Chapter VI: A Wedding Eve

The days pass with a frightful rapidity as it seems to Sibyl after that Tuesday night on which Joel Pilgrim came back from York with the marriage licence.

Stephen Trenchard is ailing, and keeps his room for the greater part of the time, but Dr. Mitsand, a most careful man in all critical cases, comes to Lancaster Lodge only once a day, and there is no hint of danger. The doctor’s manner has that pleasant vivacity which suits a trifling derangement of the patient’s system. He sits by the bedside and discourses upon local topics--the water company, sewage, and other agreeable subjects. On Thursday morning Sibyl lies in wait for him on the landing outside Mr. Trenchard’s room.

‘You do not think my uncle very ill, do you, Dr. Mitsand?’ she asks, with evident anxiety, a solicitude which the kindly old doctor thinks highly creditable to her, and which he remembers afterwards--to her disadvantage.

‘Certainly not, my dear Miss Faunthorpe,’ he replies, cheerily, ‘there is a little prostration; our dear patient is very feeble; that is only to be expected at his time of life. There is a wonderful reserve of vigour about his constitution, exceptional recuperative power; he is all muscle and sinew--no superfluous flesh; and this, taken in conjunction with his temperate habits, would lead one to anticipate a long life. I fear his mind has been a little troubled lately. Very foolish. A man in his position should worry himself about nothing. But no doubt wealth has its responsibilities.’

‘Then there is no reason for alarm?’

‘Not the slightest. If there were I should call in my friend Dr. Wilmot, of Krampston, for a consultation. Your uncle’s is not a life to be trifled with,’ adds Dr. Mitsand, solemnly, as if the life of a millionaire were a much bigger thing in creation than the existences of the vulgar herd. ‘Pray don’t be uneasy, my dear young lady. And now I look at you I fear you have been fretting. You are looking pale and fatigued. And this little hand,’ as he shakes hands with her, ‘is very feverish.’ He lays his finger on her wrist. ‘Good gracious, what a pulse! This won’t do, my dear Miss Faunthorpe. Mental disturbance has been going on here. I’ll send you a composing draught. You must keep yourself quiet for the next day or two, especially as you are so soon to start upon a long voyage. Your dear uncle has told me of the interesting event which is to take place next Saturday. Very sudden! On account of Mr. Pilgrim’s recall to Calcutta, yes,--yes, I understand, and a very quiet wedding, your uncle’s health not allowing--of course, of course. I shall take the liberty to be present in the church, in order to have the pleasure of congratulating you. I used to think our young friend Stormont was to be the happy man; and then there was some talk of your becoming mistress of the How; but you have managed to deceive us all, you see.’

‘Yes,’ falters Sibyl, with a sickly smile.

‘Don’t forget to take the composing draught. Good-bye.’

Distinctly does Dr. Mitsand remember the anxious look she turns upon him as he leaves her.

‘That’s not a happy marriage,’ he tells his daughters at luncheon, ‘it’s a case of hands, not hearts, my dears. All money, money, money! with these self-made men that question swallows up every other consideration.’

It is long since Redcastle has had such a delightful subject for gossip as this suddenly arranged wedding. Mrs. Chasubel has made a round of morning calls in order to tell her dear friends the startling news, and the marriage has been discussed from every point of view, the general idea being that Mr. Trenchard is a tyrant, and Sibyl the victim of his mercenary views. Mrs. Stormont’s particular idea--which she imparts in confidence to everybody--is that Sibyl was devotedly attached to her dear Frederick, and that it is to prevent her eloping with Fred that Mr. Trenchard has hurried on her espousals with Joel Pilgrim.

Inexorable time, like death, advances with measured tread. It is Friday, the eve of that ill-omened bridal, and Sibyl sits alone in her pretty morning-room--the room in which Joel found her on his return from York. She has made all her arrangements for her journey, packed her trunks, and labelled them for the steamer _Ganges_. Her own firm hand has written those labels--Mrs. Pilgrim, passenger to Calcutta, Joel looking on all the time with that ugly smile of his. One small leather bag is unlabelled, and in that Sibyl has put her little stock of trinkets, a small supply of under linen, and the marble-paper covered book containing the diary she kept at Mrs. Hazleton’s. She has kept no diary at Lancaster Lodge. She is alone now, exhausted by a long morning devoted to the task of packing. Marion has been with her, pretending to help, full of exclamations and congratulations, wonderment and curiosity.

