Chapter VIII: Between Love and Gold

The footman surveys the stranger doubtfully, and rings a bell to summon Podmore the butler, feeling unequal to cope single-handed with this eruption of an unknown visitor at eight o’clock in the evening.

‘Mr. Trenchard is not very well, sir. He is confined to his room, in fact; but if your business is anything important----’

Here Podmore comes to the subordinate’s relief. He enters on the scene with a stately slowness, breathing heavily, having just been awakened from the pleasant slumber of repletion in front of the fire in the servants’ hall, where buttered toast, eggs and ham, the daily papers, and a quiet game at cribbage are his evening solace.

‘Mr. Trenchard is indisposed, sir,’ he observes, severely, as if the stranger ought to have been aware of the fact; ‘but if you wish I can carry him a message.’ The intruder looks like a gentleman, and Podmore remembers that other mysterious visitor of last summer, who came and went like the wind, no one knowing whence or whither.

‘If Miss Faunthorpe is at home and will see me, I need not trouble Mr. Trenchard,’ replies Alexis after a moment’s consideration. ‘Be kind enough to give her my card.’

Podmore stifles a yawn, and receives the card on a salver, which he takes from the hall table, and carries into the drawing-room, where Sibyl is sitting in solitary grandeur dreaming over a volume of Tennyson.

‘A gentleman, ma’am, wishes to see Mr. Trenchard, but I told him my master was indisposed. Would you favour him with a few minutes’ conversation, ma’am?’

‘Is that the gentleman’s card?’ inquires Sibyl, languidly.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Sibyl takes up the morsel of pasteboard with the tips of her fingers, and that elegant air of listlessness which is so provoking to Marion. She looks at the name a little curiously, notwithstanding her languor, for it strikes her suddenly that this visitor of to-night may be her uncle’s mysterious guest of the race night. One glance at the card shows her the name of all others most appalling to her, and yet there is, in that first moment of surprise, a thrill of rapture in the thought that the one man she loves is near her.

‘Where is he?’ she cries, starting up from her easy chair with a display of animation that awakens Podmore’s suspicions.

‘In the ’all, ma’am. Shall I show him in?’

‘Certainly.’

‘How fortunate that uncle Trenchard should be out of the way to-night!’ thinks Sibyl, too bewildered by the one startling fact of her husband’s coming to be able to take in at a glance all the consequences of such an event.

Stephen Trenchard has been slightly ailing during the last week, and has kept himself hermetically sealed, as it were, against east winds in the seclusion of his bedchamber. He has suffered from such trifling indispositions, touches of cold and rheumatism, several times during the late autumn and early winter, and Mrs. Stormont is confirmed in her opinion that dear Mr. Trenchard is breaking fast, or, as the colonel puts it, in the friendly gossip across the walnuts and the wine, ‘there can be no doubt the old fellow is going off the hooks.’

Podmore ushers Mr. Secretan into the drawing-room and retires, leaving husband and wife standing some yards apart, face to face.

Yes, there she stands. The wife lost so long, regretted so bitterly--there she stands, unchanged by care or sorrow, far lovelier than when he saw her last with the pinch of poverty on her cheek, and the wan pallor of care tarnishing the ivory whiteness of her complexion. She stands before him to-night the focus of all that is fairest in the luxurious room: amid all the upholsterer’s gilding and colour she is the brightest spot. She is pale as marble, but the large dark eyes shine with a vivid light as she stretches out her hands to Alexis, as if in fondest welcome.

‘Alex!’ she cried, ‘Alex! you have found me, in spite of all my care--found me too soon.’

She is ready to throw herself upon his breast and pour out her pent-up love in sobs and kisses, but his countenance does not invite this gush of feeling. He surveys her with a look in which there is more contempt than anger. ‘Yes, I have found you,’ he says; ‘found you in the comfortable nest which you discovered for yourself when you turned your back upon starvation and me;--found you in the house of my father’s deadly enemy--of mine--for before I could speak plainly I had learned to hate him;--yes, Mrs. Secretan, I have found you, and the clue to your mystery.’

