too well to require the addition. It was just the note that he might have expected her to write.

What was he to do? In the midst of his ruminations, Sibylla rose.

"I am warm now," she said. "I should like to go upstairs and take this heavy shawl off."

Lionel rang the bell for Mrs. Tynn. And Sibylla left the room with her.

"I'll get her sisters here!" he suddenly exclaimed, the thought of them darting into his mind. "They will be the proper persons to explain to her the inexpediency of her remaining here. Poor girl! she is unable to think of it in her fatigue and grief."

He did not give it a second thought, but snatched his hat, and went down himself to Dr. West's with strides as long as Jan's. Entering the general sitting-room without ceremony, his eyes fell upon a supper-table and Master Cheese; the latter regaling himself upon apple-puffs to his heart's content.

"Where are the Misses West?" asked Lionel.

"Gone to a party," responded the young gentleman, as soon as he could get his mouth sufficiently empty to speak.

"Where to?"

"To Heartburg, sir. It's a ball at old Thingumtight's, the doctor's. They are gone off in gray gauze, with, branches of white flowers hanging to their curls, and they call that mourning. The fly is to bring them back at two in the morning. They left these apple-puffs for me and Jan. Jan said he should not want any; he'd eat meat; so I have got his share and mine!"

And Master Cheese appeared to be enjoying the shares excessively. Lionel left him to it, and went thoughtfully back to Verner's Pride.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXXVI. A MOMENT OF DELIRIUM

The dining-room looked a picture of comfort, and Lionel thought so as he entered. A blaze of light and warmth burst upon him. A well-spread tea-table was there, with cold meat, game and else, at one end of it. Standing before the fire, her young, slender form habited in its black robes, was Sibylla. No one, looking at her, would have believed her to be a widow; partly from her youth, partly that she did not wear the widow's dress. Her head was uncovered, and her fair curls fell, shading her brilliant cheeks. It has been mentioned that her chief beauty lay in her complexion: seen by candle-light, flushed as she was now, she was inexpressibly beautiful. A dangerous hour, a perilous situation for the yet unhealed heart of Lionel Verner.

The bright flush was the result of excitement, of some degree of inward fever. Let us allow that it was a trying time for her. She had arrived to find Mrs. Verner dead, her father absent; she had arrived to find that no provision had been made for her by Mr. Verner's will, as the widow of Frederick Massingbird. Frederick's having succeeded to the inheritance debarred her even of the five hundred pounds. It is true there would be the rents, received for the short time it had been his. There was no doubt that Sibylla, throughout the long voyage, had cherished the prospect of finding a home at Verner's Pride. If her husband had lived, it would have been wholly hers; she appeared still to possess a right in it; and she never gave a thought to the possibility that her aunt would not welcome her to it. Whether she cast a reflection to Lionel Verner in the matter, she best knew: had she reflected properly, she might have surmised that Lionel would be living at it, its master. But, the voyage ended, the home gained, what did she find? That Mrs. Verner was no longer at Verner's Pride, to press the kiss of welcome upon her lips; a few feet of earth was all her home now.

It was a terrible disappointment. There could be no doubt of that. And another disappointment was, to find Dr. West away. Sibylla's sisters had been at times over-strict with her, much as they loved her, and the vision of returning to her old home, to them, was one of bitterness. So bitter, in fact, that she would not glance at its possibility.

Fatigued, low-spirited, feverishly perplexed, Sibylla did not know what she could do. She was not in a state that night to give much care to the future. All she hoped was, to stay in that haven until something else could be arranged for her. Let us give her her due. Somewhat careless, naturally, of the punctilios of life, it never occurred to her that it might not be the precise thing for her to remain, young as she was, the sole guest of Lionel Verner. Her voyage out, her residence in that very unconventional place, Melbourne, the waves and storms which had gone over her there in more ways than one, the voyage back again alone, all had tended to give Sibylla Massingbird an independence of thought; a contempt for the rules and regulations, the little points of etiquette obtaining in civilised society. She really thought no more harm of staying at Verner's Pride with Lionel, than she would have thought it had old Mr. Verner been its master. The eyelashes, resting on her hot cheeks, were wet, as she turned round when Lionel entered.

"Have you taken anything, Mrs. Massingbird?"

"No."

"But you should have done so," he remonstrated, his tone one of the most considerate kindness.

"I did not observe that tea waited," she replied, the covered table catching her eye for the first time. "I have been thinking."

He placed a chair for her before the tea-tray, and she sat down. "Am I to preside?" she asked.

"If you will. If you are not too tired."

"Who makes tea for you in general?" she continued.

"They send it in, made."

Sibylla busied herself with the tea, in a languid sort of manner. In vain Lionel pressed her to eat. She could touch nothing. She took a piece of rolled bread-and-butter, but left it.

"You must have dined on the road, Mrs. Massingbird?" he said, with a smile.

"I? I have not taken anything all day. I kept thinking 'I shall get to Verner's Pride in time for my aunt's dinner.' But the train arrived later than I anticipated; and when I got here she was gone."

Sibylla bent her head, as if playing with her teaspoon. Lionel detected the dropping tears.

"Did you wonder where I was going just now, when I went out?"

"I did not know you had been out," replied Sibylla.

"I went to your sisters'. I thought it would be better for them to come here. Unfortunately, I found them gone out; and young Cheese says they will not be home until two in the morning."

"Why, where can they be gone?" cried Sibylla, aroused to interest. It was so unusual for the Misses West to be out late.

"To some gathering at Heartburg. Cheese was eating apple-puffs with unlimited satisfaction."

The connection of apple-puffs with Master Cheese called up a faint smile into Sibylla's face. She pushed her chair away from the table, turning it towards the fire.

"But you surely have not finished, Mrs. Massingbird?"

"Yes, thank you. I have drunk my tea. I cannot eat anything."

Lionel rang, and the things were removed. Sibylla was standing before the mantel-piece when they were left alone, unconsciously looking at herself in the glass. Lionel stood near her.

"I have not got a widow's cap," she exclaimed, turning to him, the thought appearing suddenly to strike her. "I had two or three curious things made, that they called widows' caps in Melbourne, but they were spoiled on the voyage."

"You have seen some trouble since you went out," Lionel observed.

"Yes, I have. It was an ill-starred voyage. It has been ill-starred from the beginning to the end; all of it together."

"The voyage has, you mean?"

"I mean more than the voyage," she replied. But her tone did not invite further question.

"Did you succeed in getting particulars of the fate of John?"

"No. Captain Cannonby promised to make inquiries, but we had not heard from him before I came away. I wish we could have found Luke Roy."

"Did you not find him?"

"We heard of him from the Eyres--the friends I was staying with. It was so singular," she continued, with some animation in her tone. "Luke Roy came to Melbourne after John was killed, and fell in with the Eyres. He told them about John, little thinking that I and Frederick should meet the Eyres afterwards. John died from a shot."

"From a shot!" involuntarily exclaimed Lionel.

"He and Luke were coming down to Melbourne from--where was it?--the Bendigo Diggings, I think; but I heard so much of the different names, that I am apt to confound one with another. John had a great deal of gold on him, in a belt round his waist, and Luke supposes that it got known. John was attacked as they were sleeping by night in the open air, beaten, and shot. It was the shot that killed him."

"Poor fellow!" exclaimed Lionel, his eyes fixed on vacancy, mentally beholding John Massingbird. "And they robbed him!"

"They had robbed him of all. Not a particle of gold was left upon him. And the report sent home by Luke, that the gold and men were taken, proved to be a mistaken one. Luke came on afterwards to Melbourne, and tried to discover the men; but he could not. It was this striving at discovery which brought him in contact with Mr. Eyre. After we reached Melbourne and I became acquainted with the Eyres, they did all they could to find out Luke, but they were unsuccessful."

"What had become of him?"

"They could not think. The last time Mr. Eyre saw him, Luke said he thought he had obtained a clue to the men who killed John. He promised to go back the following day and tell Mr. Eyre more about it. But he did not. And they never saw him afterwards. Mrs. Eyre used to say to me that she sincerely trusted no harm had come to Luke."

"Harm in what way?" asked Lionel.

"She thought--but she would say that it was a foolish thought--if Luke should have found the men, and been imprudent enough to allow them to know that he recognised them, they might have worked him some ill. Perhaps killed him."

Sibylla spoke the last words in a low tone. She was standing very still; her hands lightly resting before her, one upon another. How Lionel's heart was beating as he gazed on her, he alone knew. She was once again the Sibylla of past days. He forgot that she was the widow of another; that she had left him for that other of her own free will. All his past resentment faded in that moment: nothing was present to him but his love; and Sibylla with her fascinating beauty.

"You are thinner than when you left home," he remarked.

"I grew thin with vexation; with grief. He ought not to have taken me."

The concluding sentence was spoken in a strangely resentful tone. It surprised Lionel. "Who ought not to have taken you?--taken you where?" he asked, really not understanding her.

"He. Frederick Massingbird. He might have known what a place that Melbourne was. It was not fit for a lady. We had lodgings in a wooden house, near a spot that had used to be called Canvas Town. The place was crowded with people."

"But surely there are decent hotels at Melbourne?"

"All I know is he did not take me to one. He inquired at one or two, but they were full; and then somebody recommended him to get a lodging. It was not right. He might have gone to it himself, but he had me with him. He lost his desk, you know."

"I heard that he did," replied Lionel.

"And I suppose that frightened him. Everything was in the desk--money and letters of credit. He had a few bank-notes, only, left in his pocket-book. It never was recovered. I owe my passage-money home, and I believe Captain Cannonby supplied him with some funds--which of course ought to be repaid. He took to drinking brandy," she continued.

"I am much surprised to hear it."

"Some fever came on. I don't know whether he caught it, or whether it came to him naturally. It was a sort of intermittent fever. At times he was very low with it, and then it was that he would drink the brandy. Only fancy what my position was!" she added, her face and voice alike full of pain. "He, not always himself; and I, out there in that wretched place, alone. I went down on my knees to him one day, and begged him to send me back to England."

"Sibylla!"

He was unconscious that he called her by the familiar name. He was wishing he could have shielded her from all this. Painful as the retrospect might be to her, the recital was far more painful to him.

"After that, we met Captain Cannonby. I did not much like him, but he was kind to us. He got us to change to an hotel--made them find room for us--and then introduced me to the Eyres. Afterwards, he and Fred started from Melbourne, and I went to stay at the Eyres."

Lionel did not interrupt her. She had made a pause, her eyes fixed on the fire.

"A day or two, and Captain Cannonby came back, and said that my husband was dead. I was not very much surprised. I thought he would not live when he left me: he had death written in his face. And so I am alone in the world."

She raised her large blue eyes, swimming in tears, to Lionel. It completely disarmed him. He forgot all his prudence, all his caution; he forgot things that it was incumbent upon him to remember; and, as many another has done before him, older and wiser than Lionel Verner, he suffered a moment's impassioned impulse to fix the destiny of a life.

"Not alone from henceforth, Sibylla," he murmured, bending towards her in agitation, his lips apart, his breath coming fast and loud, his cheeks scarlet. "Let me be your protector. I love you more fondly than I have ever done."

She was entirely unprepared for the avowal. It may be that she did not know what to make of it--how to understand it. She stepped back, her eyes strained on him inquiringly, her face turning to pallor. Lionel threw his arms around her, drew her to him, and sheltered her on his breast, as if he would ward off ill from her for ever.

"Be my wife," he fondly cried, his voice trembling with its own tenderness. "My darling, let this home be yours! Nothing shall part us more."

She burst into tears, raised herself, and looked at him. "You cannot mean it! After behaving to you as I did, can you love me still?"

"I love you far better than ever," he answered, his voice becoming hoarse with emotion. "I have been striving to forget you ever since that cruel time; and not until to-night did I know how utterly futile has been the strife. You will let me love you! you will help me to blot out its remembrance!"

She drew a long, deep sigh, like one who is relieved from some wearing pain, and laid her head down again as he had placed it. "I can love you better than I loved him," she breathed, in a low whisper.

"Sibylla, why did you leave me? Why did you marry him?"

"Oh, Lionel, don't reproach me!--don't reproach me!" she answered, bursting into tears. "Papa made me. He did, indeed."

"He made you! Dr. West?"

"I liked Frederick a little. Yes, I did; I will not deny it. And oh, how he loved me! All the while, Lionel, that you hovered near me--never speaking, never saying that you loved--he told me of it incessantly."

"Stay, Sibylla. You could not have mistaken me."

"True. Yours was silent love; his was urgent. When it came to the decision, and he asked me to marry him, and to go out to Australia, then papa interfered. He suspected that I cared for you--that you cared for me; and he--he--"

Sibylla stopped and hesitated.

"Must I tell you all?" she asked. "Will you never, never repeat it to papa, or reproach him? Will you let it remain a secret between us?"

"I will, Sibylla. I will never speak upon the point to Dr. West."

"Papa said that I must choose Frederick Massingbird. He told me that Verner's Pride was left to Frederick, and he ordered me to marry him. He did not say how he knew, it--how he heard it; he only said that it was so. He affirmed that you were cut off with nothing, or next to nothing; that you would not be able to take a wife for years--perhaps never. And I weakly yielded."

A strangely stern expression had darkened Lionel's face. Sibylla saw it, and wrung her hands.

"Oh, don't blame me!--don't blame me more than you can help! I know how weak, how wrong it was; but you cannot tell how entirely obedient we have always been to papa."

"Dr. West became accidentally acquainted with the fact that the property was left away from me," returned Lionel, in a tone of scorn he could not entirely suppress. "He made good use, it seems, of his knowledge."

"Do not blame me!" she reiterated. "It was not my fault."

"I do not blame you, my dearest."

"I have been rightly served," she said, the tears streaming down. "I married him, pressed to it by my father, that I might share in Verner's Pride; and, before the news came out that Verner's Pride was ours, he was dead. It had lapsed to you, whom I rejected! Lionel, I never supposed that you would cast another thought to me; but, many a time have I felt that I should like to kneel and ask your forgiveness."

He bent his head, fondly kissing her. "We will forget it together, Sibylla."

