Cruel as the grave
SYBIL BERNERS.
"All that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eye."
Sybil Berners was at this time about eighteen years of age--a beautiful,
black-haired, bright-eyed little brunette, full of fire, spirit,
strength, and self-will. She was a law to herself. No one, not even her
aged father, had the slightest control over her except through her
affections, when they could be gained, or her passions, when they could
be aroused; but this last means was seldom tried, for no one cared to
raise the storm that none could quell.
Her father was now nearly eighty years old. And fondly, jealously,
selfishly as he loved this darling daughter of his age, he wished to see
her safely married before he should be called from the earth.
And certainly the beautiful heiress had suitors enough to select
from--suitors drawn no less by her personal charms than by her great
fortune. But one and all were politely refused by the fastidious maiden,
who every one said was so very hard to please.
But even if Sybil Berners had accepted any one among the numerous
suitors for her hand, the conditions of her father's consent would have
been made rather difficult. The husband of the heiress would have been
required to assume the name and arms of Berners in order to perpetuate
the family patronymic, and to live with his wife at the old manor house
in order not to separate the only child from her aged father. And it was
not every proud young Virginian who would have given up his own family
name either for a fortune or a beauty. But none of her suitors were put
to the test, for Sybil promptly and unconditionally refused all offers
of marriage.
And the reason of all this was, that Miss Berners of Black Hall loved a
poor, briefless young lawyer, who had nothing but his handsome person,
his brilliant mind, and his noble heart to recommend him. When, or
where, or how her love for him began, she herself could never have told.
Since his return from the university she had seen him every Sunday at
church, and had grown to look and to long for his appearance there,
until it came to this pass with her soul, that the very house of God
seemed empty until _his_ place was filled. And besides this, she often
saw him and heard him speak at political and other public meetings,
which she always attended only to beam in the sunshine of his presence,
only to drink in the music of his voice. She took in all the local
papers only to read his leaders and dream over his thoughts.
Moreover, she felt by a sure instinct that he passionately adored her,
even while ignorant of her love for him, and silent upon the subject of
his own passion.
This state of affairs exasperated the fiery and self-willed little
beauty almost to phrensy. She had never in her life been contradicted or
opposed. No desire of her heart had ever been left for a moment
unsatisfied. She never knew until now the meaning of suspense or
disappointment. And now here was a man whom she wildly loved, and who
worshipped her, but who, from some delicate pride in his poverty,
_would_ not speak, while she, of course, _could_ not.
Yet Sybil Berners was no weak "Viola," who would
"Let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek, and pine in thought."
She was rather a strong "Helena," who would dare all and bear all to
gain her lover.
Sybil did all that a young lady of her rank could do in the premises.
She made her doting father give dinner parties and invite her lover to
them. But the briefless young lawyer in the napless hat and thread-bare
coat never accepted one of these invitations, for the very simple
reason that he had no evening dress in which to appear.
Under these circumstances, where any other young girl might have grown
languid and sorrowful, Sybil became excitable and violent. She had
always had the fiery temper of her race, but it had very seldom been
kindled by a breath of provocation. Now, however, it frequently broke
out without the slightest apparent cause. No one in the house could
account for this accession of ill-temper--not her anxious father, nor
Miss Tabitha Winterose, the housekeeper, not Joseph Joy, the house
steward, nor any of the maids or men-servants under them.
"She's possessed of the devil," said Miss Winterose, to her confidant,
the house steward.
"That's nothing new. All the Berners is possessed of _that_ possession.
It's entailed family property, and can't be got rid of," grimly
responded Joe.
"Something has crossed her; something has crossed her very much,"
muttered her old father to himself, as he sat alone in his arm-chair in
the warm chimney-corner of his favorite sitting-room.
Yes, indeed, everything crossed her. She was unhappy for the first time
in her life, and she thought it was clearly the duty of her father or
some other one of her slaves to make her happy. She was kept waiting,
and it was everybody's fault, and everybody should be made to suffer for
it. It was no use to reason with Sybil Berners. One might as well have
reasoned with a conflagration.
It was about this time, too, that her aged father began to feel symptoms
that warned him of the approach of that sudden death by congestion of
the brain, which had terminated the existence of so many of his
ancestors.
More than ever he desired to see his motherless daughter well married
before he should be called away from her. So, one evening, he sent for
Sybil to come into his sitting-room, and when she obeyed his summons,
and came and sat down on a low ottoman beside his arm-chair, he said,
laying his hand lovingly on her black, curly head:
"My darling, I am very old, and may be taken from you any day, any hour,
and I would like to see you well married before I go."
"Dear father, don't talk so. You may live twenty years yet," answered
the daughter, with a blending of affectionate solicitude and angry
impatience in her tones and looks, for Sybil was very fond of the old
man, and also very intolerant of unpleasant subjects.
"Well, well, my dear, since you prefer it, I will live twenty years
longer to please you--_if I can_. But whether I live or die, my
daughter, I wish to see you well married."
