Her form had all the softness of her sex,
Her face had all the sweetness of the devil
When he put on the cherub to perplex
Eve, and to pave, Heaven knows how, the road to evil.--BYRON.
She had been the penniless orphan daughter of a noble, but impoverished Scotch family. She had been left, by the death of her parents, dependent upon harsh and cruel relatives. She had been given in marriage, at the age of fifteen, to a wealthy old gentleman, whose years quadrupled hers. But he had used her very kindly, and she had performed her simple duty of love and obedience as well as she knew how to do it. After two years of tranquil domestic happiness, the old man died, leaving her a young widow seventeen years of age, sole guardian to their infant son, between whom and herself he had divided his whole estate.
After the death of her old husband, the youthful widow lived in strict seclusion for nearly two years, devoting herself exclusively to the care of her child.
But in the third year the health of the little Cromartie required a change, and his mother, by her physician's advice, took the boy to Scarborough. That fashionable watering place was then at the height of its season, and filled with visitors.
Thus it was impossible but that the wealthy young widow should attract much attention. She was inevitably drawn into the maelstrom of society, into which she rushed with all the impetuosity of a novice or an inexperienced recluse, to which all the scenes of the gay world were as delightful as they were novel.
She had many suitors for her hand; but none found favor in her eyes but Mr. Horace Blondelle, a very handsome and attractive young gentleman, whose principal passport into good society seemed to be his distant relationship to the Duke of Marchmonte. How he lived no one knew. Where he lived everyone might see, for he always occupied the best suits of apartments in the best hotel of any town or city in which he might be for the time sojourning.
We, every one of us know, or know of, Mr. Horace Blondelle. There are scores of him scattered about the great hotels of all the large cities in Europe and America. But the simplest maiden or the silliest widow in society, is seldom taken in by him.
There, however, at Scarborough, was an inexperienced poor little creature from the Highlands, who had never in her life seen any one more attractive than the red-headed heroes of her native hills, and who, having aurific tresses of her own, was particularly prejudiced against that splendid hue, and fatally ensnared by the raven ringlets and dark eyes of this professional lady-killer.
And thus it followed of course, that this beast of prey devoured the pretty little widow and all her substance with less hesitation or remorse than a cobra might have felt in swallowing a canary bird.
So complete was her hallucination, so perfect her trust in him, that she took no precaution of having any part of her property settled upon herself; and, in marrying this man she gave him an absolute control over her own fortune, and a dangerous, if limited, influence over that of her infant son.
This very imprudent marriage was followed by a few months of delusive happiness on the part of the bride; for the little fair beauty adored her dark-haired Apollo, who graciously accepted her adoration.
But then came satiety and weariness and inconstancy on the part of the husband, who soon commenced the pleasing pastime of breaking the wife's heart.
Yet still, for some little time longer, she, with a deplorable fatuity, believed in and loved him. After he had squandered her own fortune on gaming-tables and race-courses, he wished to get possession of the fortune of her son. To do this he persuaded her to sell out certain stock and entrust him with the proceeds, to be invested, as he convinced her, in railway shares in America, that would pay at least two hundred per cent. dividends, and in a few months double that money.
Acting as her son's guardian and trustee, acting also, as she thought, in his best interests, the deluded mother did as her husband directed. She sold out the stocks, and confided the proceeds to him.
Then it was that they made the voyage to America, ostensibly to purchase the railway shares in question. His real motive in bringing her to this country was, doubtless, to take her as far as possible from her native place and her old acquaintances, so as to prosecute the more safely and effectually his fraudulent designs.
How they had arrived at Norfolk and taken rooms at the Anchor, and how he had robbed and deserted her there, has already been told.
Sybil Berners listened to this sad and revolting story of woman's weakness and man's criminality with mingled emotions of pity and indignation.
"Believe me," she said, tenderly taking the hand of the injured wife, "I feel the deepest sympathy with your misfortunes. I will do everything in my power to comfort and help you--not in words only, but in deeds; and I only grieve, dear, that I cannot give you back your husband in his honor and integrity as you once regarded him," added this loving and confiding wife, to whom no misery seemed so great as that caused by the default and desertion of a husband.
"Oh, do not name him to me!" burst forth in pain from the lips of Rosa Blondelle; "oh, I hope, as long as I may live in this world, never to be wounded by the sound of his base name, or blasted with the sight of his false face again."
