Chapter XVII: Bitter Almonds

From January to May is rather a lengthy period for a friendly visit, but although the hawthorns are flowering in Redcastle woods, and May is nearly ended, Joel Pilgrim is still at Lancaster Lodge. He has taken up his abode there as if he meant to stay for the rest of his life, Sibyl thinks. She has grown tired of waiting to hear of his approaching departure. He talks about going sometimes but never definitely. He must go back to India before very long, he says, and Sibyl languishes for him to fix the date. He goes up to London on business now and then, but returns in a few days, and makes himself more insufferable than ever.

Sibyl has never hated any one as she detests this man. His presence makes life a burden to her. The luxurious tranquillity of her existence, the reposeful days, the pleasures of wealth, are all poisoned by Mr. Pilgrim’s company, and yet he treats her with the utmost politeness, with deference even, and obviously admires her to enthusiasm. This admiration is the most painful part of the business.

‘If he only hated me as I hate him we might get on very well together,’ thinks Sibyl; ‘but, as it is, the creature gives me the sensation of living in a glass case with a boa constrictor.’

Mr. Pilgrim does not enter Redcastle society, though the _élite_ are quite ready to take him by the hand in the fulness of their love for Stephen Trenchard. Mr. Pilgrim is of a reserved temper, and prefers the tranquillity of Lancaster Lodge to the dwellings of strangers. He dines well, and drinks deeply after dinner, but the wine makes no more impression upon him than upon the decanters. Mr. Trenchard and he are often closeted together in business conference, but they never talk business before Sibyl. She has a vague idea that Mr. Pilgrim is a merchant, and that his house of business is in Calcutta, but she has no knowledge of his merchandise.

One day Mr. Trenchard complains to her, and with some bitterness, of her coolness to Joel Pilgrim.

‘I think I have been kind enough to you to deserve that you should be civil to any friend of mine, Sibyl,’ he says, ‘and yet you are positively rude to Mr. Pilgrim.’

‘I am not intentionally so, uncle Trenchard.’

‘Then your notion of good manners must be a very curious one. Nonsense, Sibyl! you can be winning enough, fascinating enough, when you please. Yet to this young man----’

‘Young!’ echoes Sibyl. ‘He must be five-and-thirty if he’s a day.’

‘No matter, child, he is a young man to me. For him, I say--the son of my oldest friend--you have nothing but cold looks and insulting speeches. It is very hard upon me, Sibyl.’

‘My dear uncle, I did not know you were so fond of this Mr. Pilgrim. I have fancied sometimes that his visit was rather a trouble to you.’

‘I have been worried about his affairs now and then. The man himself is very dear to me.’

‘Then I will try to be more polite to him, my dear uncle, for your sake.’

‘I want you to try something more than that Sibyl. You discouraged Sir Wilford Cardonnel’s attentions, for some inscrutable reason of your own--don’t deny it, girl, you must have discouraged him for I know he was over head and ears in love with you, and now he only makes a formal call once in six weeks. You might have had the first position in this part of the world if you had chosen, but you did not so choose. I saw you fling away your chance, and I did not reproach you. But now I come to something that touches me closer. Joel--the only son of my----’ he pauses with a curious smile--‘only friend, Joel Pilgrim, a man of strong brain and strong feelings, has fallen in love with you. Not a butterfly passion like Sir Wilford’s, mind you, to be blown aside by a breath of yours, but an enduring love. Now I have set my heart on seeing Joel and you man and wife.’

‘Why should you be so anxious to see me married, uncle Trenchard? You wanted me to marry Sir Wilford, and now you want me to marry this Mr. Pilgrim, with Indian blood in his veins.’

‘I wanted you to marry Sir Wilford because he could give you a great position. I want you to marry Joel because Joel is dear to me, and to see you two united would be to secure the happiness of the only two people I love.’

‘Don’t be angry with me, uncle Trenchard, but I had as soon you told me a serpent loved me as this Mr. Pilgrim.’

She feels that in speaking thus frankly she runs the risk of offending her uncle. For once in her life she is truthful. Her uncle is less angry than she had expected.

‘Nonsense, child!’ he says carelessly. ‘You are full of prejudice. You must learn to think better of my friend’s son.’

‘Is he the son of that friend whose death distressed you so much, uncle?’ asks Sibyl.

‘What death? When?’

