“o that spectre! for three years it followed me up and down the dark staircase, or stood by my bed: only the blessed light had power to exorcise it.”
a revelation of childhood. mrs. jameson.
“that way madness lies.”
—king lear.
it was quite true. she had not misunderstood what he said. sir ralph, for reasons best known to himself, left altes the next day for an indefinite time. it seemed to marion that there had been something prophetic in his calling her “brave and patient.” she needed, at this time, to be both. and she succeeded, poor child, in her endeavour to act up to his opinion of her. day after day the appointed hour saw her in the schoolroom, doing her very best with her pupils, bearing with lotty’s tempers and poor little sybil’s moods. and no one, not even cissy, suspected that she had even these to bear, far less the deeper, though hardly even to herself acknowledged sorrow—disappointment—call it which you will, the magnitude of which unconsciously swallowed up the lesser daily irritations. it was not merely a sorrow, a loss, a something gone out of her life, which she had not known was there till she missed it. it was more than these. she was mortified, ashamed of having given her regard, she would call it by no more tender name even to herself, unasked. for ralph’s strange words and manner she, in her morbid self-reproach, now explained as entirely traceable to his generous pity for her. pity, in the first place, for her dependent position, and secondly (ah, how it wounded her to think so!) for her unmaidenly, because unsought and unreturned, revelation of her “regard” for him. how extraordinarily people misunderstand each other! thus she was thinking and suffering, at the very time that ralph was repeating to himself over and over again, “under no possible circumstances, had there been no shadow of a rival in the field, could that bright, sweet being have learnt to care for a soured, dried-up, in every way unattractive man like me!”
at this period, i think, could marion have been assured that such were ralph’s feelings for her, she would have looked upon permanent separation from him as a comparatively small trial. for mortification, self-abasement of this kind are very hard upon a sensitive, pure-minded girl.
“if only i could think he did not despise me,” she said to herself.
it never occurred to her that so far, as least, as ralph himself was concerned, her being a governess might have in any way have influenced him. she was too unpractical to realize the possibility of this; or was it, perhaps, the instinctive trust one genuine, noble nature feels in a kindred spirit? for marion had been quick to perceive mr. erbenfeld’s contempt and miss vyse’s condescending insolence.
but time wore on, as it always does, through the weariest weeks, as through “the roughest day.” christmas came and went. january far advanced, and marion began to think indeed, she was never to see ralph severn again, for cissy still spoke of the not for-distant “spring” as the probable date of her return to india. april had been originally mentioned as the limit of their stay at altes, but before then, she heard from the children, the severn household was to be removed to switzerland for the summer.
sybil sometimes spoke of her uncle. he had been in london for the last month, she said. and then two or three days after, with great delight, she showed marion a letter he had sent her from paris, dated from the h?tel de ——, where he said he was going to stay a week or two.
“and after that, perhaps, he will come home here,” said sybil.
“nonsense, sybil,” said lotty, hastily; “that’s not at all certain. he may, perhaps, not return to altes at all. what do you know about it, i’d like to know?”
she spoke roughly and rudely, and sybil began to cry. marion checked lofty, and desired her to attend to her lessons, and not interfere with her sister. then she tried to soothe sybil, but it was difficult to do so. of late the child had seemed far from well. her timidity and nervousness had increased to a painful extent, and marion felt strangely anxious and uneasy about her. more than ever she felt persuaded that some unhappy influence was injuriously affecting the child, though in what it consisted, or how it was exercised, she was utterly unable to conjecture. this morning lotty happened to be sent for by her grandmother, a few moments after receiving her governess’s reproof for her roughness to sybil. when left alone with the poor little girl, still sobbing piteously, marion again tried to soothe her. she took her on her knee, and spoke kind, loving words, while she kissed and caressed the throbbing brow and tear-stained cheeks.
“sybil my darling,” she said, “try and leave off crying. it will make your head ache so. lotty did not mean to be unkind; she only spoke thoughtlessly, as she does, but you must not mind it so very much.”
sybil clung to her more closely and tried to check her sobs as she answered.
“it isn’t lofty i’m crying about, dear miss freer. i’m thinking uncle ralph isn’t coming back.”
“but he’s sure to come back before long, dear,” said marion;” lotty only said he wasn’t perhaps coming just yet.”
“oh! but i want him so much,” said sybil, “so very much. i was thinking i would tell him. i couldn’t tell any one else.”
“what about, dear?” asked marion, gently. “if you will tell me, perhaps i can help you.”