Sybil Berners shrank in dismay from the excited woman, who continued, vehemently:
"Do you wonder at this? I tell you, madam, it is possible for love to die a sudden and violent death, for mine has done so within the last three days."
"I am deeply grieved to hear you say so, for it proves how much you must have suffered--how much more than even I had imagined. But try to take a little comfort. I and my own dear husband will be your friends, will be a sister and a brother to you," said Sybil earnestly, with all the impulsive, unlimited generosity of her youth and her race, awakened by her sympathy with the sorrows of this young stranger.
"Oh, madam, you--" began Rosa, but her voice broke down in sobs.
"Take comfort," continued Sybil, laying her little brown hand on that fair golden head, "take comfort. Think, you have not lost all. You have your child left."
"Ah, my child!" cried Rosa, in a tone like a shriek of anguish, "my child, my wronged and ruined babe! The sight of him is a sword through my bosom! my child that he robbed and made me an accomplice in robbing--it is maddening to think of it."
"Then do not think of it," said Sybil, gently, and still caressing the bowed head; "think of anything else--think of what I am going to say to you. Listen. While you remain in this crowded and noisy hotel, you can never recover calmness enough to act with any good effect. So I wish you to come home with me and my dear husband to our quiet country house, and be our cherished guest until you can communicate with your friends, or come to some satisfactory decision concerning your future course."
While Sybil spoke these words, the young stranger raised her head and looked up with gradually dilating eyes.
"Come, now; what say you? Will you be our dear and welcome guest this autumn?" smiled Sybil.
"Oh, do you mean this? can you mean it?" exclaimed Rosa, in something like an ecstasy of surprise and gratitude.
"In our secluded country house, with sympathizing friends around you," continued Sybil, still caressing Rosa's little golden-haired head, and speaking all the more calmly because of Rosa's excitement, "you will have repose and leisure to collect your thoughts and to write to your friends in the old country, and to wait without hurry or anxiety to hear from them."
"Oh, angels in Heaven, do you hear what this angel on earth is saying to me! Oh, was ever such divine goodness seen under the sun before! Oh, dear lady, you amaze, you confound me with your heavenly goodness!" exclaimed the young stranger, in strong emotion.
Sybil took her hand, and still all the more gently for the increasing agitation of Rosa, she continued:
"We are daughters of the Divine Father, sisters in one suffering humanity, and so we should care for each other. At present you are suffering, and I have some power to comfort you. In the future our positions may be reversed, and I may be the sufferer and you the comforter. Who can tell?"
"O, dear lady, Heaven forbid that great heart of yours should ever be called to suffer, or that you should ever need such poor help as mine. But this I know: so penetrated am I by your goodness, that, if ever you should lose your present happiness and my death would restore it, I would die to give it back to you," fervently exclaimed the stranger.
And for the moment she felt as she had spoken, for she was most profoundly moved by a magnanimity she had never seen equalled.
Sybil blushed like a child, and found nothing to say in reply to this excessive praise. She only left her hand in the clasp of the stranger, who covered it with kisses, and then continued:
"When I first saw your little white card and the delicate tracery of your name and your kind words, I seemed to know it was a friend's writing. And when I first saw your sweet face and heard your tender tones, both so full of heavenly pity, I felt that the good Lord had not forsaken me, for He had sent one of his holy angels to visit me. Ah, lady, if you had only come and looked at me so and spoken to me so, and then passed out and away forever, still, still, that look and that tone would have remained with me, a comfort and a blessing for all time. But now--but now to hold out your hands to lead me to a place in your own home, by your own side--oh, it is too much! too much!"
And tears of many mingled emotions flowed down the speaker's cheeks.
"There, there!" said Sybil, utterly confused by this excessive, but most sincere adulation, yet still caressing the stranger's fair head, "there, dear, dry your eyes, and tell me if you can be ready to leave this place with us to-morrow morning."
Again the foreign lady seized and kissed the hands of her new friend, exclaiming fervently:
"Yes dear lady, yes! I am too deeply touched by your heavenly goodness not to be anxious to profit by it as soon as possible."
"Then I will leave you to your preparations for the journey," said Sybil, rising.
Rosa also stood up.
"There will be much to be done in a short time. Will you let me send my maid to help yours?" inquired Sybil, with a hesitating smile.
"Thanks, dear madam. I shall be much obliged," replied Rosa, with a bow.