‘One evening last summer, when you read the announcement in the paper.’

Mr. Trenchard looks at her curiously for a moment.

‘Yes, yes,’ he says, ‘that was the man.’

From this time Joel Pilgrim is more open in his attentions. He follows Sibyl like her shadow, rides with her, drives with her, walks in the garden, plays billiards with her, stands beside the piano when she plays or sings, reads the books she reads, associates himself with every hour of her day and every pursuit of her life. She knows not what it is to be alone. She takes the utmost pains, in a quiet way, to let Mr. Pilgrim see that his attentions are odious to her. She never favours him with an encouraging look or word, yet he pursues his course doggedly, like a man who comes from a land where women’s opinions and inclinations go for nothing.

People in Redcastle are not slow to talk of Mr. Pilgrim just as they talked of Sir Wilford Cardonnel. It is now evident to the mind of Redcastle that Sir Wilford has cooled and fallen off in his attentions, and that this Anglo-Indian, with his dark face and sleek hair--a real Hindoo, perhaps, some people suggest--is to be Miss Faunthorpe’s husband.

‘They wouldn’t go out riding together if it wasn’t a settled thing,’ says Mrs. Groshen to Mrs. Stormont, ‘and in _my_ day it was not considered correct for a young lady to go out alone with her engaged husband. But young ladies are changed.’

‘It’s money, I suppose,’ remarks Mrs. Stormont, thinking of the main question and not of details. ‘I have no doubt this Calcutta merchant is immensely rich, and Mr. Trenchard wishes to unite the two fortunes. I thought Sibyl looked very unhappy the last time I called. If she had been allowed to follow her own inclinations things would have taken a very different turn. I don’t think she ever had such a genuine liking for any one as for my Fred.’

‘She didn’t show it much in her manner,’ says Mrs. Groshen, smiling amiably.

‘She is not a girl to let every one read her feelings,’ retorts Mrs. Stormont. ‘What is that some one says in a play about wearing one’s heart outside one’s dress? She’s not that sort of girl. But I know she liked Fred. I sincerely pity her, poor child.’

The Stormonts see less of Mr. Trenchard and his niece after Joel Pilgrim’s advent. This strange guest of the old man’s, who will not go out visiting, even to the best people in Redcastle, seems a stumblingblock to social intercourse. Mr. Trenchard has also taken to refusing invitations, and Sibyl is dull and spiritless, and is even losing her beauty, Mrs. Groshen remarks, with a touch of satisfaction.

‘Those brilliant complexions go off so soon,’ she says. ‘I’ll tell you what it is, my dear, you may depend upon it that things are not quite right at Lancaster Lodge. There’s something underhanded going on there.’

‘But what?’ inquires Mrs. Stormont, bursting with curiosity, for the solemnity of her friend’s countenance implies a spirit that has penetrated Mr. Trenchard’s secrets.

‘I don’t know what,’ replies Mrs. Groshen, in the most disappointing way, ‘but I have an instinct that tells me there is something wrong.’

‘There is an atmosphere of gloom in the house, I admit. I feel sure that girl is being forced into a distasteful engagement.’

So gossips Redcastle, and not altogether without foundation, for the gloom deepens in Stephen Trenchard’s house, a gloom which is not to be enlivened by upholsterer’s work in the way of gilding and crimson tabouret, or by luxurious dinners served on porcelain and silver, or by fine raiment, or any of the things that Stephen Trenchard’s money or credit can buy.

If it were not for one wicked hope, Sibyl would assuredly fly the hateful abode that holds Joel Pilgrim, but that evil hope nerves her to remain.

Mr. Trenchard has been showing signs of rapid decay. The east winds of March and April have withered him. Dr. Mitsand talks less confidently of his patient’s fine constitution, and urges extreme care. He expatiates on the perils of our treacherous climate, and suggests that Mr. Trenchard shall spend next winter in the south of France.

Stephen Trenchard has grown nervous and fretful. He complains of sleepless nights, and his failing appetite is obvious to all his household.

Do not these signs betoken the beginning of the end?

‘I will stay,’ Sibyl says to herself, and she fancies there is something almost heroic in the resolution. ‘However loathsome that man makes himself, I will wait for the end. Perhaps his passion for me is only a pretence, after all--a trap to catch me. If he can prove me disobedient, or force me to run away, he may induce my uncle to alter his will, and leave _him_ everything. That may be his plan--a deep-laid plot to ruin me.’

