Sybil, Or, The Two Nations

“It is a difficult question to deal with—this affair of the game laws,” said Egremont; “how will you reach the evil? Would you do away with the offence of trespass? And if so, what is your protection for property?”

“It comes to a simple point though,” said Morley, “the Territorialists must at length understand that they cannot at the same time have the profits of a farm and the pleasures of a chase.”

At this moment entered Sybil. At the sight of her, the remembrance that they were about to part, nearly overwhelmed Egremont. Her supremacy over his spirit was revealed to him, and nothing but the presence of other persons could have prevented him avowing his entire subjection. His hand trembled as he touched her’s, and his eye, searching yet agitated, would have penetrated her serene soul. Gerard and Morley, somewhat withdrawn, pursued their conversation; while Egremont hanging over Sybil, attempted to summon courage to express to her his sad adieu. It was in vain. Alone, perhaps he might have poured forth a passionate farewell. But constrained he became embarrassed; and his conduct was at the same time tender and perplexing. He asked and repeated questions which had already been answered. His thoughts wandered from their conversation but not from her with whom he should have conversed. Once their eyes met, and Sybil observed his suffused with tears. Once he looked round and caught the glance of Morley, instantly withdrawn, but not easy to be forgotten.

Shortly after this and earlier than his wont, Morley rose and wished them good night. He shook hands with Egremont and bade him farewell with some abruptness. Harold who seemed half asleep suddenly sprang from the side of his mistress and gave an agitated bark. Harold was never very friendly to Morley, who now tried to soothe him, but in vain. The dog looked fiercely at him and barked again, but the moment Morley had disappeared, Harold resumed his usual air of proud high-bred gentleness, and thrust his nose into the hand of Egremont, who patted him with fondness.

The departure of Morley was a great relief to Egremont, though the task that was left was still a painful effort. He rose and walked for a moment up and down the room, commenced an unfinished sentence, approached the hearth and leant over the mantel; and then at length extending his hand to Gerard he exclaimed, in a trembling voice, “Best of friends, I must leave Mowedale.”

“I am very sorry,” said Gerard; “and when?”

“Now,” said Egremont.

“Now!” said Sybil.

“Yes; this instant. My summons is urgent. I ought to have left this morning. I came here then to bid you farewell,” he said looking at Sybil, “to express to you how deeply I was indebted to you for all your goodness—how dearly I shall cherish the memory of these happy days—the happiest I have ever known;” and his voice faltered. “I came also to leave a kind message for you, my friend, a hope that we might meet again and soon—but your daughter was absent, and I could not leave Mowedale without seeing either of you. So I must contrive to get on through the night.”

“Well we lose a very pleasant neighbour,” said Gerard; “we shall miss you, I doubt not, eh, Sybil?”

But Sybil had turned away her head; she was leaning over and seemed to be caressing Harold and was silent.

How much Egremont would have liked to have offered or invited correspondence; to have proffered his services when the occasion permitted; to have said or proposed many things that might have cherished their acquaintance or friendship; but embarrassed by his incognito and all its consequent deception, he could do nothing but tenderly express his regret at parting, and speak vaguely and almost mysteriously of their soon again meeting. He held out again his hand to Gerard who shook it heartily: then approaching Sybil, Egremont said, “you have shewn me a thousand kindnesses, which I cherish,” he added in a lower tone, “above all human circumstances. Would you deign to let this volume lie upon your table,” and he offered Sybil an English translation of Thomas a Kempis, illustrated by some masterpieces. In its first page was written “Sybil, from a faithful friend.”

“I accept it,” said Sybil with a trembling voice and rather pale, “in remembrance of a friend.” She held forth her hand to Egremont, who retained it for an instant, and then bending very low, pressed it to his lips. As with an agitated heart, he hastily crossed the threshold of the cottage, something seemed to hold him back. He turned round. The bloodhound had seized him by the coat and looked up to him with an expression of affectionate remonstrance against his departure. Egremont bent down, caressed Harold and released himself from his grasp.