"And there is yet another request I have to make," added Mrs. Berners, pausing with her hand upon the latch of the door--"Will you kindly meet us at breakfast at eight o'clock to-morrow morning in our private sitting-room, so that I may make you acquainted with my husband before we all start on our journey together?"
"With pleasure, dear lady! It is your will to load me with benefits, and you must be gratified," replied Rosa, with a faint smile.
"Then I will come myself and fetch you, a little before the hour," added Sybil, playfully throwing a kiss as she darted through the door.
When she re-entered her own apartment, she found her husband impatiently pacing up and down the floor.
"How very long you have been, my darling Sybil," he said, with all the fondness of a newly-wedded lover, as he went to meet her.
"Oh, I am so glad you thought it long!" she answered mischievously, as she took his hand and pulled him to the big easy-chair and pushed him down into it.
"Sit down there, and listen to me," she said, with a pretty little air of authority. Then she drew an ottoman to his side and sunk down upon it, and leaned her arms upon his knees, and lifted her beautiful dark face, now all aglow with the delight of benevolence, and told him all that had passed in the interview between herself and Mrs. Blondelle.
And Lyon Berners, with his arm over her graceful shoulders, his fingers stringing her silken black ringlets, and his eyes gazing with infinite tenderness and admiration down on her eloquent face, listened with attentive interest to the story. But at its close, great was his astonishment.
"My dear, impulsive Sybil, what have you done!" he exclaimed.
"What!" echoed Sybil, her crimson lips breathlessly apart--her dark eyes dilated.
"Love, you have invited a perfect stranger, casually met at a hotel--a gambler's wife, even by her own showing, an adventuress by all other appearances, to come and take up her abode with us for an indefinite length of time!"
Sybil's mouth opened, and her eyes dilated with an almost comical expression of dismay. She had not a word to say in self-defence!
"Do not think I blame you, dear, warm, imprudent heart! I only wonder at you, and--adore you!" he said, earnestly pressing her to his bosom.
"Oh, but you would have done as I did, if you had seen her distress!" pleaded Sybil, recovering her powers of speech.
"But could you not have helped her without inviting her home with us?"
"But how?" inquired Sybil.
"Could you not have paid her board? or lent her money?"
"Oh, Lyon! Lyon!" said Sybil, slowly shaking her head and looking up in his face with a heavenly benevolence beaming through her own. "Oh, Lyon! it was not a boarding-house she wanted, it was a refuge, a home with friends! But I am very sorry if this displeases you."
"Dear, impetuous, self-forgetting child! I am not so impious as to find fault with you."
"But you do not like the lady's coming."
"I should not like any visitor coming to stay with us and prevent our tete-a-tete," said Lyon, gravely.
"I thought of that too, dear, and with a pang of selfish regret; for of course I would much rather that you and I should have our dear old home to ourselves, than that any stranger should share it with us. But then, oh, dearest Lyon, I reflected that we are so rich and happy in our home and our love, and she is so poor and sorrowful in her exile and desertion, that we might afford to comfort her from the abundance of our blessings," said Sybil, earnestly.
"My angel wife! you are worthier than I, and your will shall be done," he gravely replied.
"Not so, dear Lyon! But when you see this lady in her beauty and her sorrow, you also will admire and pity her, and you will be glad that she is coming to the refuge of our home."
"I may be so," replied Mr. Berners with an arch smile, "but how will your proud neighbors receive this questionable stranger?"
The stately little head was lifted in an instant, and--
"My 'proud neighbors' well know that whom Sybil Berners protects with her friendship is peer with the proudest among them!" she said, with a hauteur not to be surpassed by the haughtiest in the Old Dominion.
"Well said, my little wife! And now, as this matter is decided, I must see about taking additional places in the stage-coach. How many will be wanted? What retinue has this foreign princess in distress," inquired Lyon, rather sarcastically.
"There will be three places required, for the lady, child and nurse."
"Whe-ew! My dear Sybil, we are collecting a ready made family! Does the child squall? or the nurse drink?" inquired Lyon, with a laugh, as without waiting for a reply he rang the bell, and gave the order for three more places to be taken inside the Staunton coach for the morning.
And soon after this the young pair retired to rest.
Very early the next morning Sybil Berners came out of her chamber, looking fresh and bright as the new day itself. She wore a close-fitting travelling dress of crimson merino, that well became her elegant little figure and rich, dark complexion.