“no, you couldn’t,” answered sybil. “besides i mustn’t tell you. i said i wouldn’t, and it might hurt you. i didn’t mean ever to tell anybody, because of what emilie said. but since it has been so bad, i thought i would tell uncle ralph. he is big and strong, you know, and he wouldn’t laugh at me.”
“laugh at you, dear,” said marion, eagerly; “no, indeed, he would not. nor would i, sybil. you know i wouldn’t. won’t you tell me this secret, darling, unless, of course, you are sure it would be wrong to do so?”
“it wouldn’t be wrong,” said sybil, “only i promised. and then—— oh!” she exclaimed, suddenly, while a sort of shiver ran through her—“oh, it is so dreadful. can’t you make me forget it, dear miss freer? last night i said my prayers a hundred times over without stopping, before emilie came to bed, but it was no use. i couldn’t go to sleep, and it gets so hot under the clothes i can hardly breathe.”
“but how do you menu, before emilie came to bed?” asked marion; “doesn’t she sit in your room after you are in bed? i am sure i have heard that she was told to do so.”
“yes,” answered sybil in a whisper; “yes, grandmamma did tell her so, after lotty went to sleep in florence’s room. i was always able to go to sleep before that. but emilie won’t stay in my room till i go to sleep. that is what has made it so bad. only she told me not to tell. if i did, she said i should get into a fit and die. all alone, miss freer, all alone except for them,” the child added in a whisper of the utmost horror, her eyes dilated as she looked up into marion’s anxious face. suddenly she threw herself back into her governess’s arms, clutching her tightly in her terror and distress, and burying her face on her shoulder.
“oh!” she exclaimed; “don’t make me tell any more. don’t, please don’t.”
“very well, darling,” replied marion, soothingly; “we will talk about some nice things. only tell me, dear sybil, does any one know? any one besides emilie?”
“florence knows part,” said the child; “emilie told her i was very naughty, and florence wasn’t kind at all. she scolded me very much, and said if i told that emilie didn’t stay with me, she would get me sent away to school. she said it was very unkind of me to want emilie to sit all the evening in my room. but i think emilie didn’t tell it her all, or she would not have scolded me so. emilie does tell little stories, miss freer, and i don’t like her, but florence likes her because she does a great deal of work for her, and then she says i give her so much trouble, she has no time to do the things that grandmamma wants done. and it isn’t true, miss freer,” said sybil, emphatically, clenching her little hands in indignation.
“well, dear, it should make you not mind so much what emilie says, if she is so careless in her way of speaking. if your secret is about something emilie has told, i would try not to think any more about it.”
“yes, but that is true,” repeated sybil, relapsing into her awe-struck whisper; “i know that is true, because of what i saw, miss freer.”
she shuddered as she spoke, and marion, fearful of uselessly exciting her—as it was evident she must not at present insist upon the child’s full confidence—hastened to change the subject. after some efforts, she succeeded in interesting and amusing her little charge, who by the end of the morning looked brighter and happier. still the young governess felt very anxious and uneasy when the hour came to leave her pupils for the day. sybil looked ready to burst into tears again, but marion whispered to her that to-morrow she would arrange to stay an hour later, to finish a delightful story that had been broken in the middle; which promise brought back a smile to the woe-begone little face.
“what can i do?” thought marion. “i can’t bear to leave things as they are, and yet any interference on my part would probably do no good, and only cause me to be set down as presumptuous and officious. it might even lead to my being dismissed, and then how miserable and forlorn sybil would be! it is evident that wicked emilie is terrifying the poor child to prevent her complaining of her. and miss vyse supporting such conduct! though i agree with sybil that emilie must have told the story in her own way. miss vyse would not be so utterly heartless, if she knew what the child is actually suffering. though it is shameful of her to have accepted emilie’s statement as to sybil’s naughtiness in that careless way.”
so marion thought to herself. but she could see nothing likely to do such good in her power. all her cogitations ended in wishing sir ralph were back again. but she resolved in the meantime to watch sybil closely, and if no improvement became manifest, to brave all, rather than conceal the hidden mischief she now had proof was at work. emilie, the children’s maid, she had seen little of, but the girl’s manner and appearance she disliked. lady severn unfortunately had an exceedingly high opinion of her; and miss vyse, as sybil had said, was sure to take her part, for the reasons the child had been quick enough to discover.
the next day sybil seemed better again, and told marion she had had “a very nice sleep all night.” but the day after the child was evidently very ill. there were black circles round her eyes, telling of sleepless hours and nervous suffering. the pain in her head was so bad, she said, she could not see the words in her lesson-book when she tried to read; and at last marion gave up the attempt as useless. sybil would not speak much, and was evidently in terror of marion’s renewing the subject of her secret alarms. so, after trying to soothe her by reading aloud some of the little girl’s favourite fairy tales, in which however she seemed hardly able to take any interest, the young governess was obliged to leave her for the day. lotty did not seem much impressed by her sister's suffering, saying carelessly:
“oh! sybil’s always sulky when she has the least bit of a headache.”
when lesson hours were over, marion asked to see lady severn, intending to tell her of sybil’s evident illness. considerably to her annoyance, lady severn sent to ask her to see her in the drawing-room, in consequence of which miss vyse was of course present at the interview, which effectually dispelled marion’s faint hopes of being able to do poor sybil any real good by what she might say to her grand-mother.
