Chapter IX: Sir Wilford Has His Own Way

When her husband is gone, and the full significance of that meeting and parting comes home to her, Sibyl feels as if all the hope and glory of her life were departed with him. She does not repent her decision. Were Alexis to offer her the same choice again she would decide in exactly the same manner. In her limited way of looking at the question there is no possibility of arriving at any other determination. It would seem to her utterly unreasonable, an act of absolute lunacy to throw away a fortune which is ready to drop into her lap, for which she has waited patiently, living her false life, suppressing the truer instincts of her heart and mind for nearly three years. She wonders that a man of the world can demand such a sacrifice, can cling to so foolish a prejudice as hereditary hatred, and even carry that passion so far as to hate his enemy’s money. To her mind the inheritance of Stephen Trenchard’s fortune by Alexis Secretan’s wife appears a wise and beneficent settlement of an old debt. No doubt her uncle Stephen was right, and that Philip Secretan was a spendthrift who deserved to be disinherited. His father’s fortune held over, quadrupled, increased tenfold perhaps, in Stephen’s prudent hands, would pass to Alexis, and justice would be done to the dead father through the living son.

Sibyl cannot believe that Alexis will be obdurate when the hour of her freedom comes with Stephen Trenchard’s death.

‘No, I will not despair,’ she says to herself, drying her tearful eyes, and looking at her white face in the glass over the low marble chimney-piece. ‘Cruel as he was to-night, he loves me too well to repudiate me by-and-bye when I am free to return to him. Poor fellow! How could he reject fortune if it were mine to give him; he, who has suffered the sharp stings of poverty, and who has to work for his daily bread? How could he turn his back upon the bright new life that would lie before us if my uncle’s money were mine--not life within the four walls of a handsome dungeon, like this house, but life wherever earth is loveliest--in Paris, in Italy, sailing in our yacht on the Mediterranean, free as birds, without a care or a thought except how to get the most pleasure out of our youth and wealth and freedom?’

Comforted by reflections like these, Sibyl calms herself, and prepares to continue her part of ministering angel to Stephen Trenchard. Illness makes the old man irritable, and the character is not the easiest in the world to perform.

She trembles at the thought of what would happen if her uncle and her husband were to meet--of what might have happened this very evening but for Mr. Trenchard’s most fortunate indisposition. What limit would there be to the old man’s fury if he were to discover that he had been cheated of his affection--that the niece he had loved and favoured was the wife of his enemy’s son? That revelation would have destroyed her hopes, beggared her of that golden chance which seems to her scarcely less than the actual possession of his fortune.

She has no easy part to play this evening when she goes up to her uncle’s room, and finds him sitting by his fire awake and watchful--the _Times_ lying uncut on the little table beside his capacious arm-chair.

‘What have you been doing all the evening, child?’ he asks testily. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to read me the City article--waiting upwards of an hour by that clock,’ he adds, with a glance at the gilded timepiece on the mantel shelf.

‘I’m so sorry, dear uncle. I thought you were asleep.’

‘You might have taken the trouble to come and ascertain the fact. I have not closed my eyes since Podmore brought me my beef tea. Who is this gentleman, pray, who has detained you so long?’

Sibyl is unprepared for this question. She had hoped her uncle would have known nothing about that untimely visitor.

‘A gentleman uncle?’

‘Yes. Podmore told me you had a gentleman with you. Some one who wanted to see me on particular business, and, being told that I was ill, asked to see you instead. What did the fellow want?’

‘He wanted you to subscribe to a fund for building a new church at Krampston, uncle,’ replies Sibyl, with a desperate plunge. Some lie she must needs invent, no matter what shape it took. ‘Some new sect, if I understood him rightly. I told him I did not think you would care to subscribe, but that he might call again, if he liked, when you are well.’

‘Humph! You might have given him a decided negative at once. There are churches enough in the world, and new sects enough, without my squandering money on the fools who want more. The fellow was with you a long time. Why couldn’t you get rid of him sooner?’