When Egremont left the cottage, he found the country enveloped in a thick white mist, so that had it not been for some huge black shadows which he recognized as the crests of trees, it would have been very difficult to discriminate the earth from the sky, and the mist thickening as he advanced, even these fallacious landmarks threatened to disappear. He had to walk to Mowbray to catch a night train for London. Every moment was valuable, but the unexpected and increasing obscurity rendered his progress slow and even perilous. The contiguity to the river made every step important. He had according to his calculations proceeded nearly as far as his old residence, and notwithstanding the careless courage of youth and the annoyance of relinquishing a project, intolerable at that season of life, was meditating the expediency of renouncing that night the attempt on Mowbray and of gaining his former quarters for shelter. He stopped, as he had stopped several times before, to calculate rather than to observe. The mist was so thick that he could not see his own extended hand. It was not the first time that it had occurred to him that some one or something was hovering about his course.

“Who is there?” exclaimed Egremont. But no one answered.

He moved on a little, but very slowly. He felt assured that his ear caught a contiguous step. He repeated his interrogatory in a louder tone, but it obtained no response. Again he stopped. Suddenly he was seized; an iron grasp assailed his throat, a hand of steel griped his arm. The unexpected onset hurried him on. The sound of waters assured him that he was approaching the precipitous bank of that part of the river which, from a ledge of pointed rocks, here formed rapids. Vigorous and desperate, Egremont plunged like some strong animal on whom a beast of prey had made a fatal spring. His feet clung to the earth as if they were held by some magnetic power. With his disengaged arm he grappled with his mysterious and unseen foe.

At this moment he heard the deep bay of a hound.

“Harold!” he exclaimed. The dog, invisible, sprang forward and seized upon his assailant. So violent was the impulse that Egremont staggered and fell, but he fell freed from his dark enemy. Stunned and exhausted, some moments elapsed before he was entirely himself. The wind had suddenly changed; a violent gust had partially dispelled the mist; the outline of the landscape was in many places visible. Beneath him were the rapids of the Mowe, over which a watery moon threw a faint, flickering light. Egremont was lying on its precipitous bank; and Harold panting was leaning over him and looking in his face, and sometimes licking him with that tongue which, though not gifted with speech, had spoken so seasonably in the moment of danger.

END OF THE THIRD BOOK

BOOK IV

Book 4 Chapter 1

“Are you going down to the house, Egerton?” enquired Mr Berners at Brookes, of a brother M.P., about four o’clock in the early part of the spring of 1839.

“The moment I have sealed this letter; we will walk down together, if you like!” and in a few minutes they left the club.

“Our fellows are in a sort of fright about this Jamaica bill,” said Mr Egerton in an undertone, as if he were afraid a passer-by might overhear him. “Don’t say anything about it, but there’s a screw loose.”

“The deuce! But how do you mean?”

“They say the Rads are going to throw us over.”

“Talk, talk. They have threatened this half-a-dozen times. Smoke, sir; it will end in smoke.”

“I hope it may; but I know, in great confidence mind you, that Lord John was saying something about it yesterday.”

“That may be; I believe our fellows are heartily sick of the business, and perhaps would be glad of an excuse to break up the government: but we must not have Peel in; nothing could prevent a dissolution.”

“Their fellows go about and say that Peel would not dissolve if he came in.”

“Trust him!”

“He has had enough of dissolutions they say.”

“Why, after all they have not done him much harm. Even —34 was a hit.”

“Whoever dissolves,” said Mr Egerton, “I don’t think there will be much of a majority either way in our time.”

“We have seen strange things,” said Mr Berners.

“They never would think of breaking up the government without making their peers,” said Mr Egerton.

“The Queen is not over partial to making more peers; and when parties are in the present state of equality, the Sovereign is no longer a mere pageant.”

“They say her Majesty is more touched about these affairs of the Chartists than anything else,” said Mr Egerton.

“They are rather queer; but for my part I have no serious fears of a Jacquerie.”

“Not if it comes to an outbreak; but a passive resistance Jacquerie is altogether a different thing. When we see a regular Convention assembled in London and holding its daily meetings in Palace Yard; and a general inclination evinced throughout the country to refrain from the consumption of exciseable articles, I cannot help thinking that affairs are more serious than you imagine. I know the government are all on the ‘qui vive.’”

“Just the fellows we wanted!” exclaimed Lord Fitz-Heron, who was leaning on the arm of Lord Milford, and who met Mr Egerton and his friend in Pall Mall.

