Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (snow like ashes series .txt) 📖

it well; the respect of the world, even of those who differed from you in interest or opinion, was not withheld from you; and can be withheld from none who exercise the moral power that springs from great talents and a good cause. You have let this great moral power, this pearl of price," said Sybil with emotion,--"we cannot conceal it from ourselves, my father,--you have let it escape from your hands."

Gerard looked at her as she spoke with an earnestness unusual with him. As she ceased, he cast his eyes down, and seemed for a moment deep in thought; then looking up, he said, "The season for words is past. I must be gone, dear Sybil." And he moved towards the door.

"You shall not leave me," said Sybil, springing forward, and seizing his arm.

"What would you, what would you?" said Gerard, distressed.

"That we should quit this city to-night."

"What, quit my post?"

"Why yours? Have not your colleagues dispersed? Is not your assembly formally adjourned to another town? Is it not known that the great majority of the delegates have returned to their homes? And why not you to yours?"

"I have no home," said Gerard, almost in a voice of harshness. "I came here to do the business that was wanting, and, by the blessing of God, I will do it. I am no changeling, nor can I refine and split straws, like your philosophers and Morleys: but if the people will struggle, I will struggle with them; and die, if need be, in the front. Nor will I be deterred from my purpose by the tears of a girl," and he released himself from the hand of his daughter with abruptness.

Sybil looked up to heaven with streaming eyes, and clasped her hands in unutterable woe. Gerard moved again towards the door, but before he reached it, his step faltered, and he turned again and looked at his daughter with tenderness and anxiety. She remained in the same position, save that her arms that had fallen were crossed before her, and her downward glance seemed fixed in deep abstraction. Her father approached her unnoticed; he took her hand; she started, and looking round with a cold and distressed expression, said, in a smothered tone, "I thought you had gone."

"Not in anger, my sweet child," and Gerard pressed her to his heart.

"But you go," murmured Sybil.

"These men await me," said Gerard. "Our council is of importance. We must take some immediate steps for the aid of our brethren in distress at Birmingham, and to discountenance similar scenes of outbreak as this affair: but the moment this is over, I will come back to you; and for the rest, it shall be as you desire; to-morrow we will return to Mowbray."

Sybil returned her father's embrace with a warmth which expressed her sense of his kindness and her own soothed feelings, but she said nothing; and bidding her now to be of good cheer, Gerard quitted the apartment.


Book 5 Chapter 4


The clock of St John's church struck three, and the clock of St John's church struck four; and the fifth hour sounded from St John's church; and the clock of St John's was sounding six. And Gerard had not yet returned.

The time for a while after his departure had been comparatively light-hearted and agreeable. Easier in her mind and for a time busied with the preparations for their journey, Sybil sate by the open window more serene and cheerful than for a long period had been her wont. Sometimes she ceased for a moment from her volume and fell into a reverie of the morrow and of Mowbray. Viewed through the magic haze of time and distance, the scene of her youth assumed a character of tenderness and even of peaceful bliss. She sighed for the days of their cottage and their garden, when the discontent of her father was only theoretical, and their political conclaves were limited to a discussion between him and Morley on the rights of the people or the principles of society. The bright waters of the Mowe and its wooded hills; her matin walks to the convent to visit Ursula Trafford--a pilgrimage of piety and charity and love; the faithful Harold, so devoted and so intelligent; even the crowded haunts of labour and suffering among which she glided like an angel, blessing and blessed; they rose before her--those touching images of the past--and her eyes were suffused with tears, of tenderness, not of gloom.

And blended with them the thought of one who had been for a season the kind and gentle companion of her girlhood--that Mr Franklin whom she had never quite forgotten, and who, alas! was not Mr Franklin after all. Ah! that was a wonderful history; a somewhat thrilling chapter in the memory of one so innocent and so young! His voice even now lingered in her ear. She recalled without an effort those tones of the morning, tones of tenderness and yet of wisdom and considerate thought, that had sounded only for her welfare. Never had Egremont appeared to her in a light so subduing. He was what man should be to woman ever-gentle, and yet a guide. A thousand images dazzling and wild rose in her mind; a thousand thoughts, beautiful and quivering as the twilight, clustered round her heart; for a moment she indulged in impossible dreams, and seemed to have entered a newly-discovered world. The horizon of her experience expanded like the glittering heaven of a fairy tale. Her eye was fixed in lustrous contemplation, the flush on her cheek was a messenger from her heart, the movement of her mouth would have in an instant become a smile, when the clock of St John's struck four, and Sybil started from her reverie.