“you wished to see me, miss freer, i believe?” began the dowager, in a rather icy tone.
“merely to tell you that i think sybil is far from well this morning,” replied marion rather shortly, at which miss vyse smiled contemptuously as she bent over her writing-table. miss freer’s entrance into the room she had acknowledged by the slightest and most indifferent of bows, or rather nods.
“of that i am quite aware,” said lady severn; “i make a point of seeing the children every morning, miss freer, and i am thoroughly acquainted with sybil’s constitution. she is only suffering from one of her old attacks, and the usual remedies have already been applied. your intention was good, miss freer, i have no doubt, but i assure you, it is quite unnecessary for you to add to your duties the care of my grand-daughters’ health. it is in older and naturally more experienced hands than yours. at the same time, i thank you for your well-meant attention to sybil’s indisposition.”
again miss vyse smiled quietly to herself.
marion was paler than usual, as she made another effort for her poor little pupil:
“you must excuse me, lady severn,” she said “if i seem officious or presuming, but i am very anxious about sybil. i think she has been falling off for some time. i am afraid she does not sleep well, and bad nights are sure to hurt a child. in the morning she often looks as if she had been awake all night.”
“she has never been a good sleeper,” replied lady severn, but not unkindly. “it arises merely from her general delicacy. it is not to be expected she will get over it till she is older. but in this respect she is already improved. emilie says she sleeps soundly now, does she not, florence, my dear?” she inquired of miss vyse.
“perfectly so, dear aunt,” replied the young lady, with the same sneer in her voice that marion had detected in her smile. “of course miss freer cannot understand her in the same way that we do. i myself think her wonderfully improved of late in her health, though i sometimes fear the improvement in her temper and disposition is not so great.”
“i quite agree with you my love,” said lady severn. “do not think i am finding fault, miss freer, but you must allow me to say that i think your anxiety would be better directed were you to turn it to the points my niece has alluded to.”
“sybil’s temper and whole behaviour are all i could wish when she is well, lady severn,” said marion stoutly. “at present i am convinced there is much amiss with her, and believe it arises in great measure from her having bad nights. i believe she sometimes cannot go to sleep for hours after she is in bed. i am sure i would gladly come every evening to sit by her or read to her, till she goes to sleep, if that would do any good.”
miss vyse’s delicate black eyebrows rose in supercilious amazement at this proposal, and lady severn at first seemed too astonished to reply. at last she said:
“really, miss freer i suppose i must again give you credit for kindly and well-meant intention; but your must allow me to remind you that i have an ample staff of servants in my household for waiting on the young ladies. you really need not fear they are in any way neglected.”
“neglected indeed!” repeated miss vyse with a silvery laugh at the absurdity of the idea. “why emilie sits the whole evening besides sybil, till her little ladyship goes to sleep. and not a little difficult to please, poor emilie has found her of late, i can assure you, dear aunt. sybil is a child that requires very judicious management, young as she is.”
“she certainly does,” said marion, quietly, looking at florence as she spoke. and then, as it appeared that miss vyse had exhausted her stock of impertinent sneers and innuendos for the present, she thought it as well to take leave.
her cheeks burned as she thought quietly over the interview. “poor sybil, i have done you more harm than good, i fear!” she said to herself. and then in her genuine anxiety for the suffering and mismanaged child, she unselfishly forgot her own personal annoyance and mortification.
that afternoon as she was sitting with cissy, charlie, attended by thérèse, returned from his stroll in the park. he told her he had met “those two little young ladies you go to play with every morning, may. and the littlest one had red eyes, as if she had been crying,” he added sympathisingly.
“poor baby!” said cissy. “she looks horribly ill now and then, marion. i fancy they are rather rough with her sometimes. she has cowed, cowering look i can’t bear to see in a child’s face.”
all of which added not a little marion’s uneasiness. an hour or so later when she was alone in her room, thérèse entered.
“if you please, mademoiselle,” she said, “the little young lady asked me to give you this, but that no one should see it.”