“We want a brace of pairs,” said Lord Milford. “Will you two fellows pair?”

“I must go down,” said Mr Egerton; “but I will pair from halfpast seven to eleven.”

“I just paired with Ormsby at White’s,” said Berners; “not half an hour ago. We are both going to dine at Eskdale’s, and so it was arranged. Have you any news to-day?”

“Nothing; except that they say that Alfred Mountchesney is going to marry Lady Joan Fitz-Warene,” said Lord Milford.

“She has been given to so many,” said Mr Egerton.

“It is always so with these great heiresses,” said his companion. “They never marry. They cannot bear the thought of sharing their money. I bet Lady Joan will turn out another specimen of the TABITHA CROESUS.”

“Well, put down our pair, Egerton,” said Lord Fitz-Heron. “You do not dine at Sidonia’s by any chance?”

“Would that I did! You will have the best dishes and the best guests. I feed at old Malton’s; perhaps a tete a tete: Scotch broth, and to tell him the news!”

“There is nothing like being a dutiful nephew, particularly when one’s uncle is a bachelor and has twenty thousand a-year,” said Lord Milford. “Au revoir! I suppose there will be no division to-night.”

“No chance.”

Egerton and Berners walked on a little further. As they came to the Golden Ball, a lady quitting the shop was just about to get into her carriage; she stopped as she recognized them. It was Lady Firebrace.

“Ah! Mr Berners, how d’ye do? You were just the person I wanted to see! How is Lady Augusta, Mr Egerton? You have no idea, Mr Berners, how I have been fighting your battles!”

“Really, Lady Firebrace,” said Mr Berners rather uneasy, for he had perhaps like most of us a peculiar dislike to being attacked or cheapened. “You are too good.”

“Oh! I don’t care what a person’s politics are!” exclaimed Lady Firebrace with an air of affectionate devotion. “I should be very glad indeed to see you one of us. You know your father was! But if any one is my friend I never will hear him attacked behind his back without fighting his battles; and I certainly did fight yours last night.”

“Pray tell me where it was?”

“Lady Crumbleford—”

“Confound Lady Crumbleford!” said Mr Berners indignant but a little relieved.

“No, no; Lady Crumbleford told Lady Alicia Severn.”

“Yes, yes,” said Berners, a little pale, for he was touched.

“But I cannot stop,” said Lady Firebrace. “I must be with Lady St Julians exactly at a quarter past four;” and she sprang into her carriage.

“I would sooner meet any woman in London than Lady Firebrace,” said Mr Berners; “she makes me uneasy for the day: she contrives to convince me that the whole world are employed behind my back in abusing or ridiculing me.”

“It is her way,” said Egerton; “she proves her zeal by showing you that you are odious. It is very successful with people of weak nerves. Scared at their general unpopularity, they seek refuge with the very person who at the same time assures them of their odium and alone believes it unjust. She rules that poor old goose, Lady Gramshawe, who feels that Lady Firebrace makes her life miserable, but is convinced that if she break with the torturer, she loses her only friend.”

“There goes a man who is as much altered as any fellow of our time.”

“Not in his looks; I was thinking the other night that he was better-looking than ever.”

“Oh! no; not in his looks; but in his life. I was at Christchurch with him, and we entered the world about the same time. I was rather before him. He did everything; and did it well. And now one never sees him, except at the House. He goes nowhere; and they tell me he is a regular reading man.”

“Do you think he looks to office?”

“He does not put himself forward.”

“He attends; and his brother will always be able to get anything for him,” said Egerton.

“Oh! he and Marney never speak; they hate each other.”

“By Jove! However there is his mother; with this marriage of hers and Deloraine House, she will be their grandest dame.”

“She is the only good woman the tories have: I think their others do them harm, from Lady St Julians down to your friend Lady Firebrace. I wish Lady Deloraine were with us. She keeps their men together wonderfully; makes her house agreeable; and then her manner—it certainly is perfect; natural, and yet refined.”

“Lady Mina Blake has an idea that far from looking to office, Egremont’s heart is faintly with his party; and that if it were not for the Marchioness—”

“We might gain him, eh?”

“Hem; I hardly know that: he has got crotchets about the people I am told.”

“What, the ballot and household suffrage?”

