Cruel As The Grave Part 2

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 a.s.sume 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.s with her soul, that the very house of G.o.d 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 pa.s.sionately adored her, even while ignorant of her love for him, and silent upon the subject of his own pa.s.sion.

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 wors.h.i.+pped 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 flus.h.i.+ng cheeks and flas.h.i.+ng 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, hus.h.!.+ 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 G.o.dfree. No better match for you in the county. And I'm sure he wors.h.i.+ps the very ground you walk on."

Sybil made an angry gesture, exclaiming:

"Then I wish he would have respect enough for the ground he wors.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.s 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?"