Cruel As The Grave Part 10

Where rose the mountains, there for her were friends, Where fell the valley, therein was her home; Where the steep rock and dizzy peak ascends, She had the pa.s.sion and the power to roam.

The crag, the forest, cavern, torrent's foam, Were unto her companions, and they spake A natural language clearer than the tone Of her best books, which she would oft forsake For Nature's pages, lit by moonbeams on the lake.--BYRON.

Jealousy, once called to life in any human heart, is not easily to be destroyed. Sybil Berners' almost unconscious jealousy suddenly called into existence, and as suddenly soothed to sleep, was awakened again by something that occurred just as the travellers were about to start.

It was the merest trifle, yet one of those trifles which turn the course of fate just as surely as the little switch of the railroad controls the direction of the train.

The travellers were just entering the stage-coach. Mr. Berners handed in first Mrs. Blondelle, then Mrs. Berners, and then he himself entered.

"You sit down here in this right-hand corner, Lyon, dear, and I will sit in the middle next to you, and Mrs. Blondelle shall sit in the left-hand corner next to me," said Sybil, still standing while she pointed out their several places on the back seat; and she spoke perhaps under the influence of a latent jealousy, that instigated her to place herself between her husband and her guest, for that long journey.

"No, no, my dear, not so; but if you will change places with me and take the right-hand corner-seat, while our fair friend occupies the left-hand one, I will sit between you two ladies, the proverbial 'thorn between two roses,'" replied Lyon Berners, gayly and gallantly, with perhaps on his side a latent desire to sit next the beautiful blonde, but also quite unconscious of how these words had disappointed and wounded her whom he would not have willingly wronged for the world.

Sybil silently took her seat, leaving the others to follow her example.

Mr. Berners politely put Mrs. Blondelle in the left-hand corner, and then seated himself in the middle seat, between his wife and her guest.

In front of them, on the movable central seat, sat Mrs. Blondelle's child and nurse. Facing them on the front seat, with their backs to the horses, were the two negro servants, Mr. Berners' valet and Mrs.

Berners' maid.

Though the morning was a very fine one for travelling, there were no other pa.s.sengers inside, or out. Mr. Berners and his party had the whole coach to themselves, at least, at starting.

Sybil thought she had never seen her husband in gayer spirits. As the horses started and the coach rattled along over the stony streets of the city, Mr. Berners turned smilingly to Mrs. Blondelle, and said:

"I know of few pleasanter things in this pleasant world than a journey through our native State of Virginia, taken at this delightful season of the year; and of all routes I know of none affording such a variety of beautiful and sublime scenery as this we are now starting upon."

"How long will it take you to reach your beautiful home?" sweetly inquired Rosa Blondelle.

"We might reach it in two days, if we were to travel day and night; but we shall be four days on the road, as we propose to put up at some roadside inn or village each night," answered Lyon Berners.

Meanwhile the coach rattled out of the city and into the open country, where the landscape was fair, well-wooded, well-watered, but not striking.

"You must not judge the scenery of our State by this flat country around our seaport," said Mr. Berners to his guest, with the air of a man making an apology.

"Yet this is very pleasant to look upon," answered Rosa, sincerely.

"Yes, very pleasant, as you say; but you will use stronger language when you see our vast forests, our high mountains, and deep valleys,"

answered Lyon Berners with a smile.

Sybil did not join in the conversation. She had not spoken since she had unwillingly taken that corner seat. And worse than all, to her apprehension, neither her husband nor her guest had noticed her silence.

They were apparently quite absorbed in each other.

Some hours of jolting over bad turnpike roads brought the coach to the interior of an old forest, where, at a wayside inn, the horses were changed, and the travellers dined. Here, on resuming their seats in the coach, they were joined by two other travellers, elderly country gentlemen, who took the two vacant places inside, and who would have made themselves very confidential with Mr. Berners on any subject within their knowledge, from crops to Congress, if he had not been too engaged with his fair guest to pay them much attention. Sybil continued silent, except when occasionally her husband would ask her if she was comfortable, or if he could do anything for her, when she would thank him and answer that she was quite comfortable; and that he could do nothing. And as far as bodily ease went, she spoke the truth. For the rest, Sybil could not then and there ask him to leave off devoting himself to their guest, and show _her_ more attention.

