"Tabby, I"m not "Miss Sybil" to begin with! I"m Mrs. Berners, and have been married more than a year, and you know it, you stupid old Tabby!"
"But, Miss Sybil, or ratherwise Mrs. Berners, if I must be so ceremonious with my own nurse-child, what has that to do with what you"ve been a-asking of me to buy?"
"Nothing at all," answered Sybil, half-provoked and half-amused at the dullness of the old housekeeper. "Nothing whatever. But you must go out and buy everything that is required for the wardrobe of a young child; and you must find out what _is_ necessary, for I myself haven"t the slightest idea of what that is."
The housekeeper looked at the lady for a moment, in questioning doubt and fear, and then, as the truth slowly penetrated her mind, she broke forth suddenly with:
"Oh, my good gracious! Miss Sybil, honey! you don"t mean it, do you?"
"Yes, I do, Tabby; and I thank heaven every day for the coming blessing," said the young wife, fervently.
"But oh, Miss Sybil, in such a place as this--There I go again!"
exclaimed the housekeeper, breaking off in a panic, and then adding, "I an"t fit to come to see you; no that I an"t. I"m always a forgetting, especially when you talk so sensible!"
"What"s the matter with you Tabby? Are you crazy? you never thought I was going to stay _here_ for such an event, did you? In a public resort like this? Tabby, I"m shocked at you! No! I shall be home at Black Hall to receive the little stranger, Tabby," said Sybil, making the longest and most connected speech she had made since her reason had become impaired.
"Ah, Lord! ah, my Lord!" cried the old woman, on the verge of hysterics again.
"Now, Tabby, don"t begin to whimper! You whimper over everything though, I know. You whimpered when I was born, and when I was christened, and when I was married; and now you whimper when I am going to be crowned with the crown of maternity. Oh, you old rebel!" cried Sybil, contradicting all her sarcastic words by caressing her old friend.
"No, I don"t mean to! but if you knowed! Oh! if you knowed!" exclaimed Miss Tabby, suppressing and swallowing her sobs.
"Now, then, let us go back to Lyon. Lyon will give you what money you may need for the purchases; and I beg that you will make them as soon as possible, and bring them to me here," said Sybil, as she arose and walked back to the spot where she had left her husband and her friend.
After a little general conversation, in which Sybil sometimes joined naturally, and from which she also sometimes wandered off at random, Mr.
Berners proposed to call in Joe to pay his respects to his mistress.
Sybil sprang at the proposal, and Joe was duly summoned from his seat on the box of the carriage before the door.
He came into the garden hat in hand, and bowed gravely before his unfortunate mistress.
And when she asked him many questions about that department of the domestic economy of Black Hall that fell under his own supervision, he answered all her questions satisfactorily, without ever once falling into the unlucky blunders that had marred Miss Tabby"s communications.
"Your favorite mare, Diana is in prime order, ma"am, and will be so whenever you come home again to take your rides in the valley. And your coach horses Castor and Pollux, ma"am, couldn"t be in better trim. I shall take pride in driving of you to church behind them, ma"am, the first Sunday after you come home, which we all at Black Hall hopes, as the waters of this here cilibrated spring may soon restore your health, and send you back to us strong and happy," said Joe, at the conclusion of a very long address.
"Thanks, Joe! I know that you are very sincere and earnest in your good wishes. Many thanks! But, dear old soul, how came you to be so lame?"
Joe was taken by surprise, and stood aghast. He knew of course that his mistress was slightly insane; but he was utterly unprepared for such a lapse of memory as this. He looked at his master in distress and perplexity.
"Oh!" answered Lyon Berners for his man, "Joe was thrown from his horse, and had his ankle sprained."
"Poor Joe! You must be very careful until it gets quite well," said Sybil, compa.s.sionately.
And soon after this her visitors, master and servants, took their leave.
CHAPTER XXIII.
SYBIL"S CHILD.
But thou wilt burst primeval sleep, And thou wilt live my babe to weep; The tenant of a dark abode, Thy tears must flow as mine have flowed.--BYRON.
Summer ripened into autumn. Sybil and her faithful friend employed the golden days of September and October in the graceful and pleasing feminine work of making up garments for the expected little stranger.
But meanwhile, outside the prison walls, a cloud, black as night, was gathering over the young prisoner"s doomed head.
The rumor got abroad that the Governor meant to follow up the long respite with a full pardon.
His course in this matter was canva.s.sed and commented upon severely in every bar-room, grocery, street corner, political meeting, and elsewhere.
The press took up the matter, and vindictively reprobated the course of the Governor, putting his conduct upon the motives of partiality for the aristocracy.
Had the murderess been a woman of the people, it said, her life would have paid the forfeit of her crime.
But she was a lady of the county aristocracy, a daughter of the house of Berners; and however notoriously that house had been cursed with demoniac pa.s.sions, and however deeply dyed with crime, its daughter, however guilty, was not to be held amenable to the laws!
Was such outrageous worship of the aristocracy by partial judges and venal governors to be endured in a country of freemen?
No! the voice of the people would be heard through their organ, a free press! and if not listened to, then it would be heard in thunder at the polls in the coming autumn elections!
Such was the spirit of the people and the press in regard to Sybil.
It was strange how the people and the press clamored for the sacrifice of Sybil Berners" life--the "female fiend," as they did not hesitate to call her, "daughter of demons," "the last of a race of devils, who should have been exterminated long before," they declared.
It was because they honestly ascribed to her a nature she did not possess, and imputed to her a crime she had not committed, thus making her innocently suffer for the sins of her forefathers.
Of course there were honorable exceptions to this general and unmerited reprobation of a guiltless young creature, but these exceptions were mostly among Sybil"s own set, and were too few to have any force against the overwhelming weight of public sentiment.
And it was the general belief that, if the Governor should outrage public opinion by pardoning Sybil Berners, he would be politically ruined. Sybil Berners could not be permitted to live. She must die before the Governor could be re-elected by the people. And the election was coming on in the ensuing November.
Would he purchase success by the sacrifice of this young sufferer"s life?
Ah! her best friends, asking themselves this question, were forced to answer, "Yes!"
This state of affairs had a most depressing effect upon Sybil"s husband, especially as he had sustained a great loss in the departure of her zealous advocate, Ishmael Worth.
The young lawyer, soon after he had brought down Sybil"s respite from the Governor, had been called away on business of the utmost importance, and had eventually sailed for Europe. He had gone, however, with the most confident expectations of her liberation.
How these expectations were destined to be defeated, it was now plain to see.
It required all Mr. Berners" powers of self-control to wear a calm demeanor in the presence of his unsuspicious wife. He had carefully kept from the cell every copy of a news-paper that contained any allusion to the condemned prisoner and her circ.u.mstances, and he did this to keep Beatrix, as well as Sybil, ignorant of the impending doom; for he wished Beatrix to preserve in Sybil"s presence the cheerful countenance that she never could wear if she should discover the thunder-cloud of destruction that lowered darker and heavier, day by day, over the head of her doomed companion.
But Sybil herself was losing her good spirits. The autumn had set in very early; and though now it was but October, the weather was too cool and often also too damp to make it prudent for the poor prisoner to spend so many hours in the prison garden as she had lately been permitted to do. She sat much in her cell, sad, silent, and brooding.
"What is the matter with you, my darling?" inquired Beatrix Pendleton one day, when they sat together in the cell, Beatrix sewing diligently on an infant"s robe, and Sybil, with her neglected needle-work lying on her lap, and her head bowed upon her hand, "What is the matter with you, Sybil?"