‘He insisted upon showing me plans, and a list of subscribers, and he told me a good deal about the church.’

‘You ought to know how to keep such fellows at a distance. Some swindler, no doubt. And he was with you nearly an hour, according to Podmore.’

‘Shall I read you the City article, uncle Trenchard?’ asks Sibyl, anxious to end this embarrassing discussion.

She seats herself a little way behind Mr. Trenchard’s chair, well in the shadow.

‘Yes, you can read, but come nearer the lamp, child; it makes me uncomfortable to know that you are straining your eyes in the dark there.’

Sibyl obeys reluctantly, fearing that the traces of agitation may still disfigure her countenance. Luckily, the lamp has a velvet shade which casts the light on the paper in her hand, and not on the face bending over it.

Mr. Trenchard scans her curiously, notwithstanding. His suspicions have been aroused by that evening visitor--a handsome young man, according to Podmore, a lover, perhaps, and that story of the Krampston Church all a fable. Mr. Trenchard has employed too much fiction in the course of his own career to be easily deluded by a figment of the female brain.

He says nothing, however, content to suspect, and to keep his suspicions to himself for the present.

He languishes for some days more under the burden of what Dr. Mitsand calls a slight bronchial attack, and in about a week is able to come downstairs again, and seems almost as active and alert as ever, Sibyl thinks, wondering whether there is really any foundation for that idea about his ‘breaking up.’

Dr. Mitsand is Mr. Trenchard’s medical attendant. It is not to be supposed that the precious life of a millionaire could be trusted to poor little Dr. Faunthorpe, who has the care of the parish, and goes his rounds in a positively disreputable pony carriage. Dr. Mitsand’s neat single brougham and fine pair of bay cobs are a standing evidence of his respectability and his skill. If he were not a clever doctor how could he afford those cobs?

‘Wonderful constitution, your uncle’s, Miss Faunthorpe,’ says Dr. Mitsand, cheerily, on the occasion of his last professional visit. ‘Quite set up again, you see, complexion clearer, eye brighter, liver in better order. I congratulate you upon having an uncle who ought to live as long as Lyndhurst or Brougham.’

Sibyl tries to look glad, but her heart sinks at the thought that this fine constitution of her uncle’s places the hope of reunion with Alexis very far off.

‘What a miserable situation mine must be when such horrid thoughts are forced upon me!’ she reflects. ‘I almost wish I were Marion, dawdling away life in that old house at the bottom of the town, without a care.’

* * * * *

Sibyl’s cares are rendered heavier just at this time by the marked attentions of Sir Wilford Cardonnel, attentions which, however delightful they might be to her vanity in the beginning of things, have now become hateful to her, the more so as her uncle will not allow her any way of escape from this entanglement. She sees before her the inevitable end in a proposal from Sir Wilford, and her rejection of it, which act of seeming idiocy will doubtless provoke her uncle’s anger, perhaps forfeit his good graces for ever; and then all her patience, all her pretty little flatteries and gentle ministerings to an irritable old man will have been wasted. She will have grieved and offended her husband, perhaps alienated his affections--for nothing. She will be bankrupt both ways. These possibilities occur to her mind sometimes. Difficulties crowd upon her and hem her in on every side. The dread of Sir Wilford taking that decisive step, which he evidently intends to take sooner or later, is always before her; and she has another ever-present fear in the thought that Alexis may reappear at any moment, and reveal himself to Stephen Trenchard. There are hours of her life in which she feels sorely tempted to run away from wealth as she ran away from poverty; and it is possible that if she had known where to find her husband she would have acted upon this impulse. But he has vanished out of her existence. In the fear and confusion of that brief visit of his she did not even ask his place of abode or mode of life.

