Cruel As The Grave Part 15

"Why, that our party shall be a masked, fancy-dress ball. That will be something new in this old-fashioned neighborhood."

"Yes, and something startling to our old-fashioned neighbors," said Mr.

Berners, with a dubious shake of his head.

"So much the better. They need startling, and I intend to startle them."

"As you please, my dear, wayward Sybil. But when do you propose this affair to come off?"

"On All-Hallow Eve."

"Good. All-Hallow Eve is the proper sort of an eldritch night for such a piece of diablerie as a mask ball to be held," laughed Mr. Berners.

"But now, seriously, Lyon; do you really dislike or disapprove this plan? If you do I will willingly modify it according to your judgment; or even, if you wish it, I will willingly drop it altogether," she said, very earnestly.

"My dear impetuous Sybil, you should make no such sacrifices, even if I _did_ dislike or disapprove your plan; but I do neither. I dare say I shall enjoy the masquerade as much as any one; and that it will be very popular and quite a success. But now, dear Sybil, let me hear what fantastic shape you will a.s.sume at this witches' dance?"

"I will tell _you_, Lyon; but mind, you must keep the secret."

"Oh! inviolably," said Mr. Berners, with a laugh.

"Oh! I mean only that you must not speak of it outside the family, because, you see, it is such a perfectly original character that if it was known it would be taken by half a dozen people at least."

"I will never breathe its name," laughed Lyon.

"Then the character I shall take is--"

"What?"

"Fire!"

"Fire?"

"Fire."

"Ha! ha! ha! it will suit you admirably, my little Berners of the Burning Heart. But how on earth will you contrive to costume and impersonate the consuming element?"

"It would take me a week to tell you, and then you would not understand.

But you shall see."

"I hope you will not set all your company in a flame; that is all, my dear."

"But I shall _try_ to do so. And now, dear Lyon, if you wish to help me, sit down at my writing-table there, and fill out and direct the invitations, you will find the visiting list, printed cards, and blank envelopes all in a parcel in the desk."

"But is it not early to send them?" inquired Mr. Berners, as he seated himself at the table.

"No; not for a mask ball. This is the tenth. The ball is to come off on the thirty-first. If the cards are sent to-day, our friends will have just three weeks to get ready, which will not be too long to select their characters and contrive their costumes."

"I suppose you know best, my dear," said Mr. Berners, as he referred to the visiting list and began to prepare for his task.

Sybil went to her dressing-gla.s.s and began to arrange her somewhat disordered hair. While she stood there, she suddenly inquired:

"Where did you leave Mrs. Blondelle?"

"I did not leave her anywhere. She left me. She excused herself, and went--to her room, I suppose."

"Ah!" sighed Sybil. She did not like this answer. She was sorry to know that her husband had remained with the beauty until the beauty had left him. She tortured herself with the thought that, if Mrs. Blondelle had remained in the morning room, Mr. Berners would have been there at her side.

So morbid was now the condition of Sybil that a word was enough to arouse her jealousy, a caress sufficient to allay it. _She_ would not leave Lyon to himself, she thought. He should know the difference between his wife and his guest in that particular. So the guest, being now in her own room, where her hostess heartily wished she might spend the greater portion of the day, Sybil felt free from the pressing duties of hospitality, at least for the time being; and so she drew a chair to the corner of the same table occupied by her husband, and she began to help him in his task by directing the envelopes, while he filled out the cards. Thus sitting together, working in unison, and conversing occasionally, they pa.s.sed the morning--a happier morning than Sybil had seen for several days.

But of course they met their guest again at dinner, where Rosa Blondelle was as fascinating and Lyon Berners as much fascinated as before, and where Sybil's mental malady returned in full force.

Oh, these transient fascinations, what eternal miseries they sometimes bring!

But a greater trial awaited the jealous wife in the evening, when they were all gathered in the drawing-room, and Rosa Blondelle, beautifully dressed, seated herself at the grand piano, and began to sing and play some of the impa.s.sioned songs from the Italian operas; and Lyon Berners, a very great enthusiast in music, hung over the siren, doubly entranced by her beauty and her voice. Sybil, too, stood with the little group at the piano; but she stood back in the shade, where the expression of her agonized face could not be seen by the other two, even if they had been at leisure to observe her. She was suffering the fiercest tortures of jealousy.

Sybil's education had been neglected, as I have told you. She had a fine contralto voice and a perfect ear, but these were both uncultivated; and so she could only sing and play the simplest ballads in the language.

She had often regretted her want of power to please the fastidious musical taste of her husband; but never so bitterly as now, when she saw that power in the possession of another, and that other a beauty, a rival, and an inmate of her house. Oh, how deeply she now deplored her short-sightedness in bringing this siren to her home!

At the most impa.s.sioned, most expressive pa.s.sages of the music, Rosa Blondelle would lift her eloquent blue eyes to those of Lyon Berners, who responded to their language.

And Sybil stood in the shadow near them, with pallid cheeks, compressed lips, and glittering eyes--mute, still, full of repressed anguish and restrained fury.

Ah, Rosa Blondelle, take heed! Better that you should come between the lioness and her young than between Sybil Berners and her love!

Yet again, on this evening, this jealous wife, this strange young creature, so full of contradictions and inconsistencies; so strong, yet so weak; so confiding, yet so suspicious; so magnanimous, yet so vindictive; once again, I say, successfully exerted her wonderful powers of self-control, and endured the ordeal of that evening in silence, and at its close bade her guest good-night without betraying the anguish of her heart.

When she found herself alone with her husband in their chamber, her fort.i.tude nearly forsook her, especially as he himself immediately opened the subject of their beautiful guest.

"She is perfectly charming," said Mr. Berners. "Every day develops some new gift or grace of hers! My dear Sybil, you never did a better deed than in asking this lovely lady to our house. She will be an invaluable acquisition to our lonely fireside this winter."

"You did not use to think our fireside was lonely! You used to be very jealous of our domestic privacy!" Sybil _thought_ to herself; but she gave no expression to this thought. On the contrary, controlling herself, and steadying her voice with an effort, she said smilingly:

"If you had met this 'lovely lady' before you married me, and had found her also free, you would have made her your wife."

"I! No, indeed!" impulsively and most sincerely answered Lyon Berners, as he raised his eyes in astonishment to the face of Sybil. But he could see nothing there. Her face was in deep shadow, where she purposely kept it to conceal its pallor and its tremor.

"But why, if you had met her before you married me, and found her free, why should you not have made her your wife?" persisted Sybil.

"'Why?'--what a question! Because, in the first place dear Sybil, I loved _you, you only_, long before I ever married you!" said Lyon Berners in increasing surprise.

"But--if you had met her before you had ever seen me, you would have loved and married her."

"No! On my honor, Sybil!"

"Yet you admire her so much!"

"Dear Sybil! I admire all things beautiful in nature and art, but I don't want to marry all!"

"And are you sure that this beautiful Rosa Blondelle would not make you a more suitable companion than I do?" she inquired.