She glanced around the room to see that everything was in order. Yes; the fire was bright, the hearth clean, the breakfast-table neatly set, and the morning sun shining through the red-curtained windows and glancing upon the silver tea-service.
With a smile of satisfaction, she tossed back her raven-black ringlets, and passed from the room and through the hall, and rapped at the door of her new acquaintance.
Mrs. Blondelle herself opened it, and stood there quite ready to accompany her friend to breakfast.
Radiantly beautiful looked the fair young stranger this morning, in the dark, bright-blue cloth habit that so highly enhanced the dazzling splendor of her blooming complexion and the golden glory of her hair.
An instant Sybil paused in involuntary admiration, and then recovered herself and greeted the lady with affectionate warmth.
"It is nearly eight o'clock, dear, and breakfast is quite ready. Will you come now?" inquired Sybil, when these salutations were passed.
Rosa assented with a sweet smile, and Sybil led the way into her own sitting-room.
Mr. Berners had come in during his wife's short absence, and he now stood before the fire with the morning paper in his hand. He put it down on the table, and came forward to meet his wife, and to welcome her guest.
"Mrs. Blondelle, Mr. Berners," said Sybil, introducing the parties to each other by the simplest formula.
And while they were bowing together, Sybil was watching mischievously to see what effect the dazzling beauty of Rosa Blondelle would have upon Lyon Berners.
She saw it!
After bowing, they lifted their heads and looked at each other--he, at first, with the courtesy of a host--but she with a radiant and enchanting smile.
Sybil was prepared to see Lyon's surprise at the first view of this peerless creature; but she was by no means prepared to witness the involuntary gaze of intense and breathless admiration and wonder that he fixed for a moment on her beautiful face. That gaze said as eloquently as words could have spoken:
"This is the most wondrous, perfect creature that the world ever saw! This is the master-piece of nature."
With the sunlight of her smile still shining on him, Rosa held out her hand, and said in the sweetest tones:
"Sir, I have no words good enough to tell you how deeply I feel your kindness and that of your dear wife to me."
"Dear lady, Mrs. Berners and myself do but gratify our own tastes in trying to serve you; for it will be a great happiness to us if we succeed in doing so," replied Lyon Berners, with a look and tone that proved his perfect sincerity and earnestness.
As thus they smiled and glanced, and spoke to each other, Sybil also glanced from the one to the other; a sudden pang shot through her heart, exciting a nameless dread in her mind. "Even so quickly may one catch the plague!"
"Let me lead you to the table," said Mr. Berners, offering his arm to Mrs. Blondelle, and conducting her to her place.
Above all, Sybil was a lady; for she was a Berners. So, with this strange wound in her heart, this vague warning in her mind, she took her seat at the head of her table and did its honors with her usual courtesy and grace.
Mr. Berners seconded his wife in all hospitable attentions to their beautiful young guest.
While they were all still seated at the table, a groom rapped at the door and reported the stage-coach ready.
They all arose in a hurry, and began to make the last hasty preparations for departure.
Mrs. Blondelle hurried into her own room, to have her luggage taken down stairs to be put on the coach, and also to summon her nurse with the child.
When Sybil Berners found herself for a moment alone with her husband, she laid her hand upon his coat sleeve to stay him, in his haste, and she inquired:
"What do you think of her now?"
"I think, my darling Sybil, that you were right in your judgment of this lady. And I agree with you perfectly. I think, my only love, that in what you have done for this stranger, you have acted not only with the goodness, but with the wisdom of an angel," replied Lyon Berners, snatching her suddenly to his heart, and holding her closely there while he pressed kiss after kiss upon her crimson lip; and murmured:
"I must steal a kiss from these sweet lips when and wherever I can, my own one, since we are not to be much alone together now."
And then he released her, and hurried off to put on his overcoat.
Sybil stood for a minute, smiling, where he had left her, and so happy that she forgot she had to get ready to go. The pain was gone from her heart, and the cloud from her brain.
And as yet, so little did she know of herself or others, that she could not have told why the pain and the cloud ever came, or why they ever went away.
As yet she did not know that her husband's admiring smiles given to a rival beauty had really caused her nameless suffering; or that it was his loving caresses, bestowed upon herself, that had soothed it.
In a word, Sybil Berners, the young bride, did not dream that the bitter, bitter seed of JEALOUSY was germinating in her heart, to grow and spread perhaps into a deadly upas of the soul, destroying all moral life around it.