‘It doesn’t seem so much of a match after all,’ Marion has observed candidly. ‘But I suppose this Mr. Pilgrim is awfully rich, and money is what you like, Sibyl. However, I must say if I had been you I should have tried to lead Sir Wilford Cardonnel on a little further. He did seem very much taken with you, and every one was surprised that it only ended in a flirtation. But men are such deceivers, as some one says in an old song--one foot on somewhere, and one on somewhere else, to one thing constant never.’

Sibyl has contrived to get rid of her sister a little before dinner-time. Marion is to be at the wedding, and is to officiate as sole bridesmaid, but there has not been time for her to get a new dress made, a fact which she does not omit to bewail with much lamentation.

‘It’s the worst apology for a wedding _I_ ever heard of,’ she remarks, ‘but I suppose you’ll recompense yourself for all this with balls and parties when you get to Calcutta.’

‘Yes,’ answers Sibyl, with a faint smile. ‘I shall enjoy myself immensely in Calcutta.’

It is seven o’clock, a lovely summer evening, and Sibyl sits by the disordered table, scattered with books and papers. She is very pale, and there is a look of apathy in her face and attitude, as if she had abandoned all effort and surrendered herself to fate.

She is startled from this blank listlessness by the announcement of Sir Wilford Cardonnel. No visit could surprise her more than this at such a time.

‘Sir Wilford told me to say that he wishes most particularly to see you alone, ma’am,’ says the servant, ‘he will not detain you long.’

‘You had better bring him up here. Mr. Pilgrim is in the drawing-room, I suppose?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘There is not much to attract him now in this white wretched face,’ thinks Sibyl, with a hurried look at the glass, which reflects the shadow of a vanished beauty.

Sir Wilford enters breathless, and evidently strongly agitated.

‘My dear Miss Faunthorpe,’ he says hurriedly, ‘I only came home from the north this afternoon, and heard of this intended marriage. I rode over at once. Can I be of any use? You honoured me with your confidence, and I told you that if ever the hour should come when you would need a friend, you might command me. Let me be your friend to-day. Let me stand between you and the tyranny that is being practised--let me save you from----’

‘A crime! You are all that is good and generous, Sir Wilford; and if I needed help I would ask for yours. But I need none.’

‘What do you mean? Your marriage is appointed for to-morrow morning. You, the wife of another man, are to be married to this Mr. Pilgrim.’

‘The marriage is appointed for to-morrow, but no such marriage will take place.’

‘How will you prevent it?’

‘In a very simple manner. The bride will be missing.’

‘You are going away?’

‘Yes. I am left with but one resource--flight! I shall be far away from Redcastle at eleven o’clock to-morrow.’

‘You are sure of being able to escape--sure that no coercion will be used?’

‘I think not. I have acted my part carefully during the last few days, and Mr. Pilgrim believes that I am resigned to the inevitable. My trunks are all packed for India. I have labelled them with my own hands.’

‘And you have made every arrangement for going away?’ asks Sir Wilford, anxiously. ‘You have friends to whom you can go?’

‘Yes, I have made all arrangements. I have decided where to go,’ replies Sibyl after a pause.

‘Pray trust me,’ pleads Sir Wilford, earnestly. ‘Think of me no longer as your lover, but your friend only. You must need friendly counsel. Do not take any step unadvisedly. You have played a desperate game for your uncle’s fortune, and, as it now turns out, a losing game. Would it not be wiser--better in every way, even at this last moment, to confess the truth to your uncle? He might forgive you. You might even retain your hold upon his affection.’

‘Impossible. You do not know my uncle Trenchard as I do. I thank you for your friendship, Sir Wilford, but this is a case in which advice is useless. There is but one course open to me. It is one that I ought to have taken long ago, perhaps--the only straight and womanly course. But I have stubbornly pursued my own plan, and the end is failure.’

‘If you would only confide in me--if you would only tell me where you are going--to whom?’

‘I am going to my husband.’