Robert Faunthorpe dines with his rich brother-in-law about once in six months, a purely ceremonial visit, which is irksome to both men, though uncle Stephen is very civil, and uncle Robert enjoys the unwonted gratification of an excellent dinner and rare old wine. On the occasion of his last visit, near the end of April, Dr. Faunthorpe sees so marked a change in his brother-in-law that he goes home full of it, and tells Marion that he does not think her uncle is long for this world.

‘What a shame!’ says Marion, meaning Sibyl’s conduct, and not her uncle’s decline; ‘and here have I been estranged from him all the days of his life. It’s a hard thing to be plotted out of one’s expectations by a designing sister.’

‘My love, we have no reason to suppose that Mr. Trenchard will act unjustly in the matter of his will,’ remonstrates the mild little doctor.

‘Oh dear no, he has acted so very justly all along; never put Sibyl over my head, never dropped me after taking me up. Oh, of course not!’

To satire so subtle as this Dr. Faunthorpe finds no reply. He only sighs gently, and comforts himself with a pinch of snuff.

Sibyl spends more time at the parish doctor’s house just now than she has been used to do. It is the only place where Joel Pilgrim does not accompany her, and on this account it seems to her a haven of refuge. She is more amiable to Marion than of old, more friendly to Hester, more affectionate to Jenny. She feels happier--or at least more at peace--in the shabby old parlour, or the shabbier surgery, than anywhere else.

Jenny, enlightened by Alexis, knows her sister’s secret, and is therefore a person to be conciliated. She has sworn eternal fidelity, however, and has never given so much as a hint of the truth to Marion.

It is a comfort to Sibyl in this time of trouble to lay her weary head on Jenny’s substantial shoulder and talk hopefully of the days to come, when she and Alexis are to be reunited.

‘He threatened never to forgive me,’ says Sibyl, ‘but I don’t think he will keep his word.’

‘I’m sure he won’t if you do your hair the new way,’ answers Jenny, with conviction. ‘It makes you look lovely.’

On Sibyl’s next visit Marion is full of Mr. Trenchard’s declining health, and talks about his death as if it were a settled business, appointed to come off within a given time.

‘You will be grand, Sibyl! Shall you keep Lancaster Lodge and the carriages? If I were you I should let the house furnished and go on the Continent. Travelling is so delightful, and if you wanted a companion you might take one of your sisters.’

‘How can you talk so horribly, Marion?’ exclaims Sibyl. ‘Who says uncle Trenchard is going to die?’

‘Uncle Robert says he’s not going to live long, and I suppose that’s pretty much the same thing, only a nicer way of putting it. Uncle Robert ought to know, as a doctor. He generally knows about the parish patients. When he says they’re going to get better they don’t always do it, but when he says they’re going to die they always bear him out. He’s very lucky in _that_.’

‘You are the most dreadful girl, Marion.’

‘Well, you needn’t colour up and look pleased. That’s quite as bad as talking horribly. I’ve a franker disposition than you, and I say things straight out. I suppose he’ll leave Jenny and me something for mourning, out of respect to himself. I shall have a corded black silk, thick enough to stand alone. I always looked my best in black.’

‘Did uncle Robert think that uncle Stephen looked very ill when he dined with us the other day?’ asks Sibyl, thoughtfully.

‘Of course he did, or he wouldn’t have said it. We say what we mean at this end of the town. They’re more polite above Bar, and the more they say a thing the less they mean it. Mrs. Stormont told me she had taken a tremendous fancy to me when she thought I was uncle Stephen’s favourite.’

‘Don’t be so bitter, Marion.’

‘If you had to have your boots soled and heeled twice over by a clumsy country cobbler you’d be bitter,’ replies the injured Marion.

Finding this young lady’s temper inclining to acidity Sibyl slips away to Jenny’s favourite retreat--the surgery, where she finds the damsel seated on the hearth-rug busy at needlework, and performing wonders in the way of stocking-darning.

Sibyl flings herself into Dr. Faunthorpe’s easy chair in a despondent attitude, and sits there in moody silence, much to Jenny’s discomfiture.

‘You might say “how d’ye do?” to one,’ she remonstrates.

‘I beg your pardon, Jenny. It was mere absence of mind.’

‘Oh, that’s what you call absence of mind above Bar. Hereabouts we call it rudeness.’