“this” was a leaf of copy-book paper, on which was written in sybil’s large, round text hand (the letters shaky and crooked, and the whole bearing marks of being a laborious and painfully accomplished production) the following words:
“dear miss freer,—i meet the little boy and his kind nurse often, and lotty would tell, if i had told you this morneng. pleese writ to unkel at paris, and say i will dye if he wont come. i coudent tell eny boddy but him. sybil.”
marion’s resolution was instantly shaken. she fortunately remembered the name of the hotel at which sir ralph was staying; and that evening’s post bore to him a letter from her, enclosing poor sybil’s piteous appeal. she told sir ralph that she was unable to explain the cause of the child’s suffering; but that she suspected that some cruel trick had been played by emilie, the maid, for the sake of terrifying her into silence. she apologised for her boldness in writing to trouble him about it; but added that she saw nothing else to do, as her own efforts had failed to awaken lady severn’s anxiety about the poor little girl; and she ended by begging him to return to altes as soon as possible to judge for himself, without of course betraying her confidence, or that of the poor child.
once her letter was fairly gone, marion began to be rather frightened at what she had done. she was perfectly satisfied that the step she had taken was a right and indeed unavoidable one; but then there came the after thought.
“what will he think of me for having done it? knowing what i do of his opinion of me, how could i have been the one, for any reason whatever, to summon him back here before i leave!”
and she felt half inclined to run away from altes before he could possibly arrive! and yet with it all, there was a strange under current of inexpressible happiness in the thought that now she was almost sure to see him again, to hear him speak, to feel him looking kindly at her once more.
“once more!” if only that, and nothing beyond, yet that once more was worth living for.
two—three days passed. then came the fourth, the day before the one on which marion had calculated it might be possible to receive an answer from paris. she had not been alone with sybil for more than a moment since receiving her note. lotty seemed inquisitive and suspicious, and sybil was evidently afraid of her. marion could only manage to whisper to the child that she had done what she asked, without any further explanation passing between them. sybil brightened up wonderfully on hearing this, and for some few days looked so much better that marion began to think sir ralph would consider her alarm about his little niece very exaggerated, if not altogether uncalled for. the reflection was not a pleasant one! there was no letter on the fifth morning, nor up to the eighth! which did not make her feel any the more comfortable, and on her way to the rue des lauriers, one week after her letter had gone, she really began most heartily to wish she had not written at all.
but the first sight of sybil changed her feelings entirely. the child looked exceedingly ill, and was, as before, utterly unable to attend to her lessons. she lay on the sofa without speaking, and hardly took any notice even of her kind friend. only as marion was leaving, and bent down to kiss her, sybil whispered, hurriedly:
“is he coming?”
“yes, dear, i hope so,” replied marion, in the same voice.
there was no time for more, for just then emilie entered the room with some medicine, which poor sybil was obliged to take every two hours; and the child shrank back in fear.
this was the evening of the last altes ball before lent. cissy was not inclined to go, not feeling particularly well, and marion, too, was much better pleased to stay at home. they spent till evening as usual, quietly reading and working. from time to time the roll of carriages in the street below reminded them of the gaiety which the little world of altes was about to enjoy. marion did not envy the ball-goers, but she could not help thinking, half sadly, of her one ball at altes, and all that passed there. mrs. archer was tired, and went to bed early, leaving her cousin alone. to get rid of her thoughts marion got a book, and forced herself to attend to its contents, in which she so succeeded that an hour or two went by, and it was close to midnight before she moved.
suddenly, she was startled by the sound of a carriage driving up rapidly and stopping at their door. knowing that all the servants were disposed of for the night, and fearing, that a sudden ring of the bell might frighten cissy, marion went quickly to the front door, which she unlocked and opened softly, and stood with it slightly ajar, watching to see if indeed the carriage contained any visitor for them. she heard the driver’s voice, replying to some question, but it was a very dark night and she could distinguish nothing distinctly. in a moment more she felt, rather than saw, that some one was approaching the door, which, to prevent this person’s ringing the bell, she immediately opened more widely. evidently the stranger took her for one of the servants; for, though apparently rather surprised at finding the door open and some one behind it the unseasonable visitor inquired in french if it would be possible for him to see “une de ces dames, madame au mademoiselle.” the voice told more tales this time than that its owner was an englishman!
“sir ralph,” said the girl, whom in the dim light he had taken for a servant, “sir ralph, it is i—marion.” (even then she could not say miss freer.) “come in and tell me what is the matter. oh tell me! tell me quickly,” she added, as she saw that he bore a burden in his arms. something covered with a shawl, but which he held tenderly and closely, as if he would guard it from touch or approach. “what is that sir ralph?” she almost screamed, as he entered the passage, and she saw that what he carried was like a lifeless nerveless body, hanging limp and loose and heavy in his grasp, though she could see no face or features.