‘Then I can say no more. I feel that you are taking the right course. If--if----’ here Sir Wilford hesitates and blushes--‘if you should be in want of ready money for your travelling expenses, or for any emergency which you may not now foresee, pray suffer me to be your banker. I cashed a cheque at the bank as I came up the town,’ taking out a well-filled pocket-book. ‘Let me lend you fifty or a hundred in small notes.’

‘You are too good,’ exclaims Sibyl, touched by his thoughtfulness. ‘But I have money, and money’s worth which will serve me abundantly. I promise that if ever I am in desperate need of help--in such need as my husband and I have known in the past--I will apply to you. I will not be too proud to be a petitioner.’

‘Thanks for that promise. And now good-bye. I will not intrude upon you any longer; but if anything should happen within the next few hours--if there should be any attempt at constraint on the part of your uncle, or Mr. Pilgrim, send a messenger to me, and I will be at your side as soon as my horse can carry me; or I will stay in Redcastle to-night, if you like, at the “Coach and Horses,” so as to be nearer at hand in case I am wanted.’

‘Believe me, there is no occasion. If the worst comes I have but to declare my marriage.’

‘Then good-bye. I will not wish that we may meet under happier circumstances, for it will be happier for me not to see you. But I do most heartily wish you every happiness Providence can bestow.’

‘I am not very hopeful,’ answers Sibyl, with a sigh. ‘I begin to think that I flung away my chance of happiness when I tried to win fortune.’

And thus they part, Sir Wilford honestly anxious for the welfare of the woman he has loved, Sibyl touched by his devotion.

She goes down to the drawing-room presently, and finds Joel Pilgrim walking up and down in the twilight, with by no means a radiant brow.

‘You have had a visitor,’ he says, frowning upon her as she enters.

‘Only Sir Wilford Cardonnel, to offer me his congratulations,’ she answers, lightly.

‘Only your former admirer,’ sneers Joel. ‘I should hardly have thought he would have considered your marriage a subject for his congratulations.’

‘He is more generous than you give him credit for being.’

‘So it seems. I don’t, as a rule, credit my acquaintance with an unlimited amount of generosity.’

They dine together _tête-à-tête_, and Sibyl seems at her brightest throughout the meal, which is conducted with the strictest ceremony, and lasts a long time. Gladly would she have escaped the weariness of Mr. Pilgrim’s detested society for these last few hours, but she wishes to disarm suspicion by every means in her power, so as to leave herself free and unfettered at the last.

Her fascinations, which have stood her in such good stead with the rest of the world, seem to be wasted on Joel Pilgrim. He is gloomy and absent-minded all dinner-time, eats little, but drinks a good deal, and when Sibyl leaves him to return to the drawing-room he does not follow her with lover-like haste, but sits brooding over his wine for half an hour, and then goes straight upstairs to Stephen Trenchard’s room.

Mr. Trenchard is lying on the sofa, wrapped in his dressing-gown, with all the apparatus of invalidism around him, medicine bottles, hothouse grapes, soda water on the table by his side, a fire burning on the hearth, though it is nearly midsummer, for ill-health has made the Anglo-Indian inclined to chilliness and shiverings.

He looks up with a frown as Joel enters.

‘I thought you were never coming near me any more,’ he says fretfully.

‘I have been devoting myself to my intended bride. Such affection as she lavishes upon me deserves some return.’

‘Spare that poor child your sneers. She is much too good for you. Have you succeeded?’

‘Entirely. The bank consents to discount my bills for the required amount. I have told them that I am buying an estate in this neighbourhood, and have to complete the purchase to-morrow.’

‘Have they sent you the money?’ asks Mr. Trenchard, eagerly.

‘No. But I shall have it to-morrow morning. I have telegraphed them that the purchase is to be completed to-morrow at eleven o’clock, and so it is, only it is another kind of purchase--the purchase of a lovely wife--which is to be concluded at that hour. I shall have the money--ten notes for a thousand each--by the first post to-morrow morning.’

‘I’m glad of that.’

‘You are drawing the life-blood out of the concern, remember. There is very little hope of the business surviving such a withdrawal of capital.’

‘Then, my dear Joel, it must go. If it were a question of capital you might have some occasion to look unhappy about it, but as I am only absorbing your superfluous credit----’

‘Superfluous,’ echoes Joel, derisively.