A sudden thought appeared to strike her, called forth, no doubt, by this new state of things, and her face turned crimson as she looked at Lionel.

"Ought I to remain here now?"

"You cannot well do anything else, as it is so late," he answered. "Allow Verner's Pride to afford you an asylum for the present, until you can make arrangements to remove to some temporary home. Mrs. Tynn will make you comfortable. I shall be, during the time, my mother's guest."

"What is the time now?" asked Sibylla.

"Nearly ten; and I dare say you are tired. I will not be selfish enough to keep you up," he added, preparing to depart. "Good-night, my dearest."

She burst into fresh tears, and clung to his hand. "I shall be thinking it must be a dream as soon as you leave me. You will be sure to come back and see me to-morrow?"

"Come back--ay!" he said, with a smile; "Verner's Pride never contained the magnet for me that it contains now."

He gave a few brief orders to Mrs. Tynn and to his own servant, and quitted the house. Neither afraid of ghosts nor thieves, he took the field way, the road which led by the Willow Pond. It was a fine, cold night, his mind was unsettled, his blood was heated, and the lonely route appeared to him preferable to the one through the village.

As he passed the Willow Pond with a quick step, he caught a glimpse of some figure bending over it, as if it were looking for something in the water, or else about to take a leap in. Remembering the fate of Rachel, and not wishing to have a second catastrophe of the same nature happen on his estate, Lionel strode towards the figure and caught it by the arm. The head was flung upwards at the touch, and Lionel recognised Robin Frost.

"Robin! what do you do here?" he questioned, his tone somewhat severe in spite of its kindness.

"No harm," answered the man. "There be times, Mr. Lionel, when I am forced to come. If I am in my bed, and the thought comes over me that I may see her if I only stay long enough upon the brink of this here water, which was her ending, I'm obliged to get up and come here. There be nights, sir, when I have stood here from sunset to sunrise."

"But you never have seen her, Robin?" returned Lionel, humouring his grief.

"No; never. But it's no reason why I never may. Folks say there be some of the dead that comes again, sir--not all."

"And if you did see her, what end would it answer?"

"She'd tell me who the wicked one was that put her into it," returned Robin, in a low whisper; and there was something so wild in the man's tone as to make Lionel doubt his perfect sanity. "Many a time do I hear her voice a-calling to me. It comes at all hours, abroad and at home; in the full sunshine, and in the dark night. 'Robin!' it says, 'Robin!' But it never says nothing more."

Lionel laid his hand on the man's shoulder, and drew him with him. "I am going your way, Robin; let us walk together."

Robin made no resistance; he went along with his head down.

"I heard a word said to-night, sir, as Miss Sibylla had come back," he resumed, more calmly; "Mrs. Massingbird, that is. Somebody said they saw her at the station. Have you seen her, sir?"

"Yes; I have," replied Lionel.

"Does she say anything about John Massingbird?" continued the man, with feverish eagerness. "Is he dead? or is he alive?"

"He is dead, Robin. There has never been a doubt upon the point since the news first came. He died by violence."

"Then he got his deserts," returned Robin, lifting his hand in the air, as he had done once before when speaking upon the same subject. "And Luke Roy, sir? Is he coming? I'm a-waiting for him."

"Of Luke, Mrs. Massingbird knows nothing. For myself, I think he is sure to come home, sooner or later."

"Heaven send him!" aspirated Robin.

Lionel saw the man turn to his home, and very soon afterwards he was at his mother's. Lady Verner had retired for the night. Decima and Lucy were about retiring. They had risen from their seats, and Decima--who was too cautious to trust it to servants--was taking the fire off the grate. They looked inexpressibly surprised at the entrance of Lionel.

"I have come an a visit, Decima," began he, speaking in a gay tone. "Can you take me in?"

She did not understand him, and Lionel saw by the questioning expression of her face that Lady Verner had not made public the contents of his note to her; he saw that they were ignorant of the return of Sibylla. The fact that they were so seemed to rush over his spirit as a refreshing dew. Why it should do so, he did not seek to analyse; and he was all too self-conscious that he dared not.

"A friend has come unexpectedly on a visit, and taken possession of Verner's Pride," he pursued. "I have lent it for a time."

"Lent it all?" exclaimed the wondering Decima.

"Lent it all. You will make room for me, won't you?"

"To be sure," said Decima, puzzled more than she could express. "But was there no room left for you?"

"No," answered Lionel.

"What very unconscionable people they must be, to invade you in such numbers as that! You can have your old chamber, Lionel. But I will just go and speak to Catherine."

She hastened from the room. Lionel stood before the fire, positively turning his back upon Lucy Tempest. Was his conscience already smiting him? Lucy, who had stood by the table, her bed candle in her hand, stepped forward and held out the other hand to Lionel.

"May I wish you good-night?" she said.

"Good-night," he answered, shaking her hand. "How is your cold?"

"Oh! it is so much better!" she replied, with animation. "All the threatened soreness of the chest is gone. I shall be well by to-morrow. Lady Verner said I ought to have gone to bed early, but I felt too well. I knew Jan's advice would be good."

She left him, and Lionel leaned his elbow on the mantel-piece, his brow contracting as does that of one in unpleasant thought. Was he recalling the mode in which he had taken leave of Lucy earlier in the day?

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXXVII. NEWS FOR LADY VERNER: AND FOR LUCY

If he did not recall it then, he recalled it later, when he was upon his bed, turning and tossing from side to side. His conscience was smiting him--smiting him from more points than one. Carried away by the impulse of the moment, he had spoken words that night, in his hot passion, which might not be redeemed; and now that the leisure for reflection was come, he could not conceal from himself that he had been too hasty. Lionel Verner was one who possessed excessive conscientiousness; even as a boy, had impetuosity led him into a fault--as it often did--his silent, inward repentance would be always keenly real, more so than the case deserved. It was so now. He loved Sibylla--there had been no mistake there; but it is certain that the unexpected delight of meeting her, her presence palpably before him in all its beauty, her manifested sorrow and grief, her lonely, unprotected position, had all worked their effect upon his heart and mind, had imparted to his love a false intensity. However the agitation of the moment may have caused him to fancy it, he did not love Sibylla as he had loved her of old; else why should the image of Lucy Tempest present itself to him surrounded by a halo of regret? The point is as unpleasant for us to touch upon, as it was to Lionel to think of: but the fact was all too palpable, and cannot be suppressed. He did love Sibylla: nevertheless there obtruded the unwelcome reflection that, in asking her to be his wife, he had been hasty; that it had been better had he taken time for consideration. He almost doubted whether Lucy would not have been more acceptable to him; not loved yet so much as Sibylla, but better suited to him in all other ways; worse than this, he doubted whether he had not in honour bound himself tacitly to Lucy that very day.

The fit of repentance was upon him, and he tossed and turned from side to side upon his uneasy bed. But, toss and turn as he would, he could not undo his night's work. There remained nothing for him but to carry it out, and make the best of it; and he strove to deceive his conscience with the hope that Lucy Tempest, in her girlish innocence, had not understood his hinted allusions to her becoming his wife; that she had looked upon his snatched caresses as but trifling pastime, such as he might offer to a child. Most unjustifiable he now felt those hints, those acts to have been, and his brow grew red with shame at their recollection. One thing he did hope, hope sincerely--that Lucy did not care for him. That she liked him very much, and had been on most confidential terms with him, he knew; but he did hope her liking went no deeper. Strange sophistry! how it will deceive the human heart! how prone we are to admit it! Lionel was honest enough in his hope now: but, not many hours before, he had been hugging his heart with the delusion that Lucy did love him.

Towards morning he dropped into an uneasy sleep. He awoke later than his usual hour from a dream of Frederick Massingbird. Dreams play us strange fantasies. Lionel's had taken him to that past evening, prior to Frederick Massingbird's marriage, when he had sought him in his chamber, to offer a word of warning against the union. He seemed to be living the interview over again, and the first words when he awoke, rushing over his brain with minute and unpleasant reality, were those he had himself spoken in reference to Sibylla:--"Were she free as air this moment, were she to come to my feet, and say 'Let me be your wife,' I should tell her that the whole world was before her to choose from, save myself. She can never again be anything to me."

Brave words: fully believed in when they were spoken: but what did Lionel think of them now?

He went down to breakfast. He was rather late, and found they had assembled. Lady Verner, who had just heard for the first time of Lionel's presence in the house, made no secret now of Lionel's note to her. Therefore Decima and Lucy knew that the "invasion" of Verner's Pride had been caused by Mrs. Massingbird.

She--Lady Verner--scarcely gave herself time to greet Lionel before she commenced upon it. She did not conceal, or seek to conceal, her sentiments--either of Sibylla herself, or of the step she had taken. And Lionel had the pleasure of hearing his intended bride alluded to in a manner that was not altogether complimentary.

He could not stop it. He could not take upon himself the defence of Sibylla, and say, "Do you know that you are speaking of my future wife?" No, for Lucy Tempest was there. Not in her presence had he the courage to bring home to himself his own dishonour: to avow that, after wooing her (it was very like it), he had turned round and asked another to marry him. The morning sun shone into the room upon the snowy cloth, upon the silver breakfast service, upon the exquisite cups of painted porcelain, upon those seated round the table. Decima sat opposite to Lady Verner, Lionel and Lucy were face to face on either side. The walls exhibited a few choice paintings; the room and its appurtenances were in excellent taste. Lady Verner liked things that pleased the eye. That silver service had been a recent present of Lionel's, who had delighted in showering elegancies and comforts upon his mother since his accession.

"What could have induced her ever to think of taking up her residence at Verner's Pride on her return?" reiterated Lady Verner to Lionel.

"She believed she was coming to her aunt. It was only at the station, here, that she learned Mrs. Verner was dead."

"She did learn it there?"

"Yes. She learned it there."

"And she could come to Verner's Pride after that? knowing that you, and you alone, were its master?"

Lionel toyed with his coffee-cup. He wished his mother would spare her remarks.

"She was so fatigued, so low-spirited, that I believed she was scarcely conscious where she drove," he returned. "I am certain that the idea of there being any impropriety in it never once crossed her mind."

Lady Verner drew her shawl around her with a peculiar movement. If ever action expressed scorn, that one did--scorn of Sibylla, scorn of her conduct, scorn of Lionel's credulity in believing in her. Lionel read it all. Happening to glance across the table, he caught the eyes of Lucy Tempest fixed upon him with an open expression of wonder. Wonder at what? At his believing in Sibylla? It might be. With all Lucy's straightforward plainness, she would have been one of the last to storm Lionel's abode, and take refuge in it. A retort, defending Sibylla, had been upon Lionel's tongue, but that gaze stopped it.

"How long does she purpose honouring Verner's Pride with her presence, and keeping you out of it?" resumed Lady Verner.

"I do not know what her plans for the present may be," he answered, his cheeks burning at the thought of the avowal he had to make--that her future plans would be contingent upon his. Not the least painful of the results which Lionel's haste had brought in its train, was the knowledge of the shock it would prove to his mother, whom he so loved and reverenced. Why had he not thought of it at the time?

Breakfast over, Lionel went out, a very coward. A coward, in so far as that he had shrunk from making yet the confession. He was aware that it ought to be done. The presence of Decima and Lucy Tempest had been his mental excuse for putting off the unwelcome task.

But a better frame of mind came over him ere he had gone many paces from the door; better, at any rate, as regarded the cowardice.

"A Verner never shrank yet from his duty," was his comment, as he bent his steps back again. "Am I turning renegade?"

He went straight up to Lady Verner, and asked her, in a low tone, to grant him a minute's private interview. They had breakfasted in the room which made the ante-room to the drawing-room; it was their usual morning-room. Lady Verner answered her son by stepping into the drawing-room.

He followed her and closed the door. The fire was but just lighted, scarcely giving out any heat. She slightly shivered, and requested him to stir it. He did so mechanically--wholly absorbed by the revelation he had to impart. He remembered how she had once fainted at nearly the same revelation.

"Mother, I have a communication to make to you," he began with desperate energy, "and I don't know how to do it. It will pain you greatly. Nothing that I can think of, or imagine, would cause you so much pain."

Lady Verner seated herself in her low violet-velvet chair, and looked composedly at Lionel. She did not dread the communication very much. He was secure in Verner's Pride; what could there be that she need fear? She no more cast a glance to the possibility of his marrying the widow of Frederick Massingbird, than she would have done to his marrying that gentleman's wife. Buried in this semi-security, the shock must be all the greater.

"I am about to marry," said Lionel, plunging into the news headlong. "And I fear that you will not approve my choice. Nay, I know you will not."

A foreshadowing of the truth came across her then. She grew deadly pale, and put up her hands, as if to ward off the blow. "Oh, Lionel! don't say it! don't say it!" she implored. "I never can receive her."

"Yes, you will, mother," he whispered, his own face pale too, his tone one of painful entreaty. "You will receive her for my sake."

"Is it--she?"

The aversion with which the name was avoided was unmistakable. Lionel only nodded a grave affirmative.

"Have you engaged yourself to her?"

"I have. Last night."

"Were you mad?" she asked in a whisper.

"Stay, mother. When you were speaking against Sibylla at breakfast, I refrained from interference, for you did not then know that defence of her was my duty. Will you forgive me for reminding you that I cannot permit it to be continued, even by you?"

"But do you forget that it is not a respectable alliance for you?" resumed Lady Verner. "No, not a respectable--"

"I cannot listen to this; I pray you cease!" he broke forth, a blaze of anger lighting his face. "Have you forgotten of whom you are speaking, mother? Not respectable!"

"I say that it is not a respectable alliance for you--Lionel Verner," she persisted. "An obscure surgeon's daughter, he of not too good repute, who has been out to the end of the world, and found her way back alone, a widow, is not a desirable alliance for a Verner. It would not be desirable for Jan; it is terrible for you?"

"We shall not agree upon this," said Lionel, preparing to take his departure. "I have acquainted you, mother, and I have no more to say, except to urge--if I may do so--that you will learn to speak of Sibylla with courtesy, remembering that she will shortly be my wife."