“hush! marion,” he said, unconsciously calling her what she had called herself; “hush! i know you will control yourself and help me. what a mercy you were still up!”
he spoke in a matter-of-course tone that marvellously quieted marion’s first thrill of horror. but she could hardly control herself as he had told her, when he gently laid his burden on the sofa in the still lighted drawing-room, and softly removing the shawl from the face showed marion that it was sybil! poor little sybil, there she lay, her eyes closed, but her brow contracted as if with pain or terror, ghastly pale, with the paleness it seemed to marion that could only come from one cause—death!
“is she dead?” she whispered.
ralph turned suddenly to her.
“my darling,” he said, “how could i be so cruelly thoughtless as to forget you in my anxiety about this poor child. dead! no. indeed, no. she is only fainting, and will revive again in a few moments. but dead indeed she might have been but for you. your goodness, your promptness have saved her. it anything had been wanting to—but what am i saying?” he exclaimed, with a sudden change of tone. “marion—miss freer, you must think me mad.”
but she said nothing. she leant over sybil, and would not look up for fear of meeting his eyes, as she asked quietly,—
“what can we do to revive her?”
“nothing,” he said; “she is already coming round. only be sure to let her see you and this room, as soon as she opens her eyes. she has already fainted once or twice, and was sent into hysterics again as soon as she came round, by the sight of that room. and then she begged me to bring her to you, so i did so, on my own responsibility. my mother and miss vyse are out at a ball, the servants there told me. i sent for bailey, but the old fool was not to be found. gone to the ball too, i dare say. but it’s just as well to avoid the scandal, for a scandal it is, no doubt, as you will say when you hear it all. i got her this the chemist’s, on our way here. it can’t do her any harm.”
and as he spoke he produced a little bottle, from which he poured a few drops into a glass of water, which marion fetched him.
“now sybil, my pet,” he said, as the little girl opened her eyes, and glanced round her with an expression of terror. “now, dear, you are all right again. you see you are with miss freer in her pretty house; and she is going to let you sleep in her own room, and stay with you all night.” at which information the poor baby tried to smile, as she stroked marion’s hand, laid on her caressingly.
“forgive my audacity,” he whispered to marion; “but you will be as good as my word this once, won’t you?”
“you know i will,” answered marion, in the same tone.
and then she went to rouse the good-natured thérèse, and as far as possible “insense” her as to the strange state of things. between them, poor sybil was divested of her cloaks and shawls, and comfortably ensconced for the night in a corner of marion’s bed.
exhausted by all she had gone through, the poor child soon fell asleep. marion returned for a moment to set sir ralph’s mind at ease about his little niece, and to bid him good-night. he only detained her to request her not to come to the rue des lauriers in the morning, as he would explain her absence to lady severn. he also promised to call early, to see how sybil had passed the night, and to explain to miss freer what had come to his knowledge as to the cause of the child’s terror and consequent illness.
“that emilie shall leave my mother’s service at once,” he said “if i am to have any authority at all over my nieces. but by the morning i shall be able to explain the whole affair better. i am not quite clear how much was emilie’s doing, and how much the result of pour sybil’s own nervousness. the poor child tried to tell me all about it, but could hardly manage to do so clearly, in the state she was in.”
“you may be sure i shall take good care of her,” said marion, as he was leaving.
“i know that well,” he replied. “but that reminds me,” he went on, “i have never thanked you for it all. what a boor i am! in the first place your goodness in writing to me, and now for your goodness in taking my poor child in, as you have done. i am so stupid, miss freer, at thanking people. but you know what i mean, i am sure you do. something more i would ask of you. miss freer, can you forgive me for having forgotten myself as i did last night?”
the last words he spoke very low, as if he could hardly force himself to utter them. marion did not speak for a moment, and he went on.
“you must think me mad—mad with presumption and folly, as indeed i think myself. i thought i had mastered myself, miss freer, knowing all i do, both to myself, and you. you, i trust, will be very happy in the life you have chosen—much happier than if—ah! i must take care or i shall have to ask you to forgive me again. can you do so, miss freer—marion?” he added softly, as if in spite of himself.
and marion looked up in his face, and said the one little word, “yes.”
he wrung her hand and left her.
and she laid herself down beside the innocent little child he had given into her care, and tried to sleep. but in vain! all night long she tossed about, imagining herself kept awake by her anxiety about sybil, but in reality going over and over to herself his words, his looks, his tones. and wondering why he behaved so strangely, and how it would all end?