‘Yes, my dear Joel, a man of your abilities should be able to extend his credit to an almost illimitable measure. The more he owes, the more reason his creditors have for upholding his credit. Debt is the most solid foundation a commercial house can be planted upon, for its pillars have their bases in other people’s pockets. You’re sure the bank will send the money?’

‘As sure as one can be of anything in this world.’

‘Remember, no money no marriage. And a telegram to my Calcutta lawyer to make short work of Pilgrim and Company.’

‘I understand. No quarter. Don’t be uneasy. Your demands shall be met and fully satisfied.’

* * * * *

It is midnight, and Lancaster Lodge is at rest. A light still burns, as it burns all night in Mr. Trenchard’s room, brighter than the ordinary lamps of a sick chamber, a light by which the invalid can read if he pleases; for Mr. Trenchard’s slumbers are often disturbed, and in every night he has some wakeful hours. Podmore, the butler, who sleeps in the room over his master’s, comes down at stated intervals to give the invalid his medicine. A secondary door near the head of the bed in Mr. Trenchard’s room opens on to a small landing on the back staircase leading to the servants’ quarters. By this servants’ staircase Podmore descends and ascends; through this door, almost hidden by the ample draperies of the tall Arabian bed, he enters and departs, noiseless as a ghost in the silent watches of the night.

Mr. Trenchard has protested more than once that he is quite well enough to look after his own medicine, and wakeful enough to take it at the appointed hours; but Dr. Mitsand has laid a stress upon the matter, and has insisted upon Podmore being responsible for the regular administration of those gentle tonics, not strong enough to hurt a baby and too mild to take effect upon the constitution of a healthy rabbit. Whereby Podmore’s nights are made a burden to him from the necessity of arousing himself at certain intervals, and the ticking of his big silver watch under his pillow is as the stroke of doom.

Sibyl spends the quiet hour between midnight and one o’clock in writing to her uncle Stephen. That which she dares not tell him she finds courage to write, knowing that her letter can only reach his hands after she has left Redcastle, in all probability for ever. If he is desperately angry, as she believes he will be, she will not see his anger. If it is in his nature to forgive her, severance may help to soften his feelings and touch his heart. After all it is just possible that the hold she has obtained upon his affections is too strong to be loosened, and that love may extinguish wrath. She would have been more ready to hope this before the coming of Joel Pilgrim, but she fancies that his presence under that roof has changed her uncle’s feelings towards her, that as Joel’s influence has increased hers has grown less.

In that letter she tells Stephen Trenchard the true story of her marriage--tells how from utter destitution, with starvation staring her in the face she fled to him for shelter and comfort. Of her hope of inheriting his fortune she says nothing, but her story in all other respects is fully and truthfully told.

‘When I first came beneath your roof,’ she writes, ‘I hoped to be
able some day to tell you of my marriage, to win your pity and
regard for my husband; but when I discovered your rooted hatred
of his name and race, when I found how deeply the old wound still
rankled, I lost courage and kept my secret, at the hazard of
seeming the worst of deceivers should you ever discover the truth.

‘The hour has come when I can keep my secret no longer. I go out
into the world to seek my husband, to share his home, however
humble or however wretched. If you can bring yourself to forgive
me, if you can believe that I have been grateful for all your
goodness, as Heaven knows I have been, if you can take the more
generous view of all past wrongs and extend your kindness to the
guiltless son of your enemy, it shall need but one word to bring
me back to you.

‘Your grateful and dutiful niece,
‘SIBYL SECRETAN.’

She feels a thrill of joy and pride as she signs her own rightful name for the first time since she left her husband. Even in this hour of uncertainty--the wide world, so cruel to unprotected poverty, all before her--she is glad that the mask has been thrown aside, and that she is her honest self once more.

She addresses the letter to Stephen Trenchard in a bold, firm hand, and places it conspicuously on the mantelpiece of her little sitting-room, where it must be seen by the first person who enters the room next morning.

‘I have played my game and lost!’ she thinks, as she lies down for a few hours, if possible to rest, sleep she knows to be impossible. ‘If I had won I wonder whether success would ever have recompensed me for all I have suffered from the bitterness of an acted lie--for the many hours in which I have pretended to be happy with a gnawing pain at my heart?’