Lady Verner caught his hand as he was retreating.

"Lionel, my son, tell me how you came to do it," she wailed. "You cannot love her! the wife, the widow of another man! It must have been the work of a moment of folly. Perhaps she drew you into it!"

The suggestion, "the work of a moment of folly," was so very close a representation of what it had been, of what Lionel was beginning to see it to have been now, that the rest of the speech was lost to him in the echo of that one sentence. Somehow, he did not care to refute it.

"She will be my wife, respected and honoured," was all he answered, as he quitted the room.

Lady Verner followed him. He went straight out, and she saw him walk hastily across the courtyard, putting on his hat as he traversed it. She wrung her hands, and broke into a storm of wailing despair, ignoring the presence of Decima and Lucy Tempest.

"I had far rather that she had stabbed him!"

The words excited their amazement. They turned to Lady Verner, and were struck with the marks of agitation on her countenance.

"Mamma, what are you speaking of?" asked Decima.

Lady Verner pointed to Lionel, who was then passing through the front gates. "I speak of him," she answered: "my darling; my pride; my much-loved son. That woman has worked his ruin."

Decima verily thought her mother must be wandering in her intellect. Lucy could only gaze at Lady Verner in consternation.

"What woman?" repeated Decima.

"She. She who has been Lionel's bane. She who came and thrust herself into his home last night in her unseemly conduct. What passed between them Heaven knows; but she has contrived to cajole him out of a promise to marry her."

Decima's pale cheek turned to a burning red. She was afraid to ask questions.

"Oh, mamma! it cannot be!" was all she uttered.

"It is, Decima. I told Lionel that he could not love her, who had been the wife of another man; and he did not refute it. I told him she must have drawn him into it; and that he left unanswered. He replied that she would be his wife, and must be honoured as such. Drawn in to marry her! one who is so utterly unworthy of him! whom he does not even love! Oh, Lionel, my son, my son!"

In their own grievous sorrow they noticed not the face of Lucy Tempest, or what they might have read there.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXXVIII. THE MISSES WEST EN PAPILLOTES

Lionel went direct to the house of Dr. West. It was early; and the Misses West, fatigued with their night's pleasure, had risen in a scuffle, barely getting down at the breakfast hour. Jan was in the country attending on a patient, and, not anticipating the advent of visitors, they had honoured Master Cheese with hair en papillotes. Master Cheese had divided his breakfast hour between eating and staring. The meal had been some time over, and the young gentleman had retired, but the ladies sat over the fire in unusual idleness, discussing the dissipation they had participated in. A scream from the two arose upon the entrance of Lionel, and Miss Amilly flung her pocket-handkerchief over her head.

"Never mind," said Lionel, laughing good-naturedly; "I have seen curl-papers before, in my life. Your sitting here quietly, tells me that you do not know what has occurred."

"What has occurred?" interrupted Deborah, before he could continue. "It--it"--her voice grew suddenly timid--"is nothing bad about papa?"

"No, no. Your sister has arrived from Australia. In this place of gossip, I wonder the news has not travelled to Jan or to Cheese."

They had started up, poor things, their faces flushed, their eyelashes glistening, forgetting the little episode of the mortified vanity, eager to embrace Sibylla.

"Come back from Australia!" uttered Deborah in wild astonishment. "Then where is she, that she is not here, in her own home?"

"She came to mine," replied Lionel. "She supposed Mrs. Verner to be its mistress still. I made my way here last night to ask you to come up, and found you were gone to Heartburg."

"But--she--is not remaining at it?" exclaimed Deborah, speaking with hesitation, in her doubt, the flush on her face deepening.

"I placed it at her disposal until other arrangements could be made," replied Lionel. "I am at present the guest of Lady Verner. You will go to Sibylla, will you not?"

Go to her? Ay! They tore the curl-papers out of their hair, and flung on bonnets and shawls, and hastened to Verner's Pride.

"Say that I will call upon her in the course of the morning, and see how she is after her journey," said Lionel.

In hurrying out, they encountered Jan. Deborah stopped to say a word about his breakfast: it was ready, she said, and she thought he must want it.

"I do," responded Jan. "I shall have to get an assistant, after all, Miss Deb. I find it doesn't answer to go quite without meals and sleep; and that's what I have done lately."

"So you have, Mr. Jan. I say every day to Amilly that it can't go on, for you to be walked off your legs in this way. Have you heard the cheering news, Mr. Jan? Sibylla's come home. We are going to her now, at Verner's Pride?"

"I have heard it," responded Jan. "What took her to Verner's Pride?"

"We have yet to learn all that. You know, Mr. Jan, she never was given to consider a step much, before she took it."

They tripped away, and Jan, in turning from them, met his brother. Jan was one utterly incapable of finesse: if he wanted to say a thing, he said it out plainly. What havoc Jan would have made, enrolled in the corps of diplomatists!

"I say, Lionel," began he, "is it true that you are going to marry Sibylla West?"

Lionel did not like the plain question, so abruptly put. He answered curtly--

"I am going to marry Sibylla Massingbird."

"The old name comes the readiest," said Jan. "How did it come about, Lionel?"

"May I ask whence you derived your information, Jan?" returned Lionel, who was marvelling where Jan could have heard this.

"At Deerham Court. I have been calling in, as I passed it, to see Miss Lucy. The mother is going wild, I think. Lionel, if it is as she says, that Sibylla drew you into it against your will, don't you carry it out. I'd not. Nobody should hook me into anything."

"My mother said that, did she? Be so kind as not to repeat it, Jan. I am marrying Sibylla because I love her; I am marrying her of my own free will. If anybody--save my mother--has aught of objection to make to it, let them make it to me."

"Oh! that's it, is it?" returned Jan. "You need not be up, Lionel, it is no business of mine. I'm sure you are free to marry her for me. I'll be groomsman, if you like."

"Lady Verner has always been prejudiced against Sibylla," observed Lionel. "You might have remembered that, Jan."

"So I did," said Jan; "though I assumed that what she said was sure to be true. You see, I have been on the wrong scent lately. I thought you were getting fond of Lucy Tempest. It has looked like it."

Lionel murmured some unintelligible answer, and turned away, a hot flush dyeing his brow.

Meanwhile Sibylla was already up, but not down. Breakfast she would have carried up to her room, she told Mrs. Tynn. She stood at the window, looking forth; not so much at the extensive prospect that swept the horizon in the distance, as at the fair lands immediately around. "All his," she murmured, "and I shall be his wife at last!"

She turned languidly round at the opening of the door, expecting to see her breakfast. Instead of which, two frantic little bodies burst in and seized upon her. Sibylla shrieked--

"Don't, Deb! don't, Amilly! Are you going to hug me to death?"

Their kisses of welcome over, they went round about her, fondly surveying her from all points with their tearful eyes. She was thinner; but she was more lovely. Amilly expressed an opinion that the bloom on her delicate wax face was even brighter than of yore.

"Of course it is, at the present moment," answered Sibylla, "when you have been kissing me into a fever."

"She is not tanned a bit with her voyage, that I see," cried Deborah, with undisguised admiration. "But Sibylla's skin never did tan. Child," she added, bending towards her, and allowing her voice to become grave, "how could you think of coming to Verner's Pride? It was not right. You should have come home."

"I thought Mrs. Verner was living still."

"And if she had been?--This is Mr. Lionel's house now; not hers. You ought to have come home, my dear. You will come home with us now, will you not?"

"I suppose you'll allow me to have some breakfast first," was Sibylla's answer. Secure in her future position, she was willing to go home to them temporarily now. "Why is papa gone away, Deborah?"

"He will be coming back some time, dear," was Deborah's evasive answer, spoken soothingly. "But tell us a little about yourself, Sibylla. When poor Frederick--"

"Not this morning, Deborah," she interrupted, putting up her hand. "I will tell you all another time. It was an unlucky voyage."

"Have you realised John's money that he left? That he lost, I should rather say."

"I have realised nothing," replied Sibylla--"nothing but ill luck. We never got tidings of John in any way, beyond the details of his death; we never saw a particle of the gold belonging to him, or could hear of it. And my husband lost his desk the day we landed--as I sent you word; and I had no money out there, and I have only a few shillings in my pocket."

This catalogue of ills nearly stunned Deborah and Amilly West. They had none too much of life's great need, gold, for themselves; and the burden of keeping Sibylla would be sensibly felt. A tolerably good table it was indispensable to maintain, on account of Jan, and that choice eater, Master Cheese; but how they had to pinch in the matter of dress, they alone knew. Sibylla also knew, and she read arightly the drooping of their faces.

"Never mind, Deborah; cheer up, Amilly. It is only for a time. Ere very long I shall be leaving you again."

"Surely not for Australia!" returned Deborah, the hint startling her.

"Australia? Well, I am not sure that it will be quite so far," answered Sibylla, in a little spirit of mischief. And, in the bright prospect of the future, she forgot past and present grievances, turned her laughing blue eyes upon her sisters, and, to their great scandal, began to waltz round and round the room.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXXIX. BROTHER JARRUM

By the light of a single tallow candle which flared aloft on a shelf in Peckaby's shop, consecrated in more prosperous days to wares, but bare now, a large collected assemblage was regarding each other with looks of eager interest. There could not have been less than thirty present, all crammed together in that little space of a few feet square. The first comers had taken their seats on the counters; the others stood as they could. Two or three men, just returned from their day's labour, were there; but the crowd was chiefly composed of the weaker sex.

The attention of these people was concentrated on a little man who faced them, leaning against the wall at the back of the shop, and holding forth in a loud, persuasive tone. If you object to the term "holding forth," you must blame Mrs. Duff; it is borrowed from her. She informed us, you may remember, that the stranger who met, and appeared to avoid, Lionel Verner, was no other than a "missionary from Jerusalem," taken with an anxiety for the souls of Deerham, and about to do what he could to convert them--"Brother Jarrum."

Brother Jarrum had entered upon his work, conjointly with his entry upon Peckaby's spare bedroom. He held nightly meetings in Peckaby's shop, and the news of his fame was spreading. Women of all ages flocked in to hear him--you know how impressionable they have the character of being. A sprinkling of men followed out of curiosity, of idleness, or from propensity to ridicule. Had Brother Jarrum proved to be a real missionary from Jerusalem--though, so far as my knowledge goes, such messengers from that city are not common--genuinely desirous of converting them from wrath to grace, I fear his audience would, after the first night or two, have fallen off considerably. This missionary, however, contrived both to keep his audience and to increase it; his promises partaking more of the mundane nature than do such promises in general. In point of fact, Brother Jarrum was an Elder from a place that he was pleased to term "New Jerusalem"; in other words, from the Salt Lake city.

It has been the fate of certain spots of England, more so than of most other parts of the European world, to be favoured by periodical visits from these gentry. Deerham was now suffering under the infliction, and Brother Jarrum was doing all that lay in his power to convert half its female population into Mormon proselytes. His peculiar doctrines it is of no consequence to transcribe; but some of his promises were so rich that it is a pity you should lose the treat of hearing them. They commenced with--husbands to all. Old or young, married or single, each was safe to be made the wife of one of these favoured prophets the instant she set foot in the new city. This, of course, was a very grand thing for the women--as you may know if you have any experience of them--especially for those who were getting on the shady side of forty, and had not changed their name. They, the women, gathered together and pressed into Peckaby's shop, and stared at Brother Jarrum with eager eyes, and listened with strained ears, only looking off him to cast admiring glances one to another.

"Stars and snakes!" said Brother Jarrum, whose style of oratory was more peculiar than elegant, "what flounders me is, that the whole lot of you Britishers don't migrate of yourselves to the desired city--the promised land--the Zion on the mountains. You stop here to pinch and toil and care, and quarrel one of another, and starve your children through having nothing to give 'em, when you might go out there to ease, to love, to peace, to plenty. It's a charming city; what else should it be called the City of the Saints for? The houses have shady veranders round 'em, with sweet shrubs a-creeping up, and white posts and pillows to lean against. The bigger a household is, the more rooms it have got; not a lady there, if there was a hundred of 'em in family, but what's got her own parlour and bedroom to herself, which no stranger thinks of going in at without knocking for leaf. All round and about these houses is productive gardens, trees and flowers for ornament, and fruits and green stuff to eat. There's trees that they call cotton wood, and firs, and locusts, and balsams, and poplars, and pines, and acacias, some of 'em in blossom. A family may live for nothing upon the produce of their own ground. Vegetables is to be had for the cutting; their own cows gives the milk--such milk and butter as this poor place, Deerham, never saw--but the rich flavour's imparted to 'em from the fine quality of the grass; and fruit you might feed upon till you got a surfeit. Grapes and peaches is all a-hanging in clusters to the hand, only waiting to be plucked! Stars! my mouth's watering now at the thoughts of 'em! I--"

"Please, sir, what did you say the name of the place was again?" interrupted a female voice.

"New Jerusalem," replied Brother Jarrum. "It's in the territory of Utah. On the maps and on the roads, and for them that have not awoke to the new light, it's called the Great Salt Lake City; but for us favoured saints, it's New Jerusalem. It's Zion--it's Paradise--it's anything beautiful you may like to call it. There's a ballroom in it."

This abrupt wind-up rather took some of the audience aback. "A ballroom!"

"A ballroom," gravely repeated Brother Jarrum. "A public ballroom not far from a hundred feet long; and we have got a theatre for the acting of plays; and we go for rides in winter in sleighs. Ah! did you think it was with us, out there, as it is with you in the old country?--one's days to be made up of labour, labour, labour; no interlude to it but starvation and the crying of children as can't get nursed or fed! We like amusement; and we have it; dancing in particular. Our great prophet himself dances; and all the apostles and bishops dance. They dance themselves down."

The assemblage sat with open eyes. New wonders were revealed to them every moment. Some of the younger legs grew restless at the mental vision conjured up.

