Verner's Pride. Mrs. Henry Wood
Amilly found it this afternoon on the geraniums."
Lionel Verner advanced and bent his head to look at the pretty speckled moth reposing so still on its green leaf. Did he see through the artifice? Did he suspect that the young lady had been admiring her own pretty face, and not the moth? Not he. Lionel's whole heart had long ago been given to that vain butterfly, Sibylla West, who was gay and fluttering, and really of little more use in life than the moth. How was it that he had suffered himself to love her? Suffered! Love plays strange tricks, and it has fooled many a man as it was fooling Lionel Verner.
And what of Sibylla? Sibylla did not love him. The two ruling passions of her heart were vanity and ambition. To be sometime the mistress of Verner's Pride was a very vista of desire, and therefore she encouraged Lionel. She did not encourage him very much; she was rather in the habit of playing fast and loose with him; but that only served to rivet tighter the links of his chain. All the love—such as it was!—that Sibylla West was capable of giving, was in possession of Frederick Massingbird. Strange tricks again! It was scarcely credible that one should fall in love with him by the side of attractive Lionel; but so it had been. Sibylla loved Frederick Massingbird for himself, she liked Lionel because he was the heir to Verner's Pride, and she had managed to keep both her slaves.
Lionel had never spoken of his love. He knew that his marriage with Sibylla West would be so utterly distasteful to Mr. Verner, that he was content to wait. He knew that Sibylla could not mistake him—could not mistake what his feelings were; and he believed that she also was content to wait until he should be his own master and at liberty to ask for her. When that time should come, what did she intend to do with Frederick Massingbird, who made no secret to her that he loved her and expected to make her his wife? Sibylla did not know; she did not much care; she was of a careless nature, and allowed the future to take its chance.
The only person who had penetrated to the secret of her love for Frederick Massingbird was her father, Dr. West.
"Don't be a simpleton, child, and bind yourself with your eyes bandaged," he abruptly and laconically said to her one day. "When Verner's Pride falls in, then marry whoever is its master."
"Lionel will be its master for certain, will he not?" she answered, startled out of the words.
"We don't know who will be its master," was Dr. West's rejoinder. "Don't play the simpleton, I say, Sibylla, by entangling yourself with your cousin Fred."
Dr. West was one who possessed an eye to the main chance; and, had Lionel Verner been, beyond contingency, "certain" of Verner's Pride, there is little doubt but he would have brought him to book at once, by demanding his intentions with regard to Sibylla. There were very few persons in Deerham but deemed Lionel as indisputably certain of Verner's Pride as though he were already in possession of it. Dr. West was probably an unusually cautious man.
"It is singular," observed Lionel, looking at the moth. "The day has been sunshiny, but far too cold to call these moths into life. At least, according to my belief; but I am not learned in entomology."
"Ento—, what a hard word!" cried Sibylla, in her prettily affected manner. "I should never find out how to spell it."
Lionel smiled. His deep love was shining out of his eyes as he looked down upon her. He loved her powerfully, deeply, passionately; to him she was as a very angel, and he believed her to be as pure-souled, honest-hearted, and single-minded.
"Where did my aunt go to-day?" inquired Sibylla, alluding to Mrs. Verner.
"She did not go anywhere that I am aware of," he answered.
"I saw the carriage out this afternoon."
"It was going to the station for Miss Tempest."
"Oh! she's come, then? Have you seen her? What sort of a demoiselle does she seem?"
"The sweetest child!—she looks little more than a child!" cried Lionel impulsively.
"A child, is she? I had an idea she was grown up. Have any of you at Verner's Pride heard from John?"
"No."
"But the mail's in, is it not? How strange that he does not write!"
"He may be coming home with his gold," said Lionel.
They were interrupted. First of all came in the tea-things—for at Dr. West's the dinner-hour was early—and, next, two young ladies, bearing a great resemblance to each other. It would give them dire offence not to call them young. They were really not very much past thirty, but they were of that class of women who age rapidly; their hair was sadly thin, some of their teeth had gone, and they had thin, flushed faces and large twisted noses; but their blue eyes had a good-natured look in them. Little in person, rather bending forward as they walked, and dressing youthfully, they yet looked older than they really were. Their light brown hair was worn in short, straggling ringlets in front, and twisted up with a comb behind. Once upon a time that hair was long and tolerably thick, but it had gradually and spitefully worn down to what it was now. The Misses West were proud of it still, however; as may be inferred by the disappearance of the castor oil. A short while back, somebody had recommended to them castor oil as the best specific for bringing on departed hair. They were inoffensive in mind and manners, rather simple, somewhat affected and very vain, quarrelling with no person under the sun, except Sibylla. Sibylla was the plague of their lives. So many years younger than they, they had petted her and indulged her as a child, until at length the child became their mistress. Sibylla was rude and ungrateful, would cast scornful words at them and call them "old maids," with other reproachful terms. There was open warfare between them; but in their hearts they loved Sibylla still. They had been named respectively Deborah and Amilly. The latter name had been intended for Amélie; but by some mistake of the parents or of the clergyman, none of them French scholars, Amilly, the child was christened and registered. It remained a joke against Amilly to this day.
"Sibylla!" exclaimed Deborah, somewhat in surprise, as she shook hands with Lionel, "I thought you had gone to Verner's Pride."
"Nobody came for me. It got dusk, and I did not care to go alone," replied Sibylla.
"Did you think of going to Verner's Pride this evening, Sibylla?" asked Lionel. "Let me take you now. We shall be just in time for dinner. I'll bring you back this evening."
"I don't know," hesitated Sibylla. The truth was, she had expected Frederick Massingbird to come for her. "I—think—I'll—go," she slowly said, apparently balancing some point in her mind.
"If you do go, you should make haste and put your things on," suggested Miss Amilly. And Sibylla acquiesced, and left the room.
"Has Mr. Jan been told that the tea's ready, I wonder?" cried Miss Deborah.
Mr. Jan apparently had been told, for he entered as she was speaking: and Master Cheese—his apron off and his hair brushed—with him. Master Cheese cast an inquisitive look at the tea-table, hoping he should see something tempting upon it; eating good things forming the pleasantest portion of that young gentleman's life.
"Take this seat, Mr. Jan," said Miss Amilly, drawing a chair forward next her own. "Master Cheese, have the kindness to move a little round: Mr. Jan can't see the fire if you sit there."
"I don't want to see it," said literal Jan. "I'm not cold." And Master Cheese took the opportunity which the words gave to remain where he was. He liked to sit in warmth with his back to the fire.
"I cannot think where papa is," said Miss Deborah. "Mr. Lionel, is it of any use asking you to take a cup of tea?"
"Thank you, I am going home to dinner," replied Lionel. "Dr. West is coming in now," he added, perceiving that gentleman's approach from the window.
"Miss Amilly," asked Jan, "have you been at the castor oil?"
Poor Miss Amilly turned all the colours of the rainbow; if she had one weakness, it was upon the subject of her diminishing locks. While Cheese, going red also, administered to Jan sundry kicks under the table, as an intimation that he should have kept counsel. "I—took—just a little