Sybil, Or, The Two Nations
Page 60
Two days after this conversation in Downing Street, a special messengerarrived at Marney Abbey from the Lord Lieutenant of the county, the Dukeof Fitz-Aquitaine. Immediately after reading the despatch of which hewas the bearer, there was a great bustle in the house; Lady Marney wassent for to her husband's library and there enjoined immediately towrite various letters which were to prevent certain expected visitorsfrom arriving; Captain Grouse was in and out the same library every fiveminutes, receiving orders and counter orders, and finally mounting hishorse was flying about the neighbourhood with messages and commands.All this stir signified that the Marney regiment of Yeomanry were to becalled out directly.
Lord Marney who had succeeded in obtaining a place in the Household andwas consequently devoted to the institutions of the country, was full ofdetermination to uphold them; but at the same time with characteristicprudence was equally resolved that the property principally protectedshould be his own, and that the order of his own district should chieflyengage his solicitude.
"I do not know what the Duke means by marching into the disturbeddistricts," said Lord Marney to Captain Grouse. "These are disturbeddistricts. There have been three fires in one week, and I want to knowwhat disturbance can be worse than that? In my opinion this is a mereanti-corn-law riot to frighten the government; and suppose they do stopthe mills--what then? I wish they were all stopped, and then one mightlive like a gentleman again?"
Egremont, between whom and his brother a sort of bad-tempered goodunderstanding had of late years to a certain degree flourished, in spiteof Lord Marney remaining childless, which made him hate Egremont withdouble distilled virulence, and chiefly by the affectionate manoeuvresof their mother, but whose annual visits to Marney had generally beenlimited to the yeomanry week, arrived from London the same day as theletter of the Lord Lieutenant, as he had learnt that his brother'sregiment, in which he commanded a troop, as well as the other yeomanrycorps in the North of England, must immediately take the field.
Five years had elapsed since the commencement of our history, and theyhad brought apparently much change to the character of the brother ofLord Marney. He had become, especially during the last two or threeyears, silent and reserved; he rarely entered society; even the companyof those who were once his intimates had ceased to attract him; he wasreally a melancholy man. The change in his demeanour was observedby all; his mother and his sister-in-law were the only persons whoendeavoured to penetrate its cause, and sighed over the failure of theirsagacity. Quit the world and the world forgets you; and Egremont wouldhave soon been a name no longer mentioned in those brilliant saloonswhich he once adorned, had not occasionally a sensation, produced by aneffective speech in the House of Commons, recalled his name to his oldassociates, who then remembered the pleasant hours passed in his societyand wondered why he never went anywhere now.
"I suppose he finds society a bore," said Lord Eugene de Vere; "I amsure I do; but then what is a fellow to do? I am not in Parliamentlike Egremont. I believe, after all, that's the thing; for I have triedeverything else and everything else is a bore."
"I think one should marry like Alfred Mountchesney," said Lord Milford.
"But what is the use of marrying if you do not marry a rich woman--andthe heiresses of the present age will not marry. What can be moreunnatural! It alone ought to produce a revolution. Why, Alfred is theonly fellow who has made a coup; and then he has not got it down."
"She behaved in a most unprincipled manner to me--that Fitz-Warene,"said Lord Milford, "always took my bouquets and once made me write someverses."
"By Jove!" said Lord Eugene, "I should like to see them. What a bore itmust have been to write verses."
"I only copied them out of Mina Blake's album: but I sent them in my ownhandwriting."
Baffled sympathy was the cause of Egremont's gloom. It is the secretspring of most melancholy. He loved and loved in vain. The convictionthat his passion, though hopeless, was not looked upon with disfavour,only made him the more wretched, for the disappointment is more acutein proportion as the chance is better. He had never seen Sybil sincethe morning he quitted her in Smith's Square, immediately before herdeparture for the North. The trial of Gerard had taken place at theassizes of that year: he had been found guilty and sentenced to eighteenmonths imprisonment in York Castle; the interference of Egremont bothin the House of Commons and with the government saved him from thefelon confinement with which he was at first threatened, and from whichassuredly state prisoners should be exempt. During this effort somecorrespondence had taken place between Egremont and Sybil, whichhe would willingly have encouraged and maintained; but it ceasednevertheless with its subject. Sybil, through the influentialinterference of Ursula Trafford, lived at the convent at York during theimprisonment of her father, and visited him daily.
The anxiety to take the veil which had once characterised Sybil hadcertainly waned. Perhaps her experience of life had impressed her withthe importance of fulfilling vital duties. Her father, though hehad never opposed her wish, had never encouraged it; and he had nowincreased and interesting claims on her devotion. He had endured greattrials, and had fallen on adverse fortunes. Sybil would look at him,and though his noble frame was still erect and his countenance stilldisplayed that mixture of frankness and decision which had distinguishedit of yore, she could not conceal from herself that there were ravageswhich time could not have produced. A year and a half of imprisonmenthad shaken to its centre a frame born for action, and shrinking at alltimes from the resources of sedentary life. The disappointment ofhigh hopes had jarred and tangled even the sweetness of his nobledisposition. He needed solicitude and solace: and Sybil resolved that ifvigilance and sympathy could soothe an existence that would otherwise beembittered, these guardian angels should at least hover over the life ofher father.
When the term of his imprisonment had ceased, Gerard had returned withhis daughter to Mowbray. Had he deigned to accept the offers of hisfriends, he need not have been anxious as to his future. A publicsubscription for his service had been collected: Morley, who was wellto do in the world, for the circulation of the Mowbray Phalanx dailyincreased with the increasing sufferings of the people, offered hisfriend to share his house and purse: Hatton was munificent; there wasno limit either to his offers or his proffered services. But all weredeclined; Gerard would live by labour. The post he had occupied at MrTrafford's was not vacant even if that gentleman had thought fit againto receive him; but his reputation as a first-rate artizan soon obtainedhim good employment, though on this occasion in the town of Mowbray,which for the sake of his daughter he regretted. He had no pleasant homenow for Sybil, but he had the prospect of one, and until he obtainedpossession of it, Sybil sought a refuge, which had been offered to herfrom the first, with her kindest and dearest friend; so that at thisperiod of our history, she was again an inmate of the convent atMowbray, whither her father and Morley had attended her the eve of theday she had first visited the ruins of Marney Abbey.
Book 6 Chapter 3