‘Alexis, you are too cruel. It was for your sake as much as for my own I came here. Yes, as Heaven hears and judges me, I thought of your happiness as much as of my own. Why should we both starve, when there was my uncle’s fortune waiting for me to claim my share of it? I knew that he was an old man--that we could not have many years to wait.’

‘And you left me to think you false, dishonoured, or dead, while you played out this paltry game of waiting for a dead man’s shoes.’

‘I spoke as plainly as I dared in my farewell letter. I was obliged to act secretly, knowing your prejudice against my uncle.’

‘Don’t give my sentiment so mild a name. It is hatred--or at best a sovereign contempt.’

‘He has been so good to me, Alexis,’ pleads Sibyl.

‘No doubt. Vipers and scorpions and other noxious reptiles are kindly to their offspring, I dare say. You are of his own treacherous blood. There is sympathy between you.’

‘Alexis, how can you be so cruel? Did you come here only to torture me?’

‘I came here to discover whether you are my wife or no. I came to offer you your choice between Mr. Trenchard’s fortune--a fortune founded on treachery, remember--and my love. I am ready to forgive all I have suffered at your hands,--your desertion of me in my bitterest need, my suspense and pain of these three years past--if you will place your hand in mine to-night, and leave this hateful house, and abandon all hope of profiting by its master’s bounty.’

‘And my uncle is dying, perhaps,’ Sibyl thinks despairingly. ‘In a few weeks I might inherit his fortune.’

‘The choice is simple,’ says Alexis. ‘You cannot have much difficulty in deciding either way. On one side your uncle’s garnered wealth, a million perhaps, there is no limit to the opportunities of a man who begins unscrupulously. On the other side my affection, a husband you once pretended to love----’

‘Pretended! Oh, Alexis, what more real than my love? When have I ever ceased to love you? If you could only know----’

‘I know nothing except that after three years’ severance I find you here, my enemy’s adopted daughter, the centre of all those fine things which women of small minds value. I ask you, as many a man has asked many a woman before to-day, to leave all unreservedly for my sake. I do not ask you to return to starvation remember, or to the genteel adventurer’s hand-to-mouth existence. I have learned to earn my daily bread. The pinch of poverty need touch you no more.’

‘Not till health fails you, or we grow old,’ returns Sibyl. ‘I know what the workers for their daily bread have to look forward to when that day comes. The workhouse or the river. Alexis, for pity’s sake, be reasonable. If my uncle Trenchard’s fortune was founded on money that ought to have been your father’s--he makes the story tell against your father, mind--so much the more reason that it should come to you and me when he is dead. He is past seventy, and his health has been failing during the last few months. He cannot live much longer, and I am as certain as I can be of anything that he means to leave me the bulk of his fortune. Why should I throw away such a chance?’

‘Simply because money so obtained would be odious to me, as it should be to you. You are as false to Stephen Trenchard as you have been to me. Your presence in this house is a fraud. Do you think your uncle would leave his money to the wife of Philip Secretan’s son?’

‘Perhaps not,’ falters Sibyl. ‘But for his money to come back to you would be an act of restitution. Providence works in that way sometimes.’

‘Providence never works through lies and hypocrisies. I want none of Stephen Trenchard’s money; all of it tainted with fraud and lying, I’ll warrant. I want you, the penniless girl I married four years ago. I had no thought of a fortune when I asked you to be my wife, Sibyl. I have no thought of a fortune now.’

‘No, Alex. You were always reckless, and your recklessness brought us to the threshold of starvation, and would bring us there again, no doubt, if I let you have your way.’

‘That means you are not coming with me. You hold by your rich uncle in preference to your husband.’

‘Alex, I love you with all my heart. You are never absent from my thoughts; the hope of our reunion is the one hope that brightens my life.’

‘I will believe that if you put your hand in mine and say, “I am yours, husband, come weal or woe.” I might claim you, by law, remember--claim you as my chattel. But I am too proud to do that. You must follow me freely or not at all. You shall have your choice.’

‘In a few months my uncle may be dead. I will come to you then.’

‘I will not have you then, neither you nor your ill-gotten wealth. Revel in it, fatten on it, but you shall be no wife of mine unless you leave this house with me to-night.’