“Gad, I believe it is quite a different sort of a thing. I do not know what it is exactly; but I understand he is crotchetty.”

“Well, that will not do for Peel. He does not like crotchetty men. Do you see that, Egerton?”

At this moment, Mr Egerton and his friend were about to step over from Trafalgar square to Charing Cross. They observed the carriages of Lady St Julians and the Marchioness of Deloraine drawn up side by side in the middle of the street, and those two eminent stateswomen in earnest conversation. Egerton and Berners bowed and smiled, but could not hear the brief but not uninteresting words that have nevertheless reached us.

“I give them eleven,” said Lady St Julians.

“Well, Charles tells me,” said Lady Deloraine, “that Sir Thomas says so, and he certainly is generally right; but it is not Charles’ own opinion.”

“Sir Thomas, I know, gives them eleven,” said Lady St Julians; “and that would satisfy me; and we will say eleven. But I have a list here,” and she slightly elevated her brow, and then glanced at Lady Deloraine with a piquant air, “which proves that they cannot have more than nine; but this is in the greatest confidence: of course between us there can be no secrets. It is Mr Tadpole’s list; nobody has seen it but me; not even Sir Robert. Lord Grubminster has had a stroke: they are concealing it, but Mr Tadpole has found it out. They wanted to pair him off with Colonel Fantomme, who they think is dying: but Mr Tadpole has got a Mesmerist who has done wonders for him, and who has guaranteed that he shall vote. Well, that makes a difference of one.”

“And then Sir Henry Churton—”

“Oh! you know it,” said Lady St Julians, looking slightly mortified. “Yes: he votes with us.”

Lady Deloraine shook her head. “I think,” she said, “I know the origin of that report. Quite a mistake. He is in a bad humour, has been so the whole session, and he was at Lady Alice Fermyne’s, and did say all sorts of things. All that is true. But he told Charles this morning on a committee, that he should vote with the Government.”

“Stupid man!” exclaimed Lady St Julians; “I never could bear him. And I have sent his vulgar wife and great staring daughter a card for next Wednesday! Well, I hope affairs will soon be brought to a crisis, for I do not think I can bear much longer this life of perpetual sacrifice,” added Lady St Julians a little out of temper, both because she had lost a vote and found her friend and rival better informed than herself.

“There is no chance of a division to-night,” said Lady Deloraine.

“That is settled,” said Lady St Julians. “Adieu, my dear friend. We meet, I believe, at dinner?”

“Plotting,” said Mr Egerton to Mr Berners, as they passed the great ladies.

“The only consolation one has,” said Berners, “is, that if they do turn us out, Lady Deloraine and Lady St Julians must quarrel, for they both want the same thing.”

“Lady Deloraine will have it,” said Egerton.

Here they picked up Mr Jermyn, a young tory M.P., who perhaps the reader may remember at Mowbray Castle; and they walked on together, Egerton and Berners trying to pump him as to the expectations of his friends.

“How will Trodgits go?” said Egerton.

“I think Trodgits will stay away,” said Jermyn.

“Who do you give that new man to—that north-country borough fellow;—what’s his name?” said Berners.

“Blugsby! Oh, Blugsby dined with Peel,” said Jermyn.

“Our fellows say dinners are no good,” said Egerton; “and they certainly are a cursed bore: but you may depend upon it they do for the burgesses. We don’t dine our men half enough. Now Blugsby was just the sort of fellow to be caught by dining with Peel: and I dare say they made Peel remember to take wine with him. We got Melbourne to give a grand feed the other day to some of our men who want attention they say, and he did not take wine with a single guest. He forgot. I wonder what they are doing at the House! Here’s Spencer May, he will tell us. Well, what is going on?”

“WISHY is up, and WASHY follows.”

“No division, of course?”

“Not a chance; a regular covey ready on both sides.”