"It's part of our faith to dance," continued Brother Jarrum. "Why shouldn't we? Didn't David dance? Didn't Jephthah dance? Didn't the prodigal son dance? You'll all dance on to the last if you come to us. Such a thing as old legs is hardly known among us. As the favoured climate makes the women's faces beautiful, so it keeps the limbs from growing old. The ballroom is hung with green branches and flags; you might think it was a scene of trees lit with lamps; and you'd never tire of listening to the music, or of looking at the supper-table. If you could only see the suppers given, in a picture to-night, it 'ud spoil your sleep, and you'd not rest till you had started to partake of 'em. Ducks and turkeys, and oysters, and fowls, and fish, and meats, and custards, and pies, and potatoes, and greens, and jellies, and coffee, and tea, and cake, and drinks, and so many more things that you'd be tired only of hearing me say the names. There's abundance for all."

Some commotion amid Brother Jarrum's hearers, and a sound as of licking of lips. That supper account was a great temptation. Had Brother Jarrum started then, straight off for the Salt Lake, the probability is that three-parts of the room would have formed a tail after him.

"What's the drinks?" inquired Jim Clark, the supper items imparting to his inside a curious feeling of emptiness.

"There's no lack of drinks in the City of the Saints," returned Brother Jarrum. "Whisky's plentiful. Have you heard of mint julep? That is delicious. Mint is one of the few productions not common out there, and we are learning to make the julep with sage instead. You should see the plains of sage! It grows wild."

"And there's ducks, you say?" observed Susan Peckaby. "It's convenient to have sage in plenty where there's ducks," added she to the assembly in general. "What a land it must be!"

"A land that's not to be ekalled! A land flowing with milk and honey!" rapturously echoed Brother Jarrum. "Ducks is in plenty, and sage grows as thick as nettles do here; you can't go out to the open country but you put your foot upon it. Nature's generally in accordance with herself. What should she give all them bushes of wild sage for, unless she gave ducks to match?"

A problem that appeared indisputable to the minds of Brother Jarrum's listeners. They sincerely wished themselves in New Jerusalem.

"Through the streets runs a stream of sparkling water, clear as crystal," continued Brother Jarrum. "You have only got to stoop down with a can on a hot summer's day, and take a drink of it. It runs on both sides the streets for convenience; folks step out of their houses, and draw it up with no trouble. You have not got to toil half a mile to a spring of fresh water there! You'd never forget the silver lake at the base of Antelope Island, once you set eyes on it."

Several haggard eyes were lifted at this. "Do silver grow there, like the sage?"

"I spoke metaphorical," explained Brother Jarrum. "Would I deceive you? No. It's the Great Salt Lake, that shines out like burnished silver, and bursts on the sight of the new pilgrims when they arrive in bands at the holy city--the emigrants from this land."

"Some do arrive then, sir?" timidly questioned Dinah Roy.

"Some!" indignantly responded Brother Jarrum. "They are arriving continual. The very evening before I left, a numerous company arrived. It was just upon sunset. The clouds was all of rose colour, tipped with purple and gold, and there lay the holy city at their feet, in the lovely valley I told you of last night, with the lake of glittering silver in the distance. It is a sight for 'em, I can tell you! The regular-built houses, inclosed in their gardens and buildings, like farm homesteads, and the inhabitants turning out with fiddles, to meet and welcome the travellers. Some of the pilgrims fainted with joy; some shouted; lots danced; and sobs and tears of delight burst from all. If the journey had been a little fatiguing--what of that, with that glorious scene at the end of it?"

"And you see this?" cried a man, Davies, in a somewhat doubtful tone.

"I see it with my two eyes," answered Brother Jarrum. "I often see it. We had had news in the city that a train of new-comers was approaching, mostly English, and we went out to meet 'em. Not one of us saints, hardly, but was expecting some friend by it--a sister, or a father, or a sweetheart, maybe; and away we hurried outside the city. Presently the train came in sight."

"They have railroads there, then?" spoke a man, who was listening with eager interest. It was decent, civil Grind.

"Not yet; we shall have 'em shortly," said Brother Jarrum. "The train consisted of carts, carriages, vehicles of all sorts; and some rode mules, and some were walking on their legs. They were all habited nicely, and singing hymns. A short way afore they arrive at the holy city, it's the custom for the emigrants to make a halt, and wash and dress themselves, so as to enter proper. Such a meeting! the kissing and the greeting drownding the noise of the music, and the old men and the little children dancing. The prophet himself came out, and shook hands with 'em all, his brass band blowing in front of him, and he standing up in his carriage. Where else would you travel to, I'd like to know, and find such a welcome at the end of your journey? Houses, and friends, and plenty, all got ready aforehand; and gentlemen waiting to marry the ladies that may wish to enter the holy state!"

"There is a plenty?" questioned again that unbelieving man, Davies.

"There's such a plenty that the new arrivals are advised to eat, for a week or two, only half their fill," returned Brother Jarrum--"of fruits in partic'lar. Some, that have gone right in at the good things without mercy, have been laid up through it, and had to fine themselves down upon physic for a week after. No; it's best to be a little sparing at the beginning."

"What did he say just now about all the Mormons being beautiful?" questioned a pretty-looking girl of her neighbours. And Brother Jarrum caught the words, although they were spoken in an undertone.

"And so they are," said he. "The climate's of a nature that softens the faces, keeps folks in health, and stops 'em from growing old. If you see two females in the street, one a saint's wife, the t'other a new arrival, you can always tell which is which. The wife's got a slender waist, like a lady, with a delicate colour in her face, and silky hair; the new-comer's tanned, and fat, and freckled, and clumsy. If you don't believe me, you can ask them as have been there. There's something in the dress they wear, too, that sets 'em off. No female goes out without a veil, which hangs down behind. They don't want to hide their pretty faces, not they."

Mary Green, a damsel of twenty, she who had previously spoken, really did possess a pretty face; and a rapturous vision came over her at this juncture, of beholding it shaded and set off by a white lace veil, as she had often seen Miss Decima Verner's.

"Now, I can't explain to you why it is that the women in the city should be fair to the eye, or why the men don't seem to grow old," resumed Brother Jarrum. "It is so, and that's enough. People, learned in such things, might tell the cause; but I'm not learned in 'em. Some says it's the effect of the New Jerusalem climate; some thinks it's the fruits of the happy and plentiful life we lead: my opinion is, it's a mixture of both. A man of sixty hardly looks forty, out there. It's a great favour!"

One of the ill-doing Dawsons, who had pushed his way in at the shop door in time to hear part of the lavished praise on New Jerusalem, interrupted at this juncture.

"I say, master, if this is as you're a-telling us, how is it that folks talk so again' the Mormons? I met a man in Heartburg once, who had been out there, and he couldn't say bad enough of 'em."

"Snakes! but that's a natural question of yours, and I'm glad to answer it," replied Brother Jarrum, with a taking air of candour. "Those evil reports come from our enemies. There's another tribe living in the Great Salt Lake City besides ours; and that's the Gentiles. Gentiles is our name for 'em. It's this set that spreads about uncredible reports, and we'd like to sew their mouths up--"

Brother Jarrum probably intended to say "unaccredited." He continued, somewhat vehemently--

"To sew their mouths up with a needle and thread, and let 'em be sewed up for ever. They are jealous of us; that's what it is. Some of their wives, too, have left 'em to espouse our saints, at which they naggar greatly. The outrageousest things that enemies' tongues can be laid to, they say. Don't you ever believe 'em; it flounders me to think as anybody can. Whoever wants to see my credentials, they are at their beck and call. Call to-morrow morning--in my room upstairs--call any other morning, and my certificates is open to be looked at, with spectacles or without 'em, signed in full, at the Great Salt Lake City, territory of Utah, by our prophet, Mr. Brigham Young, and two of his councillors, testifying that I am Elder Silas Jarrum, and that my mission over here is to preach the light to them as are at present asleep in darkness, and bring 'em to the community of the Latter Day Saints. I'm no impostor, I'm not; and I tell you that the false reports come from them unbelieving Gentiles. Instead of minding their own affairs, they pass their days nagging at the saints."

"Why don't they turn saints theirselves?" cried a voice sensibly.

"Because Satan stops 'em. You have heard of him, you know. He's busy everywhere, as you've been taught by your parsons. I put my head inside of your church door, last Sunday night, while the sermon was going on, and I heard your parson tell you as Satan was the foundation of all the ill that was in you. He was right there; though I'm no friend to parsons in general. Satan is the head and tail of bad things, and he fills up the Gentiles with proud notions, and blinds their eyes against us. No wonder! If every soul in the world turned Latter Day Saint, and come over to us at New Jerusalem, where 'ud Satan's work be? We are striving to get you out of the clutches of Satan, my friends, and you must strive for yourselves also. Where's the use of us elders coming among you to preach and convert, unless you meet us half-way? Where's the good of keeping up that 'Perpetual Emigration Fund Company,' if you don't reap its benefit and make a start to emigrate? These things is being done for you, not for us. The Latter Day Saints have got nothing mean nor selfish about 'em. They are the richest people in the world--in generosity and good works."

"Is servants allowed to dress in veils, out there?" demanded Mary Green, during a pause of Brother Jarrum's, afforded to the audience that they might sufficiently revolve the disinterested generosity of the Latter Day Saint community.

"Veils! Veils, and feathers, too, if they are so minded," was Brother Jarrum's answer; and it fell like a soothing sound on Mary Green's vain ear. "It's not many servants, though, that you'd find in New Jerusalem."

"Ain't servants let go out to New Jerusalem?" quickly returned Mary Green. She was a servant herself, just now out of place, given to spend all her wages upon finery, and coming to grief perpetually with her mistresses upon the score.

"Many of 'em goes out," was the satisfactory reply of Brother Jarrum. "But servants here are not servants there. Who'd be a servant if she could be a missis? Wouldn't a handsome young female prefer to be her master's wife than to be his servant?"

Mary Green giggled; the question had been pointedly put to her.

"If a female servant chooses to remain a servant, in course she can," Brother Jarrum resumed, "and precious long wages she'd get; eighty pound a year--good."

A movement of intense surprise amid the audience. Brother Jarrum went on--

"I can't say I have knowed many as have stopped servants, even at that high rate of pay. My memory won't charge me with one. They have married and settled, and so have secured for themselves paradise."

This might be taken as a delicate hint that the married state, generally, deserved that happy title. Some of the experiences of those present, however, rather tended to accord it a less satisfactory one, and there arose some murmuring. Brother Jarrum explained--

"Women is not married with us for time, but for eternity--as I tried to beat into you last night. Once the wife of a saint, their entrance into paradise is safe and certain. We have not got a old maid among us--not a single old maid!"

The sensation that this information caused, I'll leave you to judge; considering that Deerham was famous for old maids, and that several were present.

"No old maids, and no widders," continued Brother Jarrum, wiping his forehead, which was becoming moist with the heat of argument. "We have respect to our women, we have, and like to make 'em comfortable."

"But if their husbands die off?" suggested a puzzled listener.

"The husband's successor marries his widders," explained Brother Jarrum. "Look at our late head and prophet, Mr. Joe Smith--him that appeared in a vision to our present prophet, and pointed out the spot for the new temple. He died a martyr, Mr. Joe Smith did--a prey to wicked murderers. Were his widders left to grieve and die out after him? No. Mr. Brigham Young, he succeeded to his honours, and he married the widders."

This was received somewhat dubiously; the assemblage not clear whether to approve it or to cavil at it.

"Not so much to be his wives, you know, as to be a kind of ruling matrons in his household," went on Brother Jarrum. "To have their own places apart, their own rooms in the house, and to be as happy as the day's long. They don't--"

"How they must quarrel, a lot of wives together!" interrupted a discontented voice.

Brother Jarrum set himself energetically to disprove this supposition. He succeeded. Belief is easy to willing minds.

"Which is best?" asked he.--"To be one of the wives of a rich saint, where all the wives is happy, and honoured, and well dressed; or to toil and starve, and go next door to naked, as a poor man's solitary wife does here? I know which I should choose if the two chances was offered me. A woman can't put her foot inside the heavenly kingdom, I tell you, unless she has got a husband to lay hold of her hand and draw her in. The wives of a saint are safe; paradise is in store for 'em; and that's why the Gentiles' wives--them folks that's for ever riling at us--leave their husbands to marry the saints."

"Does the saints' wives ever leave 'em to marry them others--the Gentiles?" asked that troublesome Davies.

"Such cases have been heered of," responded Brother Jarrum, shaking his head with a grave solemnity of manner. "They have braved the punishment and done it. But the act has been rare."

"What is the punishment?" inquired somebody's wife.

"When a female belonging to the Latter Day Saints--whether she's married or single--falls off from grace and goes over to them Gentiles, and marries one of 'em, she's condemned to be buffeted by Satan for a thousand years."

A pause of consternation.

"Who condemns her?" a voice, more venturesome than the rest, was heard to ask.

"There's mysteries in our faith which can't be disclosed even to you," was the reply of Brother Jarrum. "Them apostate women are condemned to it; and that's enough. It's not everybody as can see the truth. Ninety-nine may see it, and the hundredth mayn't."

"Very true, very true," was murmured around.

"I think I see the waggins and the other vehicles arriving now!" rapturously exclaimed Brother Jarrum, turning his eyes right up into his head, the better to take in the mental vision. "The travellers, tired with their journey, washed and shaved, and dressed, and the women's hair anointed, all flagrant with oil and frantic with joy--shouting, singing, and dancing to the tune of the advancing fiddles! I think I see the great prophet himself, with his brass-band in front and his body-guard around him, meeting the travellers and shaking their hands individ'ally! I think I see the joy of the women, and the nice young girls, when they are led to the hyminial halter in our temple by the saints that have fixed on 'em, to be inducted into the safety of paradise! Happy those that the prophet chooses for himself! While them other poor mistaken backsliders shall be undergoing their thousand years of buffetings, they'll reign triumphant, the saved saints of the Mil--"

How long Brother Jarrum's harangue might have rung on the wide ears of his delighted listeners, it is not easy to say. But an interruption occurred, to the proceeding's. It was caused by the entrance of Peckaby; and the meeting was terminated somewhat abruptly. While Susan Peckaby sat at the feet of the saint, a willing disciple of his doctrine, her lord and master, however disheartening it may be to record it, could not, by any means, be induced to open his heart and receive the grace. He remained obdurate. Passively obdurate during the day; but rather demonstratively obdurate towards night. Peckaby, a quiet, civil man enough when sober, was just the contrary when ivre; and since he had joined the blacksmith's shop, his evening visits to a noted public-house--the Plough and Harrow--had become frequent. On his return home from these visits, his mind had once or twice been spoken out pretty freely as to the Latter Day Saint doctrine: once he had gone the length of clearing the shop of guests, and marshalling the saint himself to the retirement of his own apartment. However contrite he may have shown himself for this the next morning, nobody desired to have the scene repeated. Consequently, when Peckaby now entered, defiance in his face and unsteadiness in his legs, the guests filed out of their own accord; and Brother Jarrum, taking the flaring candle from the shelf, disappeared with it up the stairs.