Prudence and that deep-rooted worship of wealth which is sometimes engendered by a long apprenticeship to poverty keeps Sibyl constant to the rack of her daily difficulties, despite these occasional longings for escape. She contrives by a certain distance of manner, which is in no wise ungracious, to defer Sir Wilford’s declaration of his passion. The bluff and genial baronet is as shy as a girl in the presence of the woman he loves, and so long as he can enjoy Sibyl’s society, is in no hurry to precipitate matters. Small as are the tokens of favour which she has bestowed upon him, Sir Wilford has no apprehension of being refused by her when it shall please him to ask the fateful question. He is too good a match for the possibility of a refusal. It does not enter into his notion of possibilities that he, Sir Wilford Cardonnel, of The How, could be rejected by any woman out of the peerage. He is kept at a distance by Sibyl’s coldness, but in no wise disheartened.

‘I’m in no hurry, you know,’ he says to himself. ‘I like to know something about a woman before I ask her to be my wife. I should like to make sure she cared a little about me, in a quiet way. So many women have thrown themselves at my head, that I like this one all the better for not going so fast. More likely to be a good stayer, I should think. I don’t want to win with a rush. I’d rather take my time and come in quietly.’ Thus muses Sir Wilford in the solitude of his study--a room chiefly devoted to treatises on the turf and farriery, whips, single sticks, gloves, favourite bits and bridles, a small menagerie of stuffed dogs, from Sebastian, the favourite old hound, defunct at a ripe old age, blind of one eye, and short of one ear, to Mite, the smallest terrier ever seen in the West Riding, a minute white animal, with pointed pink paws and a strong likeness to a rat.

‘I ought to see more of her,’ thinks Sir Wilford. ‘It’s no use asking her and the old party to dinner, or dining with them. I shall never make the running that way. I feel as strange with her when I haven’t seen her for a week or two as if I’d only just been introduced to her. It’s like beginning our acquaintance over again. I must make Phœbe ask them here to stay. That’ll be the best plan. A week in the same house with her will show me what kind of girl she is, better than a twelvemonth’s morning calling and dining.’

And having made up his mind, Sir Wilford is not slow to act upon his decision.

‘Hi, Jess, old lady,’ he calls to his favourite, a splendid red setter, graceful and ladylike enough in her habits to be admitted as a house dog, though not without protest from Phœbe. Jess vanquishes Miss Cardonnel’s objections by pretending to adore her, is as artful as a court favourite, and has as many perquisites.

Sir Wilford goes straight to the morning-room, where his two sisters employ themselves industriously between breakfast and luncheon, writing innumerable letters, examining the housekeeper’s weekly accounts, the head gardener’s book, and other household volumes, working point lace, practising classical sonatas which reduce them to the verge of lunacy, and making winter clothing for their various pensioners.

Christmas is just over, and the Christmas gaieties and benevolences done with. It is the beginning of the New Year--fine healthy weather--the ground not too hard for horses or hounds, and Sir Wilford in good humour with the arrangement of things.

‘Well, Phœbe, what people are you going to ask for Tilberry steeplechase?’ he inquires, as Miss Cardonnel looks up from her desk, where she is just declaring herself to remain her dearest Cecilia’s ever affectionate friend--Cecilia being the fifth dearest friend she has addressed this morning.

Tilberry steeplechase is an important fixture in this part of the world. It is a race at which gentlemen jockeys disport themselves. It comes in the winter, when outdoor amusements are rare. Altogether Tilberry steeplechase is a benefaction.

‘I’ve written the last of my invitations this morning,’ replies Phœbe, who is somewhat inclined to forget that she is the prime minister and not the king, and to commit herself to important measures without the preliminary formula of consultation with her sovereign. ‘I have asked General and Mrs. MacTower and Belinda--the eldest, you know;--and I thought we ought to be civil to the Vicar of Redcastle for once in a way, so I’ve asked Mr. and Mrs. Chasubel and the son. He won’t make much difference, and you can put him in the barracks.’

The barracks is a range of small bedrooms over the offices, devoted to bachelor visitors of indistinction.

‘Very well; I’ve no objection to the Chasubels. Who else?’

‘The Radnors, and the Vernons, and Cecilia Hawtree.’

‘Too many women,’ says Sir Wilford.

‘Cecilia is my particular friend,’ remarks Miss Cardonnel, with dignity.

‘Oh, well, let her come.’