A few more hours of more jolting over worse turnpike roads brought the coach to the foot of the Blue Ridge, and to the picturesque village of Underhill, where our party pa.s.sed the night. Here, in the village inn, Sybil Berners, feeling that Rosa Blondelle, as her guest, was ent.i.tled to her courtesy, made an effort to forget the pain in her heart, the shadow on her mind, and to do the honors of the table with her usual affability and grace.

After supper, which was pleasantly prolonged, the travellers separated, and were shown to their several bed-chambers.

And now, after twelve hours, Sybil found herself once more alone with her husband. He had not perceived her silence and dejection during the journey, or if he had, he certainly had not ascribed it to the right cause. He was equally unconscious of having done a wrong, or inflicted a wound. And now his manner to his wife was as tender, loving, and devoted as it had ever been since their marriage. His very first words showed this. On entering the room and closing the door, he suddenly threw his arms around her, and clasped her to his bosom as a recovered treasure, exclaiming:

"Now, my darling, we are alone together once more, with no one to divide us."

"Thank Heaven!" breathed Sybil with all her heart; and her jealousy was lulled to rest again by the kisses that he pressed on her lips. She said to herself that all his devotion to Rosa Blondelle in the stage-coach was but the proper courtesy of a gentleman to a lady guest, who was, besides, a stranger in the country; and that she, his wife, ought to admire, rather than to blame him for it--ought to be pleased, rather than pained by it.

Very early the next morning the travellers arose, in order to take the earliest coach, which, having left Norfolk at sunset, would reach Underhill at sunrise.

Poor, ardent, impulsive Sybil! She had pa.s.sed a very happy night; and this morning she met her guest with a gush of genuine affection, embracing and kissing her and her child, making them even more welcome than she had done before, and feeling that to-day she could not deal too kindly by Rosa, to atone for having yesterday thought so hardly of her.

Under these pleasant auspices the travellers sat down to an excellent breakfast.

But the warning horn blew, and they prepared to resume their journey.

On entering the coach, they found the other pa.s.sengers, three in number, already on the back seat. But they were gentlemen, who voluntarily and promptly gave up their seats to the two ladies and their escort. The coach started.

Their route now lay through some of the wildest pa.s.ses of the Blue Ridge. And here the enthusiasm of Rosa Blondelle burst forth. She said that she had seen grand mountains in Scotland, but nothing--no, nothing to equal these in grandeur and beauty!

And Lyon Berners smiled to hear her speak so, as one might smile at the extravagant delight of a child, for as a child this lovely stranger often seemed to him and to others. And she, with her sweet, blue eyes, smiled back to him.

And Sybil looked and listened, and felt again that strange wound deepening in her heart--that strange cloud darkening over her mind.

CHAPTER VIII.

BLACK HALL.

Seest thou our home? 'tis where the woods are waving In their dark richness to the autumn air; Where yon blue stream its rocky banks are laving, Leads down the hills a vein of light--'tis there.--HEMANS.

At the close of that second day, they stopped at a hamlet on the summit of the Blue Ridge, from which they could view five counties. At the little hotel they were entertained very much in the same manner as at the inn of Underhill. Again Sybil's unspoken and unsuspected jealousy was soothed by the caresses of her husband.

In the morning they resumed their journey in the early coach, that took them across the beautiful valley that lies between the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny Mountains. And again Lyon Berners' devotion to Rosa Blondelle deeply distressed Sybil. At nightfall they reached Staunton, where they slept.

On the morning of the fourth and last day of their journey, they took the cross-country coach and changed their route, which now led them towards the wildest, dreariest, and loneliest pa.s.ses of the Alleghenies.

About mid-day the coach entered the dark defile known as the "Devils'

Descent." And, in fact, it needed all the noon sunshine to light up the gloom of that fearful pa.s.s. Here the delight of the impressible young foreigner deepened into awe.

"I have never seen anything like this in the old country," she breathed, in a low, hushed tone.

And again Lyon Berners smiled most kindly and indulgently on her, and again Sybil Berners sickened at heart. Every time Lyon so smiled on Rosa, Sybil so sickened. She strove against this feeling, but she could not overcome it.

As the day declined and the coach went on, wilder, drearier, and lonelier became the road, until, at nightfall, it entered a pa.s.s so gloomy, so savage, so terrific in its aspect, that the young stranger involuntarily caught her breath and clung for protection to the arm of Lyon Berners.

"I have never _dreamed_ of a place like this," she gasped.