‘It would be too great a folly to abandon every chance when success seems so near.’

‘You decide for the rich uncle?’

‘Alex!’ cries Sibyl, wringing her hands, ‘how can you be so cruel to me? Can’t you understand that it is for your sake as much as for my own that I want to be rich?’

‘I cannot, for I have told you plainly that I despise wealth so won. I see you have made your choice, and I have now only one thing more to settle before I leave you to the fulfilment of your destiny. What have you done with our child?’

‘He is in safe keeping.’

‘I can believe that, but it is not quite enough. I want the custody of him.’

‘How could you take care of so young a child--a boy of scarcely three years old?’

‘I would take excellent care of him.’

‘He would be a burden to you.’

‘I should not think him a burden.’

‘Alexis!’ exclaimed Sibyl, bursting into tears, ‘I have deceived you. I did not like to tell you the truth. Our boy is dead. He died within a week of his birth.’

‘Heartless woman! you have fooled me with a false hope. I have built all my schemes of future happiness upon that child, and now you tell me he is dead. Which am I to believe, your letter or your assertion of his death?’

‘I have no motive for deceiving you in this matter. You offer to take the charge of him off my hands. If he lived I should be glad to accept such an offer.’

‘Perhaps, for you who have so little of a wife’s affection cannot have much of the maternal instinct.’

‘Alexis!’ she cries, despairingly.

She runs to him and throws herself into his arms, and sobs upon his breast, distracted between love and ambition. The glittering prize seems too near for her to let it go. She cannot bring herself to say farewell fortune, welcome love. She clings to her husband as if she could not part with him, yet means all the while to be steadfast in her devotion to Stephen Trenchard and his money.

‘Alexis, if you would only be patient! Let me stay with my uncle to the end. It is not far off. Every one tells me he has not long to live. Trust in my devotion to you, my fidelity.’

‘Yes, trust in your devotion, your fidelity, while the town gossips are busy with the rumour of your approaching marriage with Sir Wilford Cardonnel.’

‘The merest folly. Sir Wilford has done me the honour to admire me, and my uncle has given him some little encouragement. You have nothing to fear from such a rival, Alexis, or from any rival. My heart belongs to you. My love has never wavered.’

‘And as a proof of this unwavering love you refuse to leave this house, all this crimson satin and gilding, for the humble home which I can offer you.’

‘I refuse to throw away a fortune which only a lunatic would consent to sacrifice,’ replies Sibyl, with a touch of impatience.

The worthy Podmore enters at this juncture to replenish the fire. He approaches the hearth with slow and ponderous steps, taking note of all he sees on his passage, Sibyl’s agitated, tear-stained face, her visitor’s pale and angry looks.

‘Good-bye, Miss Faunthorpe,’ says Alexis, while the butler is doctoring the fire with deliberate care, as if every flame were a precious life in danger of extinction. ‘I think I’ve explained all I wish you to convey to your uncle.’

‘Yes,’ she falters.

‘Good night.’

‘Good night. Are you going to leave Redcastle soon?’

‘By the first train to-morrow morning.’

‘Good-bye.’

She would give much to say more--to entreat him once again to be patient and to look forward to their reunion later--to accept her by-and-bye, burdened with the weight of Stephen Trenchard’s wealth. But the astute Podmore, having heard the note of leave-taking, waits to show the visitor out, and Alexis is presently escorted to the hall door as if by the warder of a prison.

He goes out of that house well-nigh heartbroken, though pride has enabled him to bear himself quietly enough, and even to make light of his disappointment.

‘I loved her so well that it is hard to find her worthless,’ he tells himself. ‘Not one spark of generous feeling--all sordid greed of gain. Had I told her of my altered fortunes she would have come to me. Yes, she might, perhaps, have surrendered Stephen Trenchard’s larger wealth. But I thank God I had resolution enough to keep that secret. And so good-bye, my dream of domestic life, my hope of an heir to inherit my name. I stand alone henceforth, wifeless with a wife, childless though a child has been born to me, whose baby face I was not permitted to see.’