Book 4 Chapter 2

On the morning of the same day that Mr Egerton and his friend Mr Berners walked down together to the House of Commons, as appears in our last chapter, Egremont had made a visit to his mother, who had married since the commencement of this history the Marquis of Deloraine, a great noble who had always been her admirer. The family had been established by a lawyer, and recently in our history. The present Lord Deloraine, though he was gartered and had been a viceroy, was only the grandson of an attorney, but one who, conscious of his powers, had been called to the bar and died an ex-chancellor. A certain talent was hereditary in the family. The attorney’s son had been a successful courtier, and had planted himself in the cabinet for a quarter of a century. It was a maxim in this family to make great alliances; so the blood progressively refined, and the connections were always distinguished by power and fashion. It was a great hit, in the second generation of an earldom, to convert the coronet into that of a marquis; but the son of the old chancellor lived in stirring times, and cruised for his object with the same devoted patience with which Lord Anson watched for the galleon. It came at last, as everything does if men are firm and calm. The present marquis, through his ancestry and his first wife, was allied with the highest houses of the realm and looked their peer. He might have been selected as the personification of aristocracy: so noble was his appearance, so distinguished his manner; his bow gained every eye, his smile every heart. He was also very accomplished, and not ill-informed; had read a little, and thought a little, and was in every respect a most superior man; alike famed for his favour by the fair, and the constancy of his homage to the charming Lady Marney.

Lord Deloraine was not very rich; but he was not embarrassed, and had the appearance of princely wealth; a splendid family mansion with a courtyard; a noble country-seat with a magnificent park, including a quite celebrated lake, but with very few farms attached to it. He however held a good patent place which had been conferred on his descendants by the old chancellor, and this brought in annually some thousands. His marriage with Lady Marney was quite an affair of the heart; her considerable jointure however did not diminish the lustre of his position.

It was this impending marriage, and the anxiety of Lady Marney to see Egremont’s affairs settled before it took place, which about a year and a half ago had induced her to summon him so urgently from Mowedale, which the reader perhaps may have not forgotten. And now Egremont is paying one of his almost daily visits to his mother at Deloraine House.

“A truce to politics, my dear Charles,” said Lady Marney; “you must be wearied with my inquiries. Besides, I do not take the sanguine view of affairs in which some of our friends indulge. I am one of those who think the pear is not ripe. These men will totter on, and longer perhaps than even themselves imagine. I want to speak of something very different. To-morrow, my dear son, is your birth-day. Now I should grieve were it to pass without your receiving something which showed that its recollection was cherished by your mother. But of all silly things in the world, the silliest is a present that is not wanted. It destroys the sentiment a little perhaps but it enhances the gift, if I ask you in the most literal manner to assist me in giving you something that really would please you?”

“But how can I, my dear mother?” said Egremont. “You have ever been so kind and so generous that I literally want nothing.”

“Oh! you cannot be such a fortunate man as to want nothing, Charles,” said Lady Marney with a smile. “A dressing-case you have: your rooms are furnished enough: all this is in my way; but there are such things as horses and guns of which I know nothing, but which men always require. You must want a horse or a gun, Charles. Well, I should like you to get either; the finest, the most valuable that money can purchase. Or a brougham, Charles; what do you think of a new brougham? Would you like that Barker should build you a brougham?”

“You are too good, my dear mother. I have horses and guns enough; and my present carriage is all I can desire.”

“You will not assist me, then? You are resolved that I shall do something very stupid. For to give you something I am determined.”

“Well my dear mother,” said Egremont smiling and looking round, “give me something that is here.”

“Choose then,” said Lady Marney, and she looked round the blue satin walls of her apartment, covered with cabinet pictures of exquisite art, and then at her tables crowded with precious and fantastic toys.

“It would be plunder, my dear mother,” said Egremont.

“No, no; you have said it; you shall choose something. Will you have those vases?” and she pointed to an almost matchless specimen of old Sevres porcelain.

“They are in too becoming a position to be disturbed,” said Egremont, “and would ill suit my quiet chambers, where a bronze or a marble is my greatest ornament. If you would permit me, I would rather choose a picture?”

“Then select one at once,” said Lady Marney; “I make no reservation, except that Watteau, for it was given me by your father before we were married. Shall it be this Cuyp?”

“I would rather choose this,” said Egremont, and he pointed to the portrait of a saint by Allori: the face of a beautiful young girl, radiant and yet solemn, with rich tresses of golden brown hair, and large eyes dark as night, fringed with ebon lashes that hung upon the glowing cheek.

“Ah! you choose that! Well, that was a great favourite of poor Sir Thomas Lawrence. But for my part I have never seen any one in the least like it, and I think I am sure that you have not.”