This has been a very fair specimen of Brother Jarrum's representations and eloquence. It was only one meeting out of a great many. As I said before, the precise tenets of his religious faith need not be enlarged upon: it is enough to say that they were quite equal to his temporal promises. You will, therefore, scarcely wonder that he made disciples. But the mischief, as yet, had only begun to brew.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XL. A VISIT OF CEREMONY

Whatever may have been Lionel Verner's private sentiments, with regard to his choice of a wife--whether he repented his hasty bargain or whether he did not, no shade of dissatisfaction escaped him. Sibylla took up her abode with her sisters, and Lionel visited her, just as other men visit the young ladies they may be going to marry. The servants at Verner's Pride were informed that a mistress for them was in contemplation, and preparations for the marriage were begun. Not until summer would it take place, when twelve months should have elapsed from the demise of Frederick Massingbird.

Deerham was, of course, free in its comments, differing in no wise on that score from other places. Lionel Verner was pitied, and Sibylla abused. The heir of Verner's Pride, with his good looks, his manifold attractions, his somewhat cold impassibility as to the tempting snares laid out for him in the way of matrimony, had been a beacon for many a young lady to steer towards. Had he married Lucy Tempest, had he married Lady Mary Elmsley, had he married a royal princess, he and she would both have been equally cavilled at. He, for placing himself beyond the pale of competition; she, for securing the prize. It always was so, and it always will be.

His choice of Mrs. Massingbird, however, really did afford some grounds for grumbling. She was not worthy of Lionel Verner. So Deerham thought; so Deerham said. He was throwing himself away; he would live to repent it; she must have been the most crafty of women, so to have secured him! Free words enough, and harshly spoken; but they were as water by the side of those uttered by Lady Verner.

In the first bitter hour of disappointment, Lady Verner gave free speech to harsh things. It was in her love for Lionel that she so grieved. Setting aside the facts that Sibylla had been the wife of another man, that she was, in position, beneath Lionel--which facts, however, Lady Verner could not set aside, for they were ever present to her--her great objection lay in the conviction that Sibylla would prove entirely unsuited to him; that it would turn out an unhappy union. Short and sharp was the storm with Lady Verner; but in a week or two she subsided into quietness, buried her grief and resentment within her, and made no further outward demonstration.

"Mother, you will call upon Sibylla?" Lionel said to her one day that he had gone to Deerham Court. He spoke in a low, deprecating tone, and his face flushed; he anticipated he knew not what torrent of objection.

Lady Verner met the request differently.

"I suppose it will be expected of me, that I should do so," she replied, strangely calm. "How I dislike this artificial state of things! Where the customs of society must be bowed to, by those who live in it; their actions, good or bad, commented upon and judged! You have been expecting that I should call before this, I suppose, Lionel?"

"I have been hoping, from day to day, that you would call."

"I will call--for your sake. Lionel," she passionately added, turning to him, and seizing his hands between hers, "what I do now, I do for your sake. It has been a cruel blow to me; but I will try to make the best of it, for you, my best-loved son."

He bent down to his mother, and kissed her tenderly. It was his mode of showing her his thanks.

"Do not mistake me, Lionel. I will go just so far in this matter as may be necessary to avoid open disapproval. If I appear to approve it, that the world may not cavil and you complain, it will be little more than an appearance. I will call upon your intended wife, but the call will be one of etiquette, of formal ceremony: you must not expect me to get into the habit of repeating it. I shall never become intimate with her."

"You do not know what the future may bring forth," returned Lionel, looking at his mother with a smile. "I trust the time will come when you shall have learned to love Sibylla."

"I do not think that time will ever arrive," was the frigid reply of Lady Verner. "Oh, Lionel!" she added, in an impulse of sorrow, "what a barrier this has raised between us--what a severing for the future!"

"The barrier exists in your own mind only, mother," was his answer, spoken sadly. "Sibylla would be a loving daughter to you, if you would allow her so to be."

A slight, haughty shake of the head, suppressed at once, was the reply of Lady Verner. "I had looked for a different daughter," she continued. "I had hoped for Mary Elmsley."

"Upon this point, at any rate, there need be no misunderstanding," returned Lionel. "Believe me once for all, mother: I should never have married Mary Elmsley. Had I and Sibylla remained apart for life, separated as wide as the two poles, it is not Mary Elmsley whom I should have made my wife. It is more than probable that my choice would have pleased you only in a degree more than it does now."

The jealous ears of Lady Verner detected an undercurrent of meaning in the words.

"You speak just as though you had some one in particular in your thoughts!" she uttered.

It recalled Lucy, it recalled the past connected with her, all too plainly to his mind; and he returned an evasive answer. He never willingly recalled her: or it: if they obtruded themselves on his memory--as they very often did--he drove them away, as he was driving them now.

He quitted the house, and Lady Verner proceeded upstairs to Decima's room--that pretty room, with its blue panels and hangings, where Lionel used to be when he was growing convalescent. Decima and Lucy were in it now. "I wish you to go out with me to make a call," she said to them.

"Both of us, mamma?" inquired Decima.

"Both," repeated Lady Verner. "It is a call of etiquette," she added, a sound of irony mixing in the tone, "and, therefore, you must both make it. It is to Lionel's chosen wife."

A hot flush passed into the face of Lucy Tempest; hot words rose to her lips. Hasty, thoughtless, impulsive words, to the effect that she could not pay a visit to the chosen wife of Lionel Verner.

But she checked them ere they were spoken. She turned to the window, which had been opened to the early spring day, and suffered the cool air to blow on her flushed face, and calmed down her impetuous thoughts. Was this the course of conduct that she had marked out for herself? She looked round at Lady Verner and said, in a gentle tone, that she would be ready at any hour named.

"We will go at once," replied Lady Verner. "I have ordered the carriage. The sooner we make it--as we have to make it--the better."

There was no mistake about it. Lucy had grown to love Lionel Verner. How she loved him, esteemed him, venerated him, none, save her own heart, could tell. Her days had been as one long dream of Eden. The very aspect of the world had changed. The blue sky, the soft-breathing wind, the scent of the budding flowers, had spoken a language to her, never before learned: "Rejoice in us, for we are lovely!" It was the strange bliss in her own heart that threw its rose hues over the face of nature, the sweet, mysterious rapture arising from love's first dream; which can never be described by mortal pen; and never, while it lasts, can be spoken of by living tongue. While it lasts. It never does last. It is the one sole ecstatic phase of life, the solitary romance stealing in once, and but once, amidst the world's hard realities; the "fire filched for us from heaven." Has it to arise yet for you--you, who read this? Do not trust it when it comes, for it will be fleeting as a summer cloud. Enjoy it, revel in it while you hold it; it will lift you out of earth's clay and earth's evil with its angel wings; but trust not to its remaining: even while you are saying, "I will make it mine for ever," it is gone. It had gone for Lucy Tempest. And, oh! better for her, perhaps, that it should go; better, perhaps, for all; for if that sweet glimpse of paradise could take up its abode permanently in the heart, we should never look, or wish, or pray for that better paradise which has to come hereafter.

But who can see this in the sharp flood tide of despair? Not Lucy. In losing Lionel she has lost all; and nothing remained for her but to do battle with her trouble alone. Passionately and truly as Lionel had loved Sibylla; so, in her turn, did Lucy love him.

It is not the fashion now for young ladies to die of broken hearts--as it was in the old days. A little while given to "the grief that kills," and then Lucy strove to arouse herself to better things. She would go upon her way, burying all feelings within her; she would meet him and others with a calm exterior and placid smile; none should see that she suffered; no, though her heart were breaking.

"I will forget him," she murmured to herself ten times in the day. "What a mercy that I did not let him see I loved him! I never should have loved him, but that I thought he--Psha! why do I recall it? I was mistaken; I was stupid--and all that's left to me is to make the best of it."

So she drove her thoughts away, as Lionel did. She set out on her course bravely, with the determination to forget him. She schooled her heart, and schooled her face, and believed she was doing great things. To Lionel she cast no blame--and that was unfortunate for the forgetting scheme. She blamed herself; not Lionel. Remarkably simple and humble-minded, Lucy Tempest was accustomed to think of every one before herself. Who was she, that she should have assumed Lionel Verner was growing to love her? Sometimes she would glance at another phase of the picture: That Lionel had been growing to love her; but that Sibylla Massingbird had, in some weak moment, by some sleight of hand, drawn him to her again, extracted from him a promise that he could not retract. She did not dwell upon this; she drove it from her, as she drove away, or strove to drive away, the other thoughts; although the theory, regarding the night of Sibylla's return, was the favourite theory of Lady Verner. Altogether, I say, circumstances were not very favourable towards Lucy's plan of forgetting him.

Lady Verner's carriage--the most fascinating carriage in all Deerham, with its blue and silver appointments, its fine horses, all the present of Lionel--conveyed them to the house of Dr. West. Lady Verner would not have gone otherwise than in state, for untold gold. Distance allowing her, for she was not a good walker, she would have gone on foot, without attendants, to visit the Countess of Elmsley and Lady Mary; but not Sibylla. You can understand the distinction.

They arrived at an inopportune moment, for Lionel was there. At least, Lionel thought it inopportune. On leaving his mother's house he had gone to Sibylla's. And, however gratified he may have been by the speedy compliance of his mother with his request, he had very much preferred not to be present himself, if the call comprised, as he saw it did comprise, Lucy Tempest.

Sibylla was at home alone; her sisters were out. She had been leaning back in an invalid chair, listening to the words of Lionel, when a servant opened the door and announced Lady Verner. Neither had observed the stopping of the carriage. Carriages often stopped at the house, and visitors entered it; but they were most frequently professional visits, concerning nobody but Jan. Lady Verner swept in. For her very life she could not avoid showing hauteur in that moment. Sibylla sprung from her chair, and stood with a changing face.

Lionel's countenance, too, was changing. It was the first time he had met Lucy face to face in the close proximity necessitated by a room. He had studiously striven not to meet her, and had contrived to succeed. Did he call himself a coward for it? But where was the help?

A few moments given to greeting, to the assuming of seats, and they were settled down. Lady Verner and Decima on a sofa opposite Sibylla; Lucy in a low chair--what she was sure to look out for; Lionel leaning against the mantel-piece--as favourite a position of his, as a low seat was of Lucy's. Sibylla had been startled by their entrance, and her chest was beating. Her brilliant colour went and came, her hand was pressed upon her bosom, as if to still it, and she lay rather back in her chair for support. She had not assumed a widow's cap since her arrival, and her pretty hair fell around her in a shower of gold. In spite of Lady Verner's prejudices, she could not help thinking her very beautiful; but she looked suspiciously delicate.

"It is very kind of you to come to see me," said Sibylla, speaking timidly across to Lady Verner.

Lady Verner slightly bowed. "You do not look strong," she observed to Sibylla, speaking in the moment's impulse. "Are you well?"

"I am pretty well. I am not strong. Since I returned home, a little thing seems to flutter me, as your entrance has done now. Lionel had just told me you would call upon me, he thought. I was so glad to hear it! Somehow I had feared you would not."

Candid, at any rate; and Lady Verner did not disapprove the apparent feeling that prompted it; but how her heart revolted at hearing those lips pronounce "Lionel" familiarly, she alone could tell. Again came the offence.

"Lionel tells me sometimes I am so changed since I went out, that even he would scarcely have known me. I do not think I am so changed as all that. I had a great deal of vexation and trouble, and I grew thin. But I shall soon be well again now."

A pause.

"You ascertained no certain news of John Massingbird, I hear," observed Lady Verner.

"Not any. A gentleman there is endeavouring to trace out more particulars. I heard--did Lionel mention to you--that I heard, strange to say, of Luke Roy, from the family I was visiting--the Eyres? Lionel"--turning to him--"did you repeat it to Lady Verner?"

"I believe not," replied Lionel. He could not say to Sibylla, "My mother would tolerate no conversation on any topic connected with you."

Another flagging pause.

Lionel, to create a divertisement, raised a remarkably, fine specimen of coral from the table, and carried it to his mother.

"It is beautiful," he remarked. "Sibylla brought it home with her."

Lady Verner allowed that it was beautiful.

"Show it to Lucy," she said, when she had examined it with interest. "Lucy, my dear, do you remember what I was telling you the other evening, about the black coral?"

Sibylla rose and approached Lucy with Lionel.

"I am so pleased to make your acquaintance," she said warmly. "You only came to Deerham a short while before I was leaving it, and I saw scarcely anything of you. Lionel has seen a great deal of you, I fancy, though he will not speak of you. I told him one day it looked suspicious; that I should be jealous of you, if he did not mind."

It was a foolish speech--foolish of Sibylla to give utterance to it; but she did so in all singleness of heart, meaning nothing. Lucy was bending over the coral, held by Lionel. She felt her own cheeks flush, and she saw by chance, not by direct look, that Lionel's face had turned a deep scarlet. Jealous of her! She continued to admire the coral some little time longer, and then resigned it to him with a smile.

"Thank you, Mr. Verner. I am fond of these marine curiosities. We had a good many of them at the rectory. Mr. Cust's brother was a sailor."

Lionel could not remember the time when she had called him "Mr. Verner." It was right, however, that she should do so; but in his heart he felt thankful for that sweet smile. It seemed to tell him that she, at any rate, was heart-whole, that she certainly bore him no resentment. He spoke freely now.