"Ah, father, why can you not leave me free?"
"Because, my darling, if anything should happen to me, you would be left
utterly without protection; your hand would become the aim of every
adventurer in the county; you would become the prey of some one among
them who would squander your fortune, abuse your person, and break your
heart."
"You know very well, father, that I should break such a villain's head
first. _I_ a victim--_I_ the prey of a fortune-hunter, or the slave of a
brute! I look as if I was likely to be--do I not? Father, you insult
your daughter by the thought," exclaimed Sybil, with flushing cheeks and
flashing eyes.
"There, there, my dear! don't flame up!" said the old man, laying his
hand upon the fiery creature's head; "be quiet as you can, Sybil--I
cannot bear excitement now, child."
"Forgive me, dear father, and forbear, if you love me, from such talk as
this. I never could become an ill-used, suffering, snivelling wife. I
_detest_ the picture as I utterly despise all weak and whimpering women.
I have no sympathy whatever for your abused wives--even for your
dethroned or beheaded queens. Why should a wife permit herself to be
abused, or a queen suffer herself to be dethroned or beheaded, without
first having done something to redeem herself from the contemptible role
of a victim, even if it was to change it for the awful one of
criminal--"
"--Hush, Sybil, hush! You know not what you say. The Saviour of the
world--"
"----Was a divine martyr, father," said Sybil, reverently bowing her
head--"was a divine martyr, not a victim. All who suffer and die in a
great cause are martyrs; but those who suffer and die for nothing but of
their own weakness are victims, with whom I have no sympathy. I never
could be a _victim_, father."
"Heaven help you, Sybil!"
"You need not fear for me, father. I can take care of myself as well as
if I were a son, instead of a daughter of the House of Berners," said
Sybil, haughtily.
"You may be able to protect yourself from all others, but can you always
protect yourself _from yourself_?" sighed the old man.
Sybil did not answer.
"But, to come back to the point from which you started, like the fiery
young filly that you are--Sybil, I greatly desire to see you married to
some worthy young gentleman whom you can love and I approve."
"Where can you find such an one, father?" murmured Sybil, with a quick,
strange, wild hope springing up in her heart.
What if he should speak of the young lawyer? But that was not likely. He
spoke of some one else.
"There is Ernest Godfree. No better match for you in the county. And I'm
sure he worships the very ground you walk on."
Sybil made an angry gesture, exclaiming:
"Then I wish he would have respect enough for the ground he worships to
keep himself off it altogether! I hate that man!"
"Well, well, hate is a poor return for love! But we'll say no more of
him. But there's Captain Pendleton, a brave young officer."
"I wish his bravery were better employed in fighting the Indians on the
frontier instead of besieging our house. I cannot endure that man!"
"Let him pass then! Next there is Charles Hanbury--"
"Ugh! the ugly little wretch."
"But he is so good, so wise, for so young a man. And he is your devoted
slave."
"Then I wish my slave would obey his owner's orders, and keep out of her
sight."
"Sybil, you are incorrigible," sighed the old man, but he did not yield
his main point.
One after another he proposed for her consideration all the eligible
young bachelors of the neighborhood, who, he knew, were ready upon the
slightest encouragement to renew their once rejected suits for the hand
of the beauty and heiress.
But one after another Sybil, with some sarcastic word, dismissed.
"Sybil, you are a strange, wayward girl! It seems to me that for any man
to love you is to take a sure road to your hatred! And yet, oh, my dear!
I wish to see you safely married. Is there not one among those whom you
might prefer to all the rest?"
"No, my father, not one whom I could endure for an instant as a lover."
"And oh! when I feel this fatal rising of the heart and fulness of the
head--this Wave of Death that is sure to bear me off sooner or later to
the Ocean of Eternity--Oh, then, my Sybil, how my soul travails for
you!" groaned the old man.
"Father! do you so much wish to see me married?"
"I wish it more than anything else in the world, my child."
"Father, you have named every young man in the neighborhood whom you
would like as a son-in-law?"
"Every one, my daughter."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure, my love. Why do you ask?"
She slid down from her low ottoman to the floor, and laid her arms upon
his knees and her beautiful black ringleted head upon her folded hands,
and whispered:
"Because, dear father, there is one whom you have forgotten to name: one
who loves me, and is altogether well worthy to be called your son."
"Ah!" cried the old man fiercely, under his breath--"a fortune-hunter,
on my life! the danger is nearer than I had even apprehended!"
"No, father, no! He is as far as possible from being what you say!"
fervently exclaimed Sybil.
"He is wealthy, then?"
"No, no, no! he is poor in everything but in goodness and wisdom!"
"Oh, no doubt you think him rich in these! But who is he, unhappy child?
What is his name?"
Very subdued came the answer. Old Bertram was obliged to bend his gray
head to his daughter's lips, and put his shrivelled hand behind his ear
to catch the sound of her low voice.