The clock of St John's struck four, and Sybil became anxious; the clock of St John's struck five, and Sybil became disquieted; restless and perturbed, she was walking up and down the chamber, her books long since thrown aside, when the clock of St John's struck six.

She clasped her hands and looked up to heaven. There was a knock at the street door; she herself sprang out to open it. It was not Gerard. It was Morley.

"Ah! Stephen," said Sybil, with a countenance of undisguised disappointment, "I thought it was my father."

"I should have been glad to have found him here," said Morley. "However with your permission I will enter."

"And he will soon arrive," said Sybil; "I am sure he will soon arrive. I have been expecting him every minute--"

"For hours," added Morley, finishing her sentence, as they entered the room. "The business that he is on," he continued, throwing himself into a chair with a recklessness very unlike his usual composure and even precision, "The business that he is on is engrossing."

"Thank Heaven," said Sybil, "we leave this place to-morrow."

"Hah!" said Morley starting, "who told you so?"

"My father has so settled it; has indeed promised me that we shall depart."

"And you were anxious to do so."

"Most anxious; my mind is prophetic only of mischief to him if we remain."

"Mine too. Otherwise I should not have come up today." "You have seen him I hope?" said Sybil.

"I have; I have been hours with him."

"I am glad. At this conference he talked of?"

"Yes; at this headstrong council; and I have seen him since; alone. Whatever hap to him, my conscience is assoiled."

"You terrify me, Stephen," said Sybil rising from her seat. "What can happen to him? What would he do, what would you resist? Tell me--tell me, dear friend."

"Oh! yes," said Morley, pale and with a slight yet bitter smile. "Oh! yes; dear friend!"

"I said dear friend for so I deemed you." said Sybil; "and so we have ever found you. Why do you stare at me so strangely, Stephen?"

"So you deem me, and so you have ever found me," said Morley in a slow and measured tone, repeating her words. "Well; what more would you have? What more should any of us want?" he asked abruptly.

"I want no more," said Sybil innocently.

"I warrant me, you do not. Well, well, nothing matters. And so," he added in his ordinary tone, "you are waiting for your father?"

"Whom you have not long since seen," said Sybil, "and whom you expected to find here?"

"No;" said Morley, shaking his head with the same bitter smile; "no, no. I didn't. I came to find you."

"You have something to tell me," said Sybil earnestly. "Something has happened to my father. Do not break it to me; tell me at once," and she advanced and laid her hand upon his arm.

Morley trembled; and then in a hurried and agitated voice, said, "No, no, no; nothing has happened. Much may happen, but nothing has happened. And we may prevent it."

"We! Tell me what may happen; tell me what to do."

"Your father," said Morley, slowly, rising from his seat and pacing the room, and speaking in a low calm voice, "Your father--and my friend--is in this position Sybil: he is conspiring against the State."

"Yes, yes," said Sybil very pale, speaking almost in a whisper and with her gaze fixed intently on her companion. "Tell me all."

"I will. He is conspiring, I say, against the State. Tonight they meet in secret to give the last finish to their plans; and tonight they will be arrested."

"O God!" said Sybil clasping her hands. "He told me truth."

"Who told you truth?" said Morley, springing to her side, in a hoarse voice and with an eye of fire.

"A friend," said Sybil, dropping her arms and bending her head in woe; "a kind good friend. I met him but this morn, and he warned me of all this."

"Hah, hah!" said Morley with a sort of stifled laugh; "Hah, hah; he told you did he; the kind good friend whom you met this morning? Did I not warn you, Sybil, of the traitor? Did I not tell you to beware of taking this false aristocrat to your hearth; to worm out all the secrets of that home that he once polluted by his espionage, and now would desolate by his treason."

"Of whom and what do you speak?" said Sybil, throwing herself into a chair.

"I speak of that base spy Egremont."

"You slander an honourable man," said Sybil with dignity. "Mr Egremont has never entered this house since you met him here for the first time; save once."

"He needed no entrance to this house to worm out its secrets," said Morley maliciously. "That could be more adroitly done by one who had assignations at command with the most charming of its inmates."

"Unmannerly churl!" exclaimed Sybil starting in her chair, her eye flashing lightning, her distended nostril quivering with scorn.

"Oh! yes. I am a churl," said Morley; "I know I am a churl. Were I a noble the daughter of the people would perhaps condescend to treat me with less contempt."

"The daughter of the people loves truth and manly bearing, Stephen Morley; and will treat with contempt all those who slander women, whether they be nobles or serfs."

"And where is the slanderer?"

"Ask him who told you I held assignations with Mr Egremont or with any one."

"Mine eyes--mine own eyes--were my informant," said Morley. "This morn, the very morn I arrived in London, I learnt how your matins were now spent. Yes!"