"You are not looking well, Lucy--as we have been upon the subject of looks."

"I? Oh, I have had another cold since the one Jan cured. I did not try his remedies in time, and it fastened upon me. I don't know which barked the most--I or Growler."

"Jan says he shall have Growler here," remarked Sibylla.

"No, Sibylla," interposed Lionel; "Jan said he should like to have Growler here, if it were convenient to do so, and my mother would spare him. A medical man's is not the place for a barking dog; he might attack the night applicants."

"Is it Jan's dog?" inquired Lucy.

"Yes," said Lionel. "I thought you knew it. Why, don't you remember, Lucy, the day I--"

Whatever reminiscence Lionel may have been about to recall, he cut it short midway, and subsided into silence. What was his motive? Did Lucy know? She did not ask for the ending, and the rest were then occupied, and had not heard.

More awkward pauses--as in these visits where the parties do not amalgamate is sure to be the case, and then Lady Verner slightly bowed to Lucy, as she might have done on their retiring from table, and rose. Extending the tips of her delicately-gloved fingers to Sibylla, she swept out of the room. Decima shook hands with her more cordially, although she had not spoken half a dozen words during the interview, and Sibylla turned and put her hand into Lucy's.

"I hope we shall be intimate friends," she said. "I hope you will be our frequent guest at Verner's Pride."

"Thank you," replied Lucy. And perhaps the sudden flush on her face might have been less vivid had Lionel not been standing there.

He attended them to the carriage, taking up his hat as he passed through the vestibule; for really the confined space that did duty for hall in Dr. West's house did not deserve the name. Lady Verner sat on one side the carriage, Decima and Lucy on the seat opposite. Lionel stood a moment after handing them in.

"If you can tear yourself away from the house for half an hour, I wish you would take a drive with us," said Lady Verner, her tone of voice no more pleasant than her words. Try as she would, she could not help her jealous resentment against Sibylla from peeping out.

Lionel smiled, and took his seat by his mother, opposite to Lucy. He was resolved to foster no ill-feeling by his own conduct, but to do all that lay in his power to subdue it in Lady Verner. He had not taken leave of Sibylla; and it may have been this, the proof that he was about to return to her, which had excited the ire of my lady. She, his mother, nothing to him; Sibylla all in all. Sibylla stood at the window, and Lionel bent forward, nodded his adieu, and raised his hat.

The footman ascended to his place, and the carriage went on. All in silence for some minutes. A silence which Lady Verner suddenly broke.

"What have you been doing to your cheeks, Lucy? You look as if you had caught a fever."

Lucy laughed. "Do I, Lady Verner? I hope it is not a third cold coming on, or Jan will grumble that I take them on purpose--as he did the last lime."

She caught the eyes of Lionel riveted on her with a strangely perplexed expression. It did not tend to subdue the excitement of her cheeks.

Another moment, and Decima's cheeks appeared to have caught the infection. They had suddenly become one glowing crimson; a strange sight on her delicately pale face. What could have caused it? Surely not the quiet riding up to the carriage of a stately old gentleman who was passing, wearing a white frilled shirt and hessian boots. He looked as if he had come out of a picture-frame, as he sat there, his hat off and his white hair flowing, courteously, but not cordially, inquiring after the health of my Lady Verner.

"Pretty well, Sir Rufus. I have had a great deal of vexation to try me lately."

"As we all have, my dear lady. Vexation has formed a large portion of my life. I have been calling at Verner's Pride, Mr. Verner."

"Have you, Sir Rufus? I am sorry I was not at home."

"These fine spring days tempt me out. Miss Tempest, you are looking remarkably well. Good-morning, Lady Verner. Good-morning."

A bow to Lady Verner, a sweeping bow to the rest collectively, and Sir Rufus rode away at a trot, putting on his hat as he went. His groom trotted after him, touching his hat as he passed the carriage.

But not a word had he spoken to Decima Verner, not a look had he given her. The omission was unnoticed by the others; not by Decima. The crimson of her cheeks had faded to an ashy paleness, and she silently let fall her veil to hide it.

What secret understanding could there be between herself and Sir Rufus Hautley?

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XLI. A SPECIAL VISION TOUCHING MRS. PECKABY

Not until summer, when the days were long and the nights short, did the marriage of Lionel Verner take place. Lady Verner declined to be present at it: Decima and Lucy were. It was a grand ceremony, of course; that is, it would have been grand, but for an ignominious interruption which occurred to mar it. At the very moment they were at the altar, Lionel placing the ring on his bride's finger, and all around wrapt in breathless silence, in a transport of enthusiasm, the bride's-maids uncertain whether they must go off in hysterics or not, there tore into the church Master Dan Duff, in a state of extreme terror and ragged shirt sleeves, fighting his way against those who would have impeded him, and shouting out at the top of his voice: "Mother was took with the cholic, and she'd die right off if Mr. Jan didn't make haste to her." Upon which Jan, who had positively no more sense of what was due to society than Dan Duff himself had, went flying away there and then, muttering something about "those poisonous mushrooms." And so they were made man and wife; Lionel, in his heart of hearts, doubting if he did not best love Lucy Tempest.

A breakfast at Dr. West's: Miss Deborah and Miss Amilly not in the least knowing (as they said afterwards) how they comported themselves at it; and then Lionel and his bride departed. He was taking her to Paris, which Sibylla had never seen.

Leaving them to enjoy its attractions--and Sibylla, at any rate, would not fail to do so--we must give another word to that zealous missionary, Brother Jarrum.

The seed, scattered broadcast by Brother Jarrum, had had time to fructify. He had left the glowing promises of all that awaited them, did they decide to voyage out to New Jerusalem, to take root in the imaginations of his listeners, and absented himself for a time from Deerham. This may have been crafty policy on Brother Jarrum's part; or may have resulted from necessity. It was hardly likely that so talented and enlightened an apostle as Brother Jarrum should confine his labours to the limited sphere of Deerham: in all probability, they had to be put in requisition elsewhere. However it may have been, for several weeks towards the end of spring, Brother Jarrum was away from Deerham. Mr. Bitterworth, and one or two more influential people, of whom Lionel was one, had very strongly objected to Brother Jarrum's presence in it at all; and, again, this may have been the reason of his quitting it. However it was, he did quit it; though not without establishing a secret understanding with the more faithful of his converts. With the exception of these converts, Deerham thought he had left it for good; that it was, as they not at all politely expressed it, "shut of him." In this Deerham was mistaken.

On the very day of Lionel Verner's marriage, Brother Jarrum reappeared in the place. He took up his abode, as before, in Mrs. Peckaby's spare room. Peckaby, this time, held out against it. However welcome the four shillings rent, weekly, was from Brother Jarrum, Peckaby assumed a lordly indifference to it, and protested he'd rather starve, nor have pison like him in the house. Peckaby, however, possessed a wife, who, on occasion, wore, metaphorically speaking, his nether garments, and it was her will and pleasure to countenance the expected guest. Brother Jarrum, therefore, was received and welcomed.

He did not hold forth this time in Peckaby's shop. He did not in public urge the delights of New Jerusalem, or the expediency of departure for it. He kept himself quiet and retired, receiving visits in the privacy of his chamber. After dark, especially, friends would drop in; admitted without noise or bustle by Mrs. Peckaby; parties of ones, of twos, of threes, until there would be quite an assembly collected upstairs; why should not Brother Jarrum hold his levees as well as his betters?

That something unusual was in the wind, was very evident; some scheme, or project, which it appeared expedient to keep a secret. Had Peckaby been a little less fond Of the seductions of the Plough and Harrow, his suspicions must have been aroused. Unfortunately, Peckaby yielded unremittingly to that renowned inn's temptations, and spent every evening there, leaving full sway to his wife and Brother Jarrum.

About a month thus passed on, and Lionel Verner and his wife were expected home, when Deerham woke up one morning to a commotion. A flitting had taken place from it in the night. Brother Jarrum had departed, conveying with him a train of followers.

One of the first to hear of it was Jan Verner; and, curious to say, he heard it from Mrs. Baynton, the lady at Chalk Cottage. Jan, who, let him be called abroad in the night as he would, was always up with the sun, stood one morning in his surgery, between seven and eight o'clock, when he was surprised by the entrance of Mrs. Baynton--a little woman, with a meek, pinched face, and gray hair. Since Dr. West's departure, Jan had attended the sickly daughter, therefore he knew Mrs. Baynton, but he had never seen her abroad in his life. Her bonnet looked ten years old. Her daughters were named--at least, they were called--Flore and Kitty; Kitty being the sickly one. To see Mrs. Baynton arrive thus, Jan jumped to the conclusion that Kitty must be dying.

"Is she ill again?" he hastily asked, with his usual absence of ceremony, giving the lady no time to speak.

"She's gone," gasped Mrs. Baynton.

"Gone--dead?" asked Jan, with wondering eyes.

"She's gone off with the Mormons."

Jan stood upright against the counter, and stared at the old lady. He could not understand. "Who is gone off with the Mormons?" was his rejoinder.

"Kitty is. Oh, Mr. Jan, think of her sufferings! A journey like that before her! All the way to that dreadful place! I have heard that even strong women die on the road of the hardships."

Jan had stood with open mouth. "Is she mad?" he questioned.

"She has not been much better than mad since--since--But I don't wish to go into family troubles. Can you give me Dr. West's address? She might come back for him."

Now Jan had received positive commands from that wandering physician not to give his address to chance applicants, the inmates of Chalk Cottage having come in for a special interdiction. Therefore Jan could only decline.

"He is moving about from one place to another," said Jan. "To-day in Switzerland, to-morrow in France; the next day in the moon, for what we can tell. You can give me a letter, and I'll try and get it conveyed to him somehow."

Mrs. Baynton shook her head.

"It would be too late. I thought if I could telegraph to him, he might have got to Liverpool in time to stop Kitty. There's a large migration of Mormons to take place in a day or two, and they are collecting at Liverpool."

"Go and stop her yourself," said Jan sensibly.

"She'd not come back for me," replied Mrs. Baynton, in a depressed tone. "What with her delicate health, and what with her wilfulness, I have always had trouble with her. Dr. West was the only one--But I can't refer to those matters. Flore is broken-hearted. Poor Flore! she has never given me an hour's grief in her life. Kitty has given me little else. And now to go off with the Mormons!"

"Who has she gone with?"

"With the rest from Deerham. They have gone off in the night. That Brother Jarrum and a company of about five-and-twenty, they say."

Jan could scarcely keep from exploding into laughter. Part of Deerham gone off to join the Mormons! "Is it a fact?" cried he.

"It is a fact that they are gone," replied Mrs. Baynton. "She has been out several times in an evening to hear that Brother Jarrum, and had become infected with the Mormon doctrine. In spite of what I or Flore could say, she would go to listen to the man, and she grew to believe the foolish things he uttered. And you can't give me Dr. West's address?"

"No, I can't," replied Jan. "And I see no good that it would be to you, if I could. He could not get to Liverpool in time, from wherever he may be, if the flight is to take place in a day or two."

"Perhaps not," sighed Mrs. Baynton. "I was unwilling to come, but it seemed like a forlorn hope."

She let down her old crape veil as she went out at the door; and Jan, all curious for particulars, went abroad to pick up anything he could learn.

About fifteen had gone off, exclusive of children. Grind's lot, as it was called, meaning Grind, his wife, and their young ones; Davies had gone, Mary Green had gone, Nancy from Verner's Pride had gone, and sundry others whom it is not necessary to enumerate. It was said that Dinah Roy made preparations to go, but her heart failed her at the last. Some accounts ran that she did start, but was summarily brought up by the appearance of her husband, who went after her. At his sight she turned without a word, and walked home again, meekly submitting to the correction he saw fit to inflict. Jan did not believe this. His private opinion was, that had Dinah Roy started, her husband would have deemed it a red-letter day, and never have sought to bring her back more.

Last, but not least, Mrs. Peckaby had not gone. No: for Brother Jarrum had stolen a march upon her. What his motive in doing this might be was best known to himself. Of all the converts, none had been so eager for the emigration, so fondly anticipative of the promised delights, as Susan Peckaby; and she had made her own private arrangements to steal off secretly, leaving her unbelieving husband to his solitary fate. As it turned out, however, she was herself left; the happy company stole off, and abandoned her.

Brother Jarrum so contrived it, that the night fixed for the exodus was kept secret from Mrs. Peckaby. She did not know that he had even gone out of the house, until she got up in the morning and found him absent. Brother Jarrum's personal luggage was not of an extensive character. It was contained in a blue bag; and this bag was likewise missing. Not, even then, did a shadow of the cruel treachery played her darken the spirit of Mrs. Peckaby. Her faith in Brother Jarrum was of unlimited extent; she would as soon have thought of deceiving her own self, as that he could deceive. The rumour that the migration had taken place, the company off, awoke her from her happy security to a state of raving torture. Peckaby dodged out of her way, afraid. There is no knowing but Peckaby himself may have been the stumbling-block in the mind of Brother Jarrum. A man so dead against the Latter Day Saints as Peckaby had shown himself, would be a difficult customer to deal with. He might be capable of following them and upsetting the minds of all the Deerham converts, did his wife start with them for New Jerusalem.

All this information was gathered by Jan. Jan had heard nothing for many a day that so tickled his fancy. He bent his steps to Peckaby's, and went in. Jan, you know, was troubled neither with pride nor ceremony; nobody less so in all Deerham. Where inclination took him, there went Jan.

Peckaby, all black, with a bar of iron in his hand, a leather apron on, and a broad grin upon his countenance, was coming out of the door as Jan entered. The affair seemed to tickle Peckaby's fancy as much as it tickled Jan's. He touched his hair. "Please, sir, couldn't you give her a dose of jalap, or something comforting o' that sort, to bring her to?" asked he, pointing with his thumb indoors, as he stamped across the road to the forge.

Mrs. Peckaby had calmed down from the rampant state to one of prostration. She sat in her kitchen behind the shop, nursing her knees, and moaning. Mrs. Duff, who, by Jan's help, had survived the threatened death fro "cholic," and was herself again, stood near the sufferer, in company with one or two more cronies. All the particulars, Susan Peckaby's contemplated journey, with the deceitful trick played her, had got wind; and the Deerham ladies were in consequence flocking in.