‘She is coming the day after to-morrow,’ observes Miss Cardonnel. ‘I have just written to say I shall send the omnibus to meet her.’

‘What the dooce can one young woman want with a family bus, built to carry ten?’ exclaims Sir Wilford.

‘She will have her maid,’ replies Miss Cardonnel, ‘and her portmanteaus.’

‘Ah, boxes enough to load a goods train, I dare say,’ mutters Sir Wilford. ‘Well, that’s all your list, I suppose?’

‘Yes, Wilford.’

‘Then I’ll give you mine.’

‘Do you want to ask any one else?’ exclaims Miss Cardonnel, with an injured air. ‘I fancied I had thought of every one you would have cared about asking.’

‘You’ve thought of a good many I don’t care about.’

‘But, my dear Wilford, I don’t see how I can possibly ask any more. I’ve filled all the best bedrooms.’

‘Then you must empty some of them. I want you to ask Colonel and Mrs. Stormont, and that son of theirs on the gray.’

‘But, Wilford, Mrs. Stormont is such a horrid old person--so pushing.’

‘Never mind that. We often have horrid old persons.’

‘And the son,--I don’t know what he’s like off that gray, but he’s utterly odious on it.’

‘Stupid young cad, rather, but good fun. Be sure you tell him to bring the gray.’

‘Why should we have the Stormonts to stay with us, Wilford?’ demands Lavinia, the younger sister, looking up from an easel, upon which she has been copying a drawing-master’s landscape, and fondly deluding herself with the idea that she can paint. ‘It’s all very well to ask them to dinner once in a way, or to a garden party, but why have them in the house?’

‘Simply because I wish it, Vinnie. I don’t often indulge in whims. Say that this is one, if you like.’

‘Oh, of course, if you really wish it. But I think it’s rather a dangerous precedent,’ replies Phœbe. ‘All the Redcastle people will be expecting to be asked to stay here.’

‘The butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers. Well, they can go down to their graves in a state of expectation,’ says Sir Wilford, ‘and now Phœbe, I want you to write a particularly nice letter--cordial, and all that kind of thing, you know--to Miss Faunthorpe, asking her and Mr. Trenchard over for the race week.’

‘I ought to have known what was coming,’ exclaims Phœbe.

‘Well, naturally, I shouldn’t be civil to the Stormonts without a motive. Mrs. Stormont introduced me to Miss Faunthorpe, you see, and I shouldn’t like the old lady to think I’d make a cat’s-paw of her.’

Phœbe is inwardly rebellious, but too wise to revolt outwardly. She has seen the sun set on her twenty-ninth birthday, and has been mistress of the How, the sole and sovereign domestic power, for the last ten years. It will be a hard thing, to lay down her sceptre, to retire from that lordly dwelling-place, and to become Miss Cardonnel of nowhere in particular, a young lady whose non-success in the matrimonial line sympathizing friends will lament over. And Phœbe feels that the day when her sceptre must be so resigned is not very far off, now that Wilford, who has his father’s obstinate temper, poor dear fellow, has taken a ridiculous fancy to this Miss Faunthorpe, a mere nobody, with nothing but a pretty face and a rich uncle to recommend her to notice.

Sir Wilford waits while his sister writes the letter of invitation, which she is obliged to make much warmer in tone than inclination would prompt; the baronet looking over her shoulder all the while.

When the letter is in its envelope he surprises Phœbe by taking it from her and putting it in his pocket.

‘I am going over to Redcastle this afternoon,’ he says, ‘so I can deliver the letter and bring you back an answer. I should like you to give Miss Faunthorpe the tapestry room.’

‘My dear Wilford, what are you thinking of? I have ever so many married couples coming. I must put her in one of the small rooms in the Kneller gallery.’

‘Oh, very well,’ replies Sir Wilford, ‘she’ll have the pick of the rooms, perhaps, some of these days.--Hi, Jess, old woman.’

With which awful threat Sir Wilford withdraws, leaving his sisters free to discuss the calamity that lowers over their house.