‘Don’t be cross, Jenny. I’m very unhappy.’

‘I thought so,’ replies Jane, astutely, ‘you’ve come to see us so much oftener than you used to do, a sure sign that you are miserable. Are you unhappy about _him_?’

‘About whom?’

‘Oh, you know; my brother-in-law.’

‘Partly about him, and partly for other reasons. I am worried to death.’

‘But uncle Trenchard will die soon,’ says Jenny, cheerily, ‘and then all will come right. We shall go into mourning, and be great swells.’

‘Jenny, you really mustn’t talk so.’

‘What’s the harm?’

‘You mustn’t talk of poor uncle Stephen’s death as if it were an event we were all looking forward to.’

‘But we are,’ replies Jenny. ‘I’m sure Marion does nothing but talk about her mourning, and how she’ll have it made. I’m sick of hearing of corded silks and para----what’s its name?--and bugled fringe. I shan’t have bugled fringe; it catches in everything, and one can’t help scrunching the bugles. It’s too great a temptation.’

‘Uncle Trenchard is weak and ailing, but he may live for years.’

‘No, he mayn’t. Not if uncle Robert knows his business. He says he doesn’t think uncle Trenchard will last the summer out. And then we shall come in for anything he has left us. Won’t that be jolly! I’d rather he didn’t die till the end of the summer. The dusty roads would so spoil our mourning.’

‘Jane, you are a perfect ghoul.’

‘Oh, it’s all very well for you to be grand and indifferent. You’ve had the use of his money all along. We are looking forward to coming into a small slice of it. If I’m not made a ward in Chancery and my money all tied up we’ll have hot suppers every night.’

‘Do stop that senseless chatter. Where does uncle Robert keep the laudanum? I’ve a racking toothache.’

‘That’s why you look so miserable, I suppose. All the poisons are on that top shelf,’ and Jenny points to the topmost shelf in the darkest corner of the surgery, on which the quick eye of Alexis espied the blue bottle labelled prussic acid.

If Jenny were not so deeply engaged with the complicated dilapidations of her stocking she would clamber upon the doctor’s step-ladder and bring down the laudanum, but she goes on with her darning, and leaves Sibyl to get the bottle from its dusty repository.

Sibyl ascends the step-ladder, and descends again with a bottle in her hand, takes an empty phial from a drawer, and pours some of the fluid from the larger bottle into it, dexterously and quickly.

‘What a smell of bitter almonds!’ cries Jenny. ‘You’ve got the wrong bottle! That’s prussic acid!’

Quickly as she starts to her feet Sibyl has reascended the ladder, and replaced the blue bottle in its corner before she can reach her.

‘It’s all right, Jenny. I know laudanum from prussic acid. What a fidgety, officious child you are!’

‘I never knew laudanum to smell like bitter almonds,’ remonstrates Jenny, unconvinced. ‘Show me the bottle you put in your pocket.’

‘I shall do nothing of the kind. Go on with your work, and don’t be ridiculous.’

Jenny mounts the ladder, and examines the shelf that holds Dr. Faunthorpe’s small collection of poisons. The laudanum and the prussic acid are in bottles of the same colour, but the prussic acid is inverted in a gallipot. Each is in its usual place, but Jane’s quick eye perceives that while the laudanum bottle has its coating of dust undisturbed the dust has been rubbed off the prussic acid bottle.

‘I hope you are not doing anything dreadful, Sibyl,’ she remarks solemnly. ‘Tampering with poison is a dangerous thing.’

‘I have only taken a few drops of laudanum for my toothache.’

‘Well, I suppose I ought to believe you, as you’re my elder sister. But I can’t understand that smell of bitter almonds.’

‘All your fancy, I assure you, Jenny. And now let’s be good friends, and have a nice talk. Don’t try to mend those holes. I will buy you some new stockings the next time I go to Carmichael’s.’

‘You’re a dear!’ exclaims the volatile Jenny, forgetting all about that odour of bitter almonds.

The sisters seat themselves side by side in the window seat, and talk of the future, Sibyl’s future, which means reunion with Alexis. They will be rich, happy. Jenny is to live with them, and have a pony to ride.

‘And shall we have hot suppers?’ inquires Jenny.

‘What a vulgar child you are! Of course not. We shall dine at eight.’

‘That’s rather the same thing under another name,’ says Jenny.