"You didn't mean going, did you?" began Jan.

"Not mean going!" sobbed Susan Peckaby, rocking herself to and fro. "I did mean going, sir, and I'm not ashamed to own to it. If folks is in the luck to be offered a chance of paradise, I dun know many as ud say they wouldn't catch at it."

"Paradise, was it?" said Jan. "What was it chiefly to consist of?"

"Of everything," moaned Susan Peckaby. "There isn't a thing you could wish for under the sun, but what's to be had in plenty at New Jerusalem. Dinners and teas, and your own cows, and big houses and parlours, and gardens loaded with fruit, and garden stuff as decays for want o' cutting, and veils when you go out, and evening dances, like the grand folks here has, and new caps perpetual! And I have lost it! They be gone and have left me!--oh, o-o-o-h!"

"And husbands, besides; one for everybody!" spoke up a girl. "You forget that, Mrs. Peckaby."

"Husbands besides," acquiesced Susan Peckaby, aroused from her moaning. "Every woman's sure to be chose by a saint as soon as she gets out. There's not such a thing as a old maid there, and there needn't be no widders."

Mrs. Duff turned up bar nose, and turned it wrathfully on the girl who had spoken.

"If they call husbands their paradise, keep me away from 'em, say I. You girls be like young bears--all your troubles have got to come. You just try a husband, Bess Dawson; whether he's a saint, or whether he's a sinner, let him be of a cranky temper, thwarting you at every trick and turn, and you'll see what sort of a paradise marriage is! Don't you think I'm right, sir?"

Jan's mouth was extended from ear to ear, laughing.

"I never tried it," said he. "Were you to have been espoused by Brother Jarrum?" he asked, of Susan Peckaby.

"No, sir, I was not," she answered, in much anger. "I did not favour Brother Jarrum. I'd prefer to pick and choose when I got there. But I had a great amount of respect for Brother Jarrum, sir, which I'm proud to speak to. And I don't believe that he has served me this shameful trick of his own knowledge," she added, with emphasis. "I believe there has been some unfortinate mistake, and that when he finds I'm not among the company, he'll come back for me. I'd go after them, only that Peckaby's on the watch. I never see such a altered man as Peckaby; it had used to be as I could just turn him round my little finger, but he won't be turned now."

She finished up with a storm of sobs. Jan, in an Ecstasy of mirth yet, offered to send her some cordials from the surgery, by way of consolation; not, however, the precise one suggested by Peckaby. But cordials had no charm in that unhappy moment for Mrs. Peckaby's ear.

Jan departed. In quitting the door he encountered a stranger, who inquired if that was Peckaby's shop. Jan fancied the man looked something the cut of Brother Jarrum, and sent him in. His coat and boots were white with dust. Looking round on the assembled women when he reached the kitchen, the stranger asked which was Mrs. Peckaby. Mrs. Peckaby looked up, and signified that she was.

"I have a message from the saint and elder, Brother Jarrum," he mysteriously whispered in her ear. "It must be give to you in private."

Mrs. Peckaby, in a tremble of delight, led the stranger to a small shed in the yard, which she used for washing purposes, and called the back 'us. It was the most private place she could think of, in her fluster. The stranger, propping himself against a broken tub, proceeded, with some circumlocution and not remarkable perspicuity of speech, to deliver the message with which he was charged. It was to the effect that a vision had revealed to Brother Jarrum the startling fact, that Susan Peckaby was not to go out with the crowd at present on the wing. A higher destiny awaited her. She would be sent for in a different manner--in a more important form; sent for special, on a quadruped. That is to say, on a white donkey.[A]

[Footnote A: A fact.]

"On a white donkey?" echoed the trembling and joyful woman.

"On a white donkey," gravely repeated the brother--for that he was another brother of the community, there could be little doubt. "What the special honour intended for you may be, me and Brother Jarrum don't pertend to guess at. It's above us. May be you are fated to be chose by our great prophet hisself. Any how, it's something at the top of the tree."

"When shall I be sent for, sir?" eagerly asked Mrs. Peckaby.

"That ain't revealed neither. It may be next week--it mayn't be for a year; you must always be on the look-out. One of these days or nights, you'll see a white donkey a-standing at your door. It'll be the messenger for you from New Jerusalem. You mount him without a minute's loss of time, and come off."

But that Mrs. Peckaby's senses were exalted at that moment far above the level of ordinary mortals', it might have occurred to her to inquire whether the donkey would be endowed with the miraculous power of bearing her over the sea. No such common question presented itself. She asked another.

"Why couldn't Brother Jarrum have told me this hisself, sir? I have been a'most mad this morning, ever since I found as they had gone."

The brother--this brother--turned up the whites of his eyes. "When unknown things is revealed to us, and mysterious orders give, they never come to us a minute afore the time," he replied. "Not till Brother Jarrum was fixing the night of departure, did the vision come to him. It was commanded him that it should be kept from you till the rest were off, and then he were to send back a messenger to tell you--and many a mile I've come! Brother Jarrum and me has no doubt that it is meant as a trial of your faith."

Nothing could be more satisfactory to the mind of Mrs. Peckaby than this explanation. Had any mysterious vision appeared to herself, showing her that it was false, commanding her to disbelieve it, it could not have shaken her faith. If the white donkey arrived at her door that very night, she would be sure to mount him.

"Do you think it'll be very long, sir, that I shall have to wait?" she resumed, feverishly listening for the answer.

"My impression is that it'll be very short," was the reply. "And it's Brother Jarrum's also. Any way, you be on the look-out--always prepared. Have a best robe at hand continual, ready to clap on the instant the quadruped appears, and come right away to New Jerusalem."

In the openness of her heart, Mrs. Peckaby offered refreshment to the brother. The best her house afforded: which was not much. Peckaby should be condemned to go foodless for a week, rather than that he should depart fasting. The brother, however, declined: he appeared to be in a hurry to leave Deerham behind him.

"I'd not disclose this to anybody if I was you," was his parting salutation. "Leastways, not for a day or two. Let the ruck of 'em embark first at Liverpool. If it gets wind, some of them may be for turning crusty, because they are not favoured with special animals, too."

Had the brother recommended Susan Peckaby to fill the tub with water, and stand head downwards in it for a day or two, she was in the mood to obey him. Accordingly, when questioned by Mrs. Duff, and the other curious ones, what had been the business of the stranger, she made a great mystery over it, and declined to answer.

"It's good news, by the signs of your face," remarked Mrs. Duff.

"Good news!" rapturously repeated Susan Peckaby, "it's heaven. I say, Mother Duff, I want a new gownd: something of the very best. I'll pay for it by degrees. There ain't no time to be lost, neither; so I'll come down at once and choose it."

"What has happened?" was the wondering rejoinder of Mother Duff.

"Never you mind, just yet. I'll tell you about it afore the week's out."

And, accordingly, before the week was out, all Deerham was regaled with the news; full particulars. And Susan Peckaby, a robe of purple, of the stuff called lustre, laid up in state, to be donned when the occasion came, passed her time, night and day, at her door and windows, looking out for the white donkey that was to bear her in triumph to New Jerusalem.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XLII. A SURPRISE FOR MRS. TYNN

In the commodious dressing-room at Verner's Pride, appropriated to its new mistress, Mrs. Verner, stood the housekeeper, Tynn, lifting her hands and her eyes. You once saw the chamber of John Massingbird, in this same house, in a tolerable litter: but that was as nothing compared with the litter in this dressing-room, piles and piles of it, one heap by the side of another. Mary Tynn stood screwed against the wainscoting of the wall: she had got in, but to get out was another matter: there was not a free place where she could put her foot. Strictly speaking, perhaps, it could not be called litter, and Mrs. Verner and her French maid would have been alike indignant at hearing it so classed. Robes of rich and rare texture; silks standing on end with magnificence; dinner attire, than which nothing could be more exquisite; ball dresses in all sorts of gossamer fabrics; under-skirts, glistening with their soft lustre; morning costumes, pure and costly; shawls of Cashmere and other recherche stuffs, enough to stock a shop; mantles of every known make; bonnets that would send an English milliner crazy; veils charming to look upon; laces that might rival Lady Verner's embroideries, their price fabulous; handkerchiefs that surely never were made for use; dozens of delicately-tinted gloves, cased in ornamental boxes, costing as much as they did; every description of expensive chaussure; and trinkets, the drawn cheques for which must have caused Lionel Verner's sober bankers to stare. Tynn might well heave her hands and eyes in dismay. On the chairs, on the tables, on the drawers, on the floor, on every conceivable place and space they lay; a goodly mass of vanity, just unpacked from their cases.

Flitting about amidst them was a damsel of coquettish appearance, with a fair skin, light hair, and her nose a turn-up. Her gray gown was flounced to the waist, her small cap of lace, its pink strings flying, was lodged on the back of her head. It was Mademoiselle Benoite, Mrs. Verner's French maid, one she had picked up in Paris. Whatever other qualities the damsel might lack, she had enough of confidence. Not many hours yet in the house, and she was assuming more authority in it than her mistress did.

Mr. and Mrs. Verner had returned the night before, Mademoiselle Benoite and her packages making part of their train. A whole fourgon could not have been sufficient to convey these packages from the French capital to the frontier. Phoeby, the simple country maid whom Sibylla had taken to Paris with her, found her place a sinecure since the engagement of Mademoiselle Benoite. She stood now on the opposite side of the room to Tynn, humbly waiting Mademoiselle Benoite's imperious commands.

"Where on earth will you stow 'em away?" cried Tynn, in her wonder. "You'll want a length of rooms to do it in."

"Where I stow 'em away!" retorted Mademoiselle Benoite, in her fluent speech, but broken English. "I stow 'em where I please. Note you that, Madame Teen. Par example! The chateau is grand enough."

"What has its grandeur got to do with it?" was Mary Tynn's answer. She knew but little of French phrases.

"Now, then, what for you stand there, with your eyes staring and your hands idle?" demanded Mademoiselle Benoite sharply, turning her attack on Phoeby.

"If you'll tell me what to do, I'll do it," replied the girl. "I could help to put the things up, if you'd show me where to begin."

"I like to see you dare to put a finger on one of these things!" returned Mademoiselle Benoite. "You can confine your services to sewing, and to waiting upon me; but not you dare to interfere with my lady's toilette. Tiens, I am capable, I hope! I'd give up the best service to-morrow where I had not sole power! Go you down to the office, and order me a cup of chocolate, and wait you and bring it up to me. That maudite drogue, that coffee, this morning, has made me as thirsty as a panthere."

Phoeby, glancing across at Mrs. Tynn, turned somewhat hesitatingly to pick her way out of the room. The housekeeper, though not half understanding, contrived to make out that the morning coffee was not approved of. The French mademoiselle had breakfasted with her, and, in Mrs. Tynn's opinion, the coffee had been perfect, fit for the table of her betters.

"Is it the coffee that you are abusing?" asked she. "What was the matter with it?"

"Ciel! You ask what the matter with it!" returned Mademoiselle Benoite, in her rapid tongue. "It was everything the matter with it. It was all bad. It was drogue, I say; medicine. There!"

"Well, I'm sure!" resentfully returned the housekeeper. "Now, I happened to make that coffee myself this morning--Tynn, he's particular in his coffee, he is--and I put in--"

"I not care if you put in the whole canastre," vehemently interrupted Mademoiselle Benoite. "You English know not to make coffee. All the two years I lived in London with Madame la Duchesse, I never got one cup of coffee that was not enough to choke me. And they used pounds of it in the house, where they might have used ounces. Bah! You can make tea, I not say no; but you cannot make coffee. Now, then! I want a great number sheets of silk-paper."

"Silk-paper?" repeated Tynn, whom the item puzzled. "What's that?"

"You know not what silk-paper is!" angrily returned Mademoiselle Benoite. "Quelle ignorance!" she apostrophised, not caring whether she was understood or not. "Elle ne connait pas ce que c'est, papier-de-soie! I must have it, and a great deal of it, do you hear? It is as common as anything--silk-paper."

"Things common in France mayn't be common with us," retorted Mrs. Tynn. "What is it for?"

"It is for some of these articles. If I put them by without the paper-silk round them in the cartons, they'll not keep their colour."

"Perhaps you mean silver-paper," said Mary Tynn. "Tissue-paper, I have heard my Lady Verner call it. There's none in the house, Madmisel Bennot."

"Madmisel Bennot" stamped her foot. "A house without silk-paper in it! When you knew my lady was coming home!"

"I didn't know she'd bring--a host of things with her that she has brought," was the answering shaft lanced by Mrs. Tynn.

"Don't you see that I am waiting? Will you send out for some?"

"It's not to be had in Deerham," said Mrs. Tynn. "If it must be had, one of the men must go to Heartburg. Why won't the paper do that was over 'em before?"

"There not enough of that. And I choose to have fresh, I do."

"Well, you had better give your own orders about it," said Mary Tynn. "And then, if there's any mistake, it'll be nobody's fault, you know."

Mademoiselle Benoite did not on the instant reply. She had her hands full just then. In reaching over for a particular bonnet, she managed to turn a dozen or two on to the floor. Tynn watched the picking up process, and listened to the various ejaculations that accompanied it, in much grimness.

"What a sight of money those things must have cost!" cried she.

"What that matter?" returned the lady's-maid. "The purse of a milor Anglais can stand anything."

"What did she buy them for?" went on Tynn. "For what purpose?"

"Bon!" ejaculated Mademoiselle. "She buy them to wear. What else you suppose she buy them for?"

"Why! she would never wear out the half of them in all her whole life!" uttered Tynn, speaking the true sentiments of her heart. "She could not."

"Much you know of things, Madame Teen!" was the answer, delivered in undisguised contempt for Tynn's primitive ignorance. "They'll not last her six months."

"Six months!" shrieked Tynn. "She couldn't come to an end of them dresses in six months, if she wore three a day, and never put on a dress a second time!"

"She want to wear more than three different a day sometimes. And it not the mode now to put on a robe more than once," returned Mademoiselle Benoite carelessly.

Tynn could only open her mouth. "If they are to be put on but once, what becomes of 'em afterwards?" questioned she, when she could find breath to speak.

"Oh, they good for jupons--petticoats, you call it. Some may be worn a second time; they can be changed by other trimmings to look like new. And the rest will be good for me: Madame la Duchesse gave me a great deal. 'Tenez, ma fille,' she would say, 'regardez dans ma garde-robe, et prenez autant que vous voudrez.' She always spoke to me in French."

Tynn wished there had been no French invented, so far as her comprehension was concerned. While she stood, undecided what reply to make, wishing very much to express her decided opinion upon the extravagance she saw around her, yet deterred from it by remembering that Mrs. Verner was now her mistress, Phoeby entered with the chocolate. The girl put it down on the mantel-piece--there was no other place--and then made a sign to Mrs. Tynn that she wished to speak with her. They both left the room.

"Am I to be at the beck and call of that French madmizel?" she resentfully asked. "I was not engaged for that, Mrs. Tynn."

"It seems we are all to be at her beck and call, to hear her go on," was Mrs. Tynn's wrathful rejoinder. "Of course it can't be tolerated. We shall see in a day or two. Phoeby, girl, what could possess Mrs. Verner to buy all them cart-loads of finery? She must have spent the money like water."

"So she did," acquiesced Phoeby. "She did nothing all day long but drive about from one place to another and choose pretty things. You should see the china that's coming over!"

"I wonder Mr. Lionel let her," was the thoughtlessly-spoken remark of Tynn. And she tried, when too late, to cough it down.

"He helped her, I think," answered Phoeby. "I know he bought some of that beautiful jewellery for her himself, and brought it home. I saw him kiss her, through the doorway, as he clasped that pink necklace on her neck."

"Oh, well, I don't want to hear about that rubbish," tartly rejoined Tynn. "If you take to peep through doorways, girl, you won't suit Verner's Pride."

Phoeby did not like the rebuff. She turned one way, and Mrs. Tynn went off another.

In the breakfast-room below, in her charming French morning costume, tasty and elegant, sat Sibylla Verner. With French dresses, she seemed to be acquiring French habits. Late as the hour was, the breakfast remained on the table. Sibylla might have sent the things away an hour ago; but she kept a little chocolate in her cup, and toyed with it. She had never tasted chocolate for breakfast in all her life, previous to this visit to Paris: now she protested she could take nothing else. Possibly she may have caught the taste for it from Mademoiselle Benoite. Her husband sat opposite to her, his chair drawn from the table, and turned to face the room. A perfectly satisfied, happy expression pervaded his face; he appeared to be fully contented with his lot and with his bride. Just now he was laughing immoderately.

Perched upon the arm of a sofa, having there come to an anchor, his legs hanging down and swaying about in their favourite fashion, was Jan Verner. Jan had come in to pay them a visit and congratulate them on their return. That is speaking somewhat figuratively, however, for Jan possessed no notion of congratulating anybody. As Lady Verner sometimes resentfully said, Jan had no more social politeness in him than a bear. Upon entering, Sibylla asked him to take some breakfast. Breakfast! echoed Jan, did she call that breakfast? He thought it was their lunch--it was getting on for his dinner-time. Jan was giving Lionel a history of the moonlight flitting, and of Susan Peckaby's expected expedition to New Jerusalem on a white donkey.

"It ought to have been stopped," said Lionel, when his laughter had subsided. "They are going out to misery, and to nothing else, poor deluded creatures!"

"Who was to stop it?" asked Jan.

"Some one might have told them the truth. If this Brother Jarrum represented things in rose-coloured hues, could nobody open to their view the other side of the picture? I should have endeavoured to do it, had I been here. If they chose to risk the venture after that, it would have been their own fault."

"You'd have done no good," said Jan. "Once let 'em get the Mormon fever upon 'em, and it must run its course. It's like the gold fever; nothing will convince folks they are mistaken as to that, except the going out to Australia to the diggings. That will."

A faint tinge of brighter colour rose to Sibylla's cheeks at this allusion, and Lionel knit his brow. He would have avoided for ever any chain of thought that led his memory to Frederick Massingbird: he could not bear to think that his young bride had been another's before she was his. Jan, happily ignorant, continued.

"There's Susan Peckaby. She has got it in her head that she's going straight off to Paradise, once she is in the Salt Lake City. Well, now, Lionel, if you, and all the world to help you, set yourselves on to convince her that she's mistaken, you couldn't do it. They must go out and find the level of things for themselves--there's no help for it."

"Jan, it is not likely that Susan Peckaby really expects a white donkey to be sent for her!" cried Sibylla.

"She as fully expects the white donkey, as I expect that I shall go from here presently, and drop in on Poynton, on my way home," earnestly said Jan. "He has had a kick from a horse on his shin, and a nasty place it is," added Jan in a parenthesis. "Nothing on earth would convince Susan Peckaby that the donkey's a myth, or will be a myth; and she wastes all her time looking out for it. If you were opposite their place now, you'd see her head somewhere; poked out at the door, or peeping from the upstairs window."

"I wish I could get them all back again--those who have gone from here!" warmly spoke Lionel.

"I wish sometimes I had got four legs, that I might get over double ground, when patients are wanting me on all sides," returned Jan. "The one wish is just as possible as the other, Lionel. The lot sailed from Liverpool yesterday, in the ship American Star. And I'll be bound, what with the sea-sickness, and the other discomforts, they are wishing themselves out of it already! I say, Sibylla, what did you think of Paris?"

"Oh, Jan, it's enchanting! And I have brought the most charming things home. You can come upstairs and see them, if you like. Benoite is unpacking them."

"Well, I don't know," mused Jan. "I don't suppose they are what I should care to see. What are the things?"

"Dresses, and bonnets, and mantles, and lace, and coiffures," returned Sibylla. "I can't tell you half the beautiful things. One of my cache-peignes is of filigrane silver-work, with drops falling from it, real diamonds."

"What d'ye call a cache-peigne?" asked Jan.

"Don't you know? An ornament for the hair, that you put on to hide the comb behind. Combs are coming into fashion. Will you come up and see the things, Jan?"

"Not I! What do I care for lace and bonnets?" ungallantly answered Jan. "I didn't know but Lionel might have brought me some anatomical studies over. They'd be in my line."

Sibylla shrieked--a pretty little shriek of affectation. "Lionel, why do you let him say such things to me? He means amputated arms and legs."

"I'm sure I didn't," said Jan. "I meant models. They'd not let the other things pass the customs. Have you brought a dress a-piece for Deb and Amilly?"

"No," said Sibylla, looking up in some consternation. "I never thought about it."

"Won't they be disappointed, then! They have counted upon it, I can tell you. They can't afford to buy themselves much, you know; the doctor keeps them so short," added Jan.

"I would have brought them something, if I had thought of it; I would, indeed!" exclaimed Sibylla, in an accent of contrition. "Is it not a pity, Lionel?"

"I wish you had," replied Lionel. "Can you give them nothing of what you have brought?"

"Well--I--must--consider," hesitated Sibylla, who was essentially selfish. "The things are so beautiful, so expensive; they are scarcely suited to Deborah and Amilly."

"Why not?" questioned Jan.

"You have not a bit of sense, Jan," grumbled Sibylla. "Things chosen to suit me, won't suit them."

"Why not?" repeated Jan obstinately.

"There never was any one like you, Jan, for stupidity," was Sibylla's retort. "I am young and pretty, and a bride; and they are two faded old maids."

"Dress 'em up young, and they'll look young," answered Jan, with composure. "Give 'em a bit of pleasure for once, Sibylla."

"I'll see," impatiently answered Sibylla. "Jan, how came Nancy to go off with the Mormons? Tynn says she packed up her things in secret, and started."

"How came the rest to go?" was Jan's answer. "She caught the fever too, I suppose."

"What Nancy are you talking of?" demanded Lionel. "Not Nancy from here!"

"Oh, Lionel, yes! I forgot to tell you," said Sibylla. "She is gone indeed. Mrs. Tynn is so indignant. She says the girl must be a fool!"

"Little short of it," returned Lionel. "To give up a good home here for the Salt Lake! She will repent it."

"Let 'em all alone for that," nodded Jan, "I'd like to pay an hour's visit to 'em, when they have been a month in the place--if they ever get to it."

"Tynn says she remembers, when that Brother Jarrum was here in the spring, that Nancy made frequent excuses for going to Deerham in the evening," resumed Sibylla.

"She thinks it must have been to frequent those meetings in Peckaby's shop."

"I thought the man, Jarrum, had gone off, leaving the mischief to die away," observed Lionel.

"So did everybody else," said Jan. "He came back the day that you were married. Nancy's betters got lured into Peckaby's, as well as Nancy," he added. "That sickly daughter at Chalk Cottage, she's gone."

Lionel looked very much astonished.

"No!" he uttered.

"Fact!" said Jan. "The mother came to me the morning after the flitting, and said she had been seduced away. She wanted to telegraph to Dr. West--"

Jan stopped dead, remembering that Sibylla was present, as well as Lionel. He leaped off the sofa.

"Ah, we shall see them all back some day, if they can only contrive to elude the vigilance of the Mormons. I'm off, Lionel; old Poynton will think I am not coming to-day. Good-bye, Sibylla."

Jan hastened from the room. Lionel stood at the window, and watched him away. Sibylla glided up to her husband, nestling against him.

"Lionel, tell me. Jan never would, though I nearly teased his life out; and Deborah and Amilly persisted that they knew nothing. You tell me."

"Tell you what, my dearest?"

"After I came home in the winter, there were strange whispers about papa and that Chalk Cottage. People were mysterious over it, and I never could get a word of explanation. Jan was the worst; he was coolly tantalising, and it used to put me in a passion. What was the tale told?"

An involuntary darkening of Lionel's brow. He cleared it instantly, and looked down on his wife with a smile.

"I know of no tale worth telling you, Sibylla."

"But there was a tale told?"

"Jan--who, being in closer proximity to Dr. West than any one, may be supposed to know best of his private affairs--tells a tale of Dr. West's having set a chimney on fire at Chalk Cottage, thereby arousing the ire of its inmates."

"Don't you repeat such nonsense to me, Lionel; you are not Jan," she returned, in a half peevish tone. "I fear papa may have borrowed money from the ladies, and did not repay them," she added, her voice sinking to a whisper. "But I would not say it to any one but you. What do you think?"

"If my wife will allow me to tell her what I think, I should say that it is her duty--and mine now--not to seek to penetrate into any affairs belonging to Dr. West which he may wish to keep to himself. Is it not so, Sibylla mine?"

Sibylla smiled, and held up her face to be kissed. "Yes, you are right, Lionel."

Swayed by impulse, more than by anything else, she thought of her treasures upstairs, in the process of dis-interment from their cases by Benoite, and ran from him to inspect them. Lionel put on his hat, and strolled out of doors.

A thought came over him that he would go and pay a visit to his mother. He knew how exacting of attention from him she was, how jealous, so to speak, of Sibylla's having taken him from her. Lionel hoped by degrees to reduce the breach. Nothing should be wanting on his part to effect it; he trusted that nothing would be wanting on Sibylla's. He really wished to see his mother after his month's absence; and he knew she would be pleased at his going there on this, the first morning of his return. As he turned into the high road, he met the vicar of Deerham, the Reverend James Bourne.

They shook hands, and the conversation turned, not unnaturally, on the Mormon flight. As they were talking of it, Roy, the ex-bailiff, was observed crossing the opposite field.

"My brother tells me the report runs that Mrs. Roy contemplated being of the company, but was overtaken by her husband and brought back," remarked Lionel.

"How it may have been, about his bringing her back, or whether she actually started, I don't know," replied Mr. Bourne, who was a man with a large pale face and iron-gray hair. "That she intended to go, I have reason to believe."

He spoke the last words significantly, lowering his voice. Lionel looked at him.

"She paid me a mysterious visit at the vicarage the night before the start," continued the clergyman. "A very mysterious visit, indeed, taken in conjunction with her words. I was in my study, reading by candle-light, when somebody came tapping at the glass door, and stole in. It was Mrs. Roy. She was in a state of tremor, as I have heard it said she appeared the night the inquiry was held at Verner's Pride, touching the death of Rachel Frost. She spoke to me in ambiguous terms of a journey she was about to take--that she should probably be away for her whole life--and then she proceeded to speak of that night."

"The night of the inquiry?" echoed Lionel.

"The night of the inquiry--that is, the night of the accident," returned Mr. Bourne. "She said she wished to confide a secret to me, which she had not liked to touch upon before, but which she could not leave the place without confiding to some one responsible, who might use it in case of need. The secret she proceeded to tell me was--that it was Frederick Massingbird who had been quarrelling with Rachel that night by the Willow Pool. She could swear it to me, she said, if necessary."

"But--if that were true--why did she not proclaim it at the time?" asked Lionel, after a pause.

"It was all she said. And she would not be questioned. 'In case o' need, sir, in case anybody else should ever be brought up for it, tell 'em that Dinah Roy asserted to you with her last breath in Deerham, that Mr. Fred Massingbird was the one that was with Rachel.' Those were the words she used to me; I dotted them down after she left. As I tell you, she would not be questioned, and glided out again almost immediately."

"Was she wandering in her mind?"

"I think not. She spoke with an air of truth. When I heard of the flight of the converts the next morning, I could only conclude that Mrs. Roy had intended to be amongst them. But now, understand me, Mr. Verner, although I have told you this, I have not mentioned it to another living soul. Neither do I intend to do so. It can do no good to reap up the sad tale; whether Frederick Massingbird was or was not with Rachel that night; whether he was in any way guilty, or was purely innocent, it boots not to inquire now."

"It does not," warmly replied Lionel. "You have done well. Let us bury Mrs. Roy's story between us, and forget it, so far as we can."

They parted. Lionel took his way to Deerham Court, absorbed in thought. His own strong impression had been, that Mr. Fred Massingbird was the black sheep